Kel Tec getting back to its roots

TTv2

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Looks like they've come full circle, but instead of a .380 loaded by stripper clips it'll be a 5.7 instead.

 
I own a Keltec .32. Often carry it. Shoots great! Butt ugly!

They make the cheesiest looking items that look like they are copied from some Mattel Star Wars blaster you’d find in the toy section of Walmart.
I’ve been pondering getting a PSA Rock. Not keen on the idea of a stripper clip. PSA mags are good, and $19.95.

I won a KelTec 9mm carbine at the 2002 NPSC. Took it out and shot it once. Couldn’t trade it off fast enough. I’m about as excited about this as I would be a HiPoint 5.7.
 
I have never owned anything made by Keltec. I did buy a Hi Point C-9 just for grins and giggles long ago and with a little easy work to make the trigger fairly decent and stippling it's very slick grips I had a decent but ugly gun. It's long gone. Traded in on something nicer after I got tired of playing with it. Keltec has never made anything that made my boat want to float even just for fun.
 
I feel bad for whatever machinist / janitor they tasked with doing their marketing.

Or I feel bad for Kel Tec for paying for this marketing.
 
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Do not manifest such a thing!
5.7 is usually a blowback, right? I don't think Hi Point could make the slide light enough and last long enough to ensure it would cycle.

What I wouldn't mind seeing Hi Point do is get into making copies of the Jennings/Davis/etc. type blowback .25s and .32s. Hi Point could only improve on the designs, but when used LCP's are 150 is there really a market for those anymore?
 
I owned a P-11 years ago. It worked, but wasn't the most refined gun in the world. Seriously bad trigger
Besides the P-32 and maybe the SU and PLR rifles/pistols, Kel Tec has improved their triggers significantly. Their designs from the 90s and 00s were all following the heavy trigger is safer philosophy and thankfully that is no longer something they do for new designs going back to the KSG I believe.
 
Do not manifest such a thing!
Some of the 9mms and 10 mms get good reviews. The latter for a good bear gun (LOL). The Yeet Cannons not so hot.
As far as Kel-tec, years ago I saw one of their 223 carbines break in half.
 
So does a stripper clip get around those pesky mag capacity infringements? Suppose it depends on how the infringement was written.

Yeah, in cases where removable/detachable magazines were part of the language. In some instances, there may still be a capacity limit, but having a fixed magazine allows for other features that would make the firearm an "assault weapon" if the mag were removable.
 
hmmm... Keltec always looking to answer the questions nobody asked.
Kel-Tec has had their issues, but they innovate in ways that few do and deserve credit for it.

For example, they pushed the boundaries of size and weight in a pocket pistol with the P-32 and P-3AT. Five years later, Ruger then made the LCP (and later LCP2 and LCP Max). The original LCP looks awfully similar to the P3AT.
Zw

LW5nJA


The Sub2000 preceded other folding 9 mm PCCs, like the S&W M&P FPC. The KSG also preceded some other bullpup shotguns, like the S&W M&P 12.

The FN Five Seven is/was a high capacity, low recoil gun that was fun to shoot, but was expensive and fired an expensive caliber that was not widely available at the time. I assume the P30 was inspired by that to replicate the capacity, recoil, and fun factor in a more widely available caliber that was still more potent than .22 LR. Fast forward a few years, and now PSA, Ruger, S&W, and Tisas all make pistols that compete with the FN Five Seven at a much lower price point, the ammo for which has also come down in price and up in availability.

While it's popular on gun forums to disparage Kel-Tec for their QC, some of which is deserved, their innovation seems to be noticed, copied, and refined by bigger players, like Ruger & S&W. If you carry an LCP Max, for example, that firearm may not have come into being w/o Kel-Tec.

Personally, I wish more companies innovated like they do, and I think we all benefit from the downstream effects when they're copied by other brands.
 
Kel-Tec has had their issues, but they innovate in ways that few do and deserve credit for it.

For example, they pushed the boundaries of size and weight in a pocket pistol with the P-32 and P-3AT. Five years later, Ruger then made the LCP (and later LCP2 and LCP Max). The original LCP looks awfully similar to the P3AT.
Zw

LW5nJA


The Sub2000 preceded other folding 9 mm PCCs, like the S&W M&P FPC. The KSG also preceded some other bullpup shotguns, like the S&W M&P 12.

The FN Five Seven is/was a high capacity, low recoil gun that was fun to shoot, but was expensive and fired an expensive caliber that was not widely available at the time. I assume the P30 was inspired by that to replicate the capacity, recoil, and fun factor in a more widely available caliber that was still more potent than .22 LR. Fast forward a few years, and now PSA, Ruger, S&W, and Tisas all make pistols that compete with the FN Five Seven at a much lower price point, the ammo for which has also come down in price and up in availability.

While it's popular on gun forums to disparage Kel-Tec for their QC, some of which is deserved, their innovation seems to be noticed, copied, and refined by bigger players, like Ruger & S&W. If you carry an LCP Max, for example, that firearm may not have come into being w/o Kel-Tec.

Personally, I wish more companies innovated like they do, and I think we all benefit from the downstream effects when they're copied by other brands.

Yeah pretty much everyone rips off Keltec. Ruger and S&W most egregiously. Keltec tend to just throw ideas at the wall and like 30% of them are brilliant, but their execution of their own ideas is pretty poor in my personal opinion which is why others take their ideas and do them properly. I really like keltec as a company but they don't make anything I would actually want except maybe the CP33. Ive looked at all their 9mm's and those are all a hard pass. I had a P17 which was awful and I do have a Sub2000 in 40 S&W. The Sub2000 serves a utilitarian purpose for me, but it is easily the most unpleasant firearm I've ever fired. It has been 100% reliable though unlike the P17 I had. I would like to try a CP33, I think I would like that.
 
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Yeah pretty much everyone rips off Keltec. Ruger and S&W most egregiously. Keltec tend to just throw ideas at the wall and like 30% of them are brilliant, but their execution of their own ideas is pretty poor in my personal opinion which is why others take their ideas and do them properly. I really like keltec as a company but they don't make anything I would actually want. I had a P17 which was awful and I do have a Sub2000 in 40 S&W. The Sub2000 serves a utilitarian purpose for me, but it is easily the most unpleasant firearm I've ever fired. It has been 100% reliable though unlike the P17 I had. I would like to try a CP33, I think I would like that.

I agree. It's refreshing to see innovation, and I acknowledge their engineering and design is what allows them to innovate, they don't have much into the designs and allen screws and clamshell molds are cheap. I've had a few Keltec firearms in the past, the novelty wears off and I'm left with a firearm that I could mistake (other than the color) for my boys' old nerf guns, I think even some of the parts interchange.

My P17 has been flawless, 100% suppressed I have probably 700-800 rounds through it, so not a lot but enough. I've considered buying 3 more for the kids given my single experience with mine. They were just on sale for $160 before Christmas.
 
... Keltec tend to just throw ideas at the wall and like 30% of them are brilliant, but their execution of their own ideas is pretty poor in my personal opinion which is why others take their ideas and do them properly.
True. The LCP is nicer looking P3AT. Funny thing about Kel-Tec is that for all the cheesy construction, they sell for more than MSRP when you can find them. Weird.

...I do have a Sub2000 in 40 S&W. The Sub2000 serves a utilitarian purpose for me, but it is easily the most unpleasant firearm I've ever fired. It has been 100% reliable though...
I have a Sub2000 in 9mm and it's not a pleasant gun to shoot either. Very difficult stock weld, hard recoil for a dinky 9mm, impossible cocking handle. Yet it is 100% reliable and it serves a purpose if you needed a small light folding carbine. Once you add 50 rounds of 9mm ammo in magazines though, it's not so light anymore. Maybe that was the idea behind makingit 5.7mm, plus a lighter recoil spring making cocking easier.
 
True. The LCP is nicer looking P3AT. Funny thing about Kel-Tec is that for all the cheesy construction, they sell for more than MSRP when you can find them. Weird.


I have a Sub2000 in 9mm and it's not a pleasant gun to shoot either. Very difficult stock weld, hard recoil for a dinky 9mm, impossible cocking handle. Yet it is 100% reliable and it serves a purpose if you needed a small light folding carbine. Once you add 50 rounds of 9mm ammo in magazines though, it's not so light anymore. Maybe that was the idea behind makingit 5.7mm, plus a lighter recoil spring making cocking easier.

I hadn't heard that they made a 5.7 Sub2000. That actually sound like a lot of fun and would probably be much more pleasant to shoot than the 9mm and 40. If they are decently accurate and hold zero with the rotating handguard it would be a good little survival game getter too.
 
So does a stripper clip get around those pesky mag capacity infringements?
The language is often similar to "device . . . capable of holding, or being modified to hold, [more than nn rounds]" (NY & CA are even more restrictive, via their AWBs). The language is meant to encompass clips, open hoppers, even belts and links. Just how that entire range of gizmos and do-jobs are meant to comply with the serialization, uses stamping, and manufacture dating also included in such legislation is never really defined.

Back on topic, there's a part of me that is certain that at least some of the Kel-Tec people doodle a modern Broomhandle, just because they are Kel-Tec. Now, a magazine-forward design would be a way to have a locked-breech 5.7 pistol that is "kewl" and new.
 
The FN Five Seven is/was a high capacity, low recoil gun that was fun to shoot, but was expensive and fired an expensive caliber that was not widely available at the time. I assume the P30 was inspired by that to replicate the capacity, recoil, and fun factor in a more widely available caliber that was still more potent than .22 LR.

The P30 (Gendel) predated the Five-seveN by 8 years. The 1994 AWB killed it. The PMR30 is the redesigned and much improved post-ban version of the original pistol.

The P30 used a fluted chamber like an HK roller gun, while the PMR has a semi-blowback hybrid system which employs case friction against the chamber walls to behave sort of like a short recoil gun. The PMR30 magazine is also a major improvement over the original P30.

The PMR is a lot of fun, but unfortunately unable to be suppressed due to the hybrid blowback system, beating itself up badly even with suppressors that weigh just 2 ounces.
 
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