Flint River Armory announced the company is now manufacturing a second generation CSA45 rifle. The new gun is an updated version of the original CSA45 that was launched at the SHOT Show.

The CSA45 Gen 2 is chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. It feeds from Glock magazines as opposed to the stick mags used in the original guns. Another change to the design is that this gun now uses a standard AR-15 type buffer tube so aftermarket stock choices are now wide open.

Two barrel lengths are going to be available initially: 16″ and 10″. With a collapsed stock, the SBR version will have an overall length of 25″. Both barrel lengths are threaded for use with a muzzle device.

Flint River Armory uses a short stroke gas piston with a rotating bolt. This is different from many of the pistol caliber carbines that are currently on the market. These often use a direct blowback design. Other non-straight blowback designs include the CMMG Guard and the SIG SAUER MPX. CMMG’s Guard design uses a delayed blowback system in both 9mm and .45 ACP while SIG uses a short stroke piston in its 9mm MPX platform.

A standard AR-15 lower parts kit can be used in these rifles. So upgrading to your preferred trigger should be a simple swap.

The charging handle is on the side of the gun, and it does reciprocate. No word yet on a shipping date or price tag. At the time of this writing, only the first generation guns are shown on the company’s website.