Kel Tec - What are the odds?

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Onward Allusion

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I am a fan of the Kel Tec pistols. At least up until this past Monday, I WAS.

I own 3 P11's, 3 P32's, 1 P3AT, & 1 PF9, so no one here can accuse me of being a brand basher or a Kel Tec hater. I have multiples because I like to shoot 'em, keep up practice, but don't want to wear 'em out, so I rotate.

Went to the range with my wife this past Monday with 3 P11's & 2 P32's.

- One P11 suffered light primer strikes (not ammo related either) - easy enough fix;

- another P11's pin walked out - um, ez fix

- my P32's slide locked back after every shot (not so easy fix)

- and my wife's P32 would jam after each shot to the point where a T-R-B would not have fixed it. It was so jammed up that I literally had to rap the locked slide on the counter a few times (shooting indoors). It did this after every shot.

These guns were not abused. They were shot sparingly and never with +P loads. Each of the guns had less than a few hundred rounds through them. They were always wiped down and oiled after each use.

What shakes us up was that the P32's were our EDC's. We're glad it happen at the range, but our faith in Kel Tec products has been really shaken. I mean, what the heck are the odds that 4 of the 5 Kel Tecs brought to the range had some kind of failure on the SAME day???! :(

Right now I'm carrying my P3AT (begrudgingly) and my wife is carrying a NAA Guardian in 32 ACP. The NAA is a solid albeit heavy gun but my wife's faith in bottom feeders has been shaken, hence my other post on the 22 mag revolver.
 
I had one of those days today. Seems every gun I took had problems. I finally went back to the house and got a couple of revolvers just to make sure a gremlin hadn't gotten into my safe! The only good news is that I was trying out a bunch of different ammo and some reloads so there is a little consolation.
KT PF-9 had an issue with HP ammo. Never had that with this gun.
2 different Phoenix 22s decided they would only run with a couple of different ammo types. They have been somewhat finicky in the past but never like today. Wouldn't shoot mini-mags or Winchester bulk very well but ran well on Federal Premium and some Ely I had on hand. Stingers won't even fit in the guns.
S&W Bodyguard would NOT run Tula steel case ammo AT ALL. It ran Tula BrassMax perfectly but the steel would not even allow the slide to go forward all the way.
Hungarian 9x18 had a squib with some reloads and actually had a couple of stovepipes with Fiocchi FMJ.
Bring in the revolvers in 32l and 38. No misfires of any kind and the brass was a lot easier to locate.

All of these guns have been stored in the safe since October with the exception of the Bodyguard. Some of them have been fired a few times over the past few months but we don't usually shoot as much during hunting season. I am going to do a little more experiminting tomorrow and hopefully it will be a better day.
 
I have 3 KT guns. My wife carries the P32 and we both have put thousands through it with no real problems. I also have the PF9 and the P11 with many rounds through them. These guns get a lot of shooting because I have my own range here at my farm. I like KT guns and am going to get another P11. That said, any gun company can make a bad gun, and most do. What separates the good ones from the sorry companies is how they deal with a problem gun from a customer. You should take great comfort that Keltec is an excellent company that stands behind their products. I wish I could say that about Kahr which is one of the worst that I have had experience with.
 
i got several kel tec also in 9mm, 40 s&w, 380, and 32 acp. one day i took the pf9 out for a run. now the gun would shoot five mags as fast as i can pull the trigger and reload. but that day it would not fire a full mags without some type of problem. took some work and some free parts to get it back up. then back to the safe.
 
God realised that Kel-Tec was overpowered, so he nerfed them in the latest patch. It came out last Tuesday. Didn't you read the patch notes? I really hope there's gamers reading this otherwise this joke will look really silly...

I want to like Kel Tec. On paper, they make some great products. However, I've heard in-store gunsmiths tell me they see more of Kel-Tec's competition go out the door (i.e. more people buying LCPs than P-3ATs) and more Kel-Tecs come in for repair.

I recently told one of my coworkers about a FTE that my Dad had recently that required much more than a TRB to fix (had to pop the spent casing out by jamming a rod down the barrel), and this coworker told me it's why he carries a revolver.

I'm a young guy who works in IT, and I can tell you, typewriters never blue screened, but they also didn't get Netflix. I hope my ramblings have meant something to this thread.
 
I have had light primer strikes with both my p32's. I take the firing pin out and clean it along with the channel. I think k/t's fp springs are a little too tight, but I don't mess with them. The firing pins are very small and light so speed is their friend.
 
My only KT is a P32 and it has been 100 per cent.
It's a really good little pistol.
 
God realised that Kel-Tec was overpowered, so he nerfed them in the latest patch. It came out last Tuesday. Didn't you read the patch notes? I really hope there's gamers reading this otherwise this joke will look really silly...
Click to expand...

I dabble in Combat Arms.
 
I hope my good luck with my two (PF9 and P32) continues. No issues so far. Sorry to hear yours have apparently transformed.

Incidentally, I have the great-granddaddy of the KT line, the Grendel P10. It seems at times to have its off days as well, sometimes running mag after mag well, then malfunctioning 2-5 times per mag the next range session.

Maybe it's a recessive genetic trait, and yours finally inherited it.
 
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So far my P40 hasn't had any parts failures. It is kinda picky though and is prone to limp wristing related malfunctions, like many micro compacts sharing this design. Nearly every handgun maker has now ripped off the Kel Tec P11 and P3AT at this point so the design is good as well as very popular.
 
Skribs said:
God realised that Kel-Tec was overpowered, so he nerfed them in the latest patch. It came out last Tuesday. Didn't you read the patch notes? I really hope there's gamers reading this otherwise this joke will look really silly...
Click to expand...

Hahahahaahah!! Love it! Haven't played that game in years now, but I still clearly remember being pissed off many a Tuesday...
 
I have 5 kelTec PF-9 P3AT and 3 P-32 Yesterday I bought #6 another P-32 I removed from box Lubed the slide and went to shooting . I was also shooting PPU 1st time tried it all dealer had in 32 auto. On 2 mag 4 round failed to pick up from mag . I took pistol in side and cleaned it and mag . Went back out side and fired rest of box no problem.
That is 1st KT I have that failed in any way Will try some better ammo and see what it does.

The P-32 are my wife and daughters carry . This is last daughter to get CCW and will be last pistol I buy for a while.
 
I can't believe that all your KT's failed at the same time without some help from you in some way.

Maybe you using some kind of lube that is slowing down the slide or clogging the firing pin channel or something else like that.

KelTecs are not the very best quality, but my experience with a number of them has always been pretty good.
 
I have a Kel-Tec PF9. It has never caused an issue - goes bang every time. But its my play gun, so I take it apart about three times a week (my wife says three times a day). I kinda think Kel-Tecs profit from a lot of care and feeding. But mine always works. I put a Stainless trigger in it a year or more ago. That was the best change I have ever made in any weapon. I really did it because the original hurt my finger, and because I wanted to play gunsmith, but didn't want to mess up a "good" gun doing it.
 
Two of the three P11's were shot at the range about 2 weeks ago, brought home & wiped down with the same lube I always use - Hoppes. My P32 - the same thing.

My wife's P32 hadn't been shot since last fall, but went through the same routine. Shot, wiped & cleaned, lubed, & holstered.

I know most semi's will jam/fail at some point in their lives due to a variety of reasons, but it's gotta be a 1 in a million kind of thing that 4 of the 5 experienced issues in the same range visit. The most concerning thing was my wife's. I mean the slide was frozen solid. I had to rap it pretty hard a few times on a wooden counter to get it unstuck. It would have been a bad situation if she had to use it for real.

Oh well, next time . . .
 
I purchased a PF9 about 3 months ago, because I liked the caliber over a .380, and I noticed a lot of bad press, on this little firearm. The first thing I did after buying the arm, was I disassembled it and cleaned it up really good, and then polished the barrel as well as the feed ramp, and rails. Reassembled the arm after lightly oiling the arm with CLP and have shot at least 500+ rounds thru it without a lick of problems, that's using quite a few of my cast reloads.

I now carry that gun as a CCW using Hornady Critical Defense 115grn bullets that I have shot thru that gun without a hitch. Granted it isn't the most fun gun to shoot for a prolonged time but it will get the job done if the need arises. Further it is fairly accurate up to 10 yards.
 
Reminds me when I saw 5 P-11's I saw come through different qual ranges several years ago.

Only 1 of them successfully finished the short course of fire (I think it was 36 rounds back then for that particular class). It was the 5th P-11 to come through the course, and the first one I'd seen complete the course without any stoppages, so I asked the owner how long he'd owned it. He said he'd only owned it a couple of years and had fired maybe 150 rounds through it (including that day's course-of-fire).

Saw a couple P-40's give their owners headaches.

I know of 1 P-32 that's served the owner well for a few years, but he says he doesn't shoot it often.

I once knew a firearms instructor/armorer for another agency where they started issuing P3AT's, but I never heard how that worked out for them.

One of our guys recently bought one of the KSG's. Interesting feel and balance, but I didn't have time to take it downrange and try it that day. Maybe some other time.

One of the the things I often look for in smaller secondary/off-duty/CCW-type weapons is whether they're present in significant numbers among LE agencies & people (issued or authorized for personal purchase), and whether they've demonstrated an acceptable level of durability (with reasonable maintenance).

Cops can use & abuse weapons in a manner that can seemingly sometimes cause ball bearings to fail and break. :eek:
 
Well, I owned four of them, and had trouble with all four (significant trouble with two)...so I guess your adds are about the same as mine.

Mine didn't happen all on the same day, but I didn't own all of mine at the same time.

I figure four times was enough. I am done with KT.

Say what you will about Ruger's LCP "ripping off" KT. My two LCPs worked perfectly from round one.
 
orionengnr said:
...
Say what you will about Ruger's LCP "ripping off" KT. My two LCPs worked perfectly from round one.
Click to expand...

Ditto. I held off thinking about a LCP for a while. I watched a number of them sail through qual courses-of-fire without so much as a bobble, which started to get my attention, and then a long time friend (also an LE firearms instructor) sheepishly admitted to having owned a LCP for a couple of years. He shot it a lot on his property's range setup, and was amazed at the little gun's reliability and accuracy.

After borrowing his, I went down to one of the cops shops and bought one of my own in '12. Aside from replacing the takedown pin (first one walked 3 times in the first hundred rounds) with a one Ruger sent me, the gun has been great. It's fed & fired 4 types of hollowpoints and W-W FMJ with aplomb.

Snappy little .380, but that's part of the compromise when it comes to shoehorning the .380 into the smallest possible platform.

If Ruger ever decides they have the time to make .32 version of the LCP (which doesn't suffer rimlock), they might find themselves another 2-3 years backlogged for production demand. ;)

LE users could continue to snap up the LCP .380's, and the private owners who enjoys the lighter recoiling .32's (or who simply fall into that "nostalgic/niche market" enjoyed by the .32) could enjoy a LCP .32.
 
Can't have a thread about any gun without the bashers coming out.

I had to send a KT back for repairs. Horrible gun!
I had to send a Ruger back for repairs. Horrible gun!
I had to send a Smith back for repairs. Horrible gun!

By these measures the most dependable guns I own are Hi Points. I've never had to send one back.
 
jrdol, I would say they ARE your most dependable guns if that's the case.
 
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