[SSGGeezer]

The free 50mm with the KP (if still offered,) is actually a very sharp lens, especially on the KP, and works well as a portrait type lens, at least of a cat it does. I would look for an DA 18-250 used over the 18-270. I bought a well traveled one here and it is an amazing lens. Good luck and either choice is a good one between the K-70 and KP.

[photogem]

FWIW there's a thread pertaining to this at DPReview where two different members had received communications from Ricoh directly that the aperture block in the K-70 is not the same design as the one in the K-50/K-30.
Are aperture motor problems still in K70?: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

The aperture block (diaphragm-control-block*) is the same.

The design is 100% the same

What is different is the machining and surface of the solenoid:
A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY: Development of the solenoid in Pentax cameras - PentaxForums.com

What is written in dpreview-forum is partly very wrong:

"NoQuarter72388 wrote:
I was actually in touch with Ricoh regarding the K70;
they told me that the aperture motor in the k70 is not identical with the one to be found in the K30."

That's of course total nonsense:
There is not aperture motor in the K70! Aperture motors are only to be found in Pentax K-7/5/3/KP/K1's

The solenoid (which is a mechanical-magnetic device with 2 electromagnetic coils) has been slightly modified.
It is still the same design, the same "make" but holding force is that bit less and machining is more precise.

Paolo 11 wrote:
I did ask a Pentax rep about the K70, and he said they don't use the same aperture block as the K30/K50.

It is the same aperture block, this block was already introduced to some K30's, K50's and K-S2's
I have never found it in the K-S1 though.

I am not saying the Ricoh reps were wrong although usually they are not engineers but salesmen and about as far from personally experienced knowledge as the moon from earth. So they might as much mix things up as the person working for precision-cameras
writing invoices after K70 repairs. And yet, even the person giving him/her instructions might just for avoiding having to explain the difference between a diode and a resistor name it wrong. Who knows.
The devil hides in details (Suisse saying)


See here:
A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY: Development of the solenoid in Pentax cameras - PentaxForums.com

*doesn't really matter, most call the aperture just aperture but some call it diaphragm.
The name "diaphragm-control-unit" does not show up in the service-manuals