In the early morning hours of January 27th 2018 it was announced via the all mighty Facebook that yet another small firearms manufacturer was closing their doors forever. Dead Goose Society was a company founded in 2014 by two Army Veterans that wanted to build domestic Kalashnikov rifles as an alternative to the massive amounts of terribly built AK’s from other more well known manufacturers. The Facebook post was followed up by confirmation posts to other social media sights. The sudden announcement and closing of the company’s web site has left many in the industry wondering what exactly happened.
As late as the 2nd week of December the company was still very much alive and active cranking out rifles and still taking new orders for their Kalashnikov rifles and other products. In fact as of the 26th of January the company was still having their guns reviewed and featured on social media site www.thetruthaboutguns.com, the whole series of unfortunate events just doesn’t make sense to me. In my 4+ years of being involved with the firearms community I’ve seen companies come and go and there is usually a decline before any big announcements, this didn’t seem to be the case with Dead Goose Society.
DGS adjustable AK gas block
Ideas, Hopes, and Dreams
About 6 months ago the company began to roll out information and images on their Facebook and Instagram feeds of their new adjustable gas blocks for Kalashnikov rifles. This announcement was met with a considerable about of excitement and joy by AK shooters that have in years passed hoped for some form of adjustable gas block for their rifles. The AK family of rifles can tend to be a little finicky about cycling when using them with any form of suppressor. The other great feature of the announced DGS adjustable gas block was that it was going to be integrated with the front sight assembly and offer a nice compact size as well as functionality.
The closing of Dead Goose Society MFG also seems to signal the end of the company’s other project, Tornado Defense which was suppose to be the wing of the company that produced a new line of suppressors. This line of suppressors was scheduled to feature a lines ranging from .22LR all the way up to 7.62mm. When the project was announces last year the manufacturers suggested retail price on the suppressors was expected to be in the range of $250 for the .22 LR version and only $595 for the .30 variants.
The Future
The future of DGS is apparently dead in its current form, initially there were comments and rumors that the company would still manufacture parts and components. None of these have been confirmed at the time of this article, so maybe there is still hope for the adjustable gas blocks to hit the market. I would assume that the team behind DGS will take some time to figure things out and carefully plot a course for their respective careers. One thing is certain, the United States market has lost a domestic manufacturer of quality and affordable AK’s and that isn’t good for anyone. Even if you hate the AK as a weapon, I think we can all agree that seeing small Veteran owned and operated companies closing their doors is never a good thing.
We have sent an email to DGS to see if we can get more comments on what is in the future for the company, until then we would like to hear from DGS owners. Are you planning on keeping your current rifles of will you move away from them and onto something else ? I’m also wondering if we have seem the last of the Trump Slump and will we be seeing more companies downsize or change their product lines in order to get a higher profit margin or sales increase.
