Episode
Tiny Footprint, Big Rifle Performance (ft. Reap Weaponries)
- Podcast
- State of the Second
- Published
- Mar 25, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2694
- Processing state
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Summary
State of the Second hosts Kaylee and John sit down with Colton, founder and CEO of Reap Weaponry, a central Minnesota company built around a bullpup conversion kit for the AR platform. The idea came out of coyote hunting in the Midwest, where Colton and his crew got tired of lugging around 18-inch guns and suppressors and wanted to shorten everything up. He didn't like the bullpup options on the market, found that nobody was making a conversion system, and went down the patent process to build one. Reap's kit is legally a grip that bolts onto a mil-spec AR lower, so it isn't serialized and works with parts builders already own. It supports buffered and bufferless uppers, a shortened buffer system built in partnership with Deadfoot Arms, bolt receivers, and a wide caliber list, with an AR10 frame releasing next month. Colton walks through what it took to go from an idea to a business. He failed roughly 30 times on prototypes before it worked, ran a lot of drop and mud tests, and engineered a self-lubricating, self-clearing bushing so the system never needs oil. Some test kits have 18,000 rounds through them with a three-pound trigger pull and have never been opened or cleaned. He stresses doing the patent search right, paying for a strong provisional patent, and the surprise that many engineers, lawyers, and even website companies will not touch the firearms industry at all. He launched at SHOT Show out of a small booth in the basement, sold out a 50-unit preorder in two weeks, and had competitors copy the concept within three months. The conversation moves into marketing, education, and the influencer game. Colton bet on smaller YouTubers, sending about 30 of his first hundred units to creators starting out, because they were hungry, made multiple videos…