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keltec .380:do you think there will enough to go around?

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Ok,

So you are saying that its OK to manufacture a gun intended for self-defense that doesn't work because its cheap?

You cannot deny that KT pistols, on average, have a lot more problems than those from Glock, Beretta, HK, etc. I bought two Kel-Tecs, neither of them worked. Between my wife and I we have 5 HK pistols. All of them work, and worked right out of the box.

There are many many posts on various web sites regarding problems with KT pistols. I wouldn't want to guess what the exact numbers are, but it seems like about half of the posts about KT pistols report some kind of problems.

Even if KT's actual problem rate is 10%, that is still awful quality control.

I spent so much money on my P40 trying to get it to work, I could have bought a Glock 27 and come out ahead. That is unacceptable. Sure, it was a fairly inexpensive gun to buy (about $250), but it was supposed to be a self-defense weapon. It couldn't sucessfully fire a magazine.

KT has some great designs. Its too bad that their quality control is so poor that its a pretty fair bet that an owner will have problems. So yes, I would be willing to pay $100 more for a P32 that had a better chance of working right out of the box and holding up longer.
 
In 25 words or less, I'm saying there are many happy K-T owners who are glad they didn't pay $100 more.

In 25 words or more, the P-40 isn't the P-32, obviously. I am willing to bet (by buying a P-3AT) that the P-3AT will benefit significantly from what K-T has learned from building over 100k of the P-32s.

When is Glock, HK or SIG going to build a true pocket pistol?

John
 
So yes, I would be willing to pay $100 more for a P32 that had a better chance of working right out of the box and holding up longer.
Click to expand...
Sounds like the basis for a business plan there. Costs an FFL holder about $6 to send a pistol back to KT for repair and refurbishing, so all an FFL would have to do is raise the price by $100 and give you an additional "Gauranteed That It Works" piece of paper. He could send it back 18 times before he starts losing money.

He could also clean and lube the pistols before delivery (which buyers should be doing before shooting anyway) to eliminate almost all of the KT teething problems.

He could even fire $11 worth of ammo through each one to break it in, but that's what owners hould be doing anyway.

However, I believe that the people willing to pay a $100 premium for a gun that's been broken in for them are few and far between, and that, in a nutshell, is KT's business plan.... :D
 
John BT wrote:

When is Glock, HK or SIG going to build a true pocket pistol?


We both know the answer to that one! Never!

:)
 
I'll be more than happy to be the first one on my block with the P3AT, I've been lusting after one of those things for months. I do a lot of walking at night, and would love to have a pistol so tiny, light and thin as the p32, as I mosey around the city, but I just don't trust the .32ACP as a defense round. I'm apprehensive enough about .380, as I don't REALLY want to go lower than 9mm, but I won't be able to afford/justify a Rohrbaugh in the forseeable future, and no existing 9mm Luger or 9mm makarov comes even close in size and weight to a P3AT. If it doesn't work right, well, crap, I'll grumble a bit and carry my P-01 for a while until KT makes my gun perfect. I know a couple of people with p32s, and they have had zero problems with them. No way will I pay over $300 for a P3AT, though, not even with the chromed slide. I hope to pay maybe $265 or so for the gun, then buy the little accessories for another $30 or so. I hope I'm not being unrealistic here.:confused:
 
"In 25 words or less, I'm saying there are many happy K-T owners who are glad they didn't pay
$100 more.

There are also plenty, myself included, who would gladly have paid more for a gun that worked without going back to the factory two or three times.

"In 25 words or more, the P-40 isn't the P-32, obviously. I am willing to bet (by buying a P-3AT)
that the P-3AT will benefit significantly from what K-T has learned from building over 100k of
the P-32s."

I wish you luck. One would have thought that Kel-Tec would have benefitted from several years of building the P-11 prior to the P40. Obviously that was not the case. I was far from the only person who had major problems with the P40. You will note it is no longer on the market. I hope I am wrong, but I see the P-3AT as being another P40, a gun of practically the same size and weight trying to shoot a caliber with more recoil and bullet weight. Hopefully the first examples will be perfect right out of the box, but given my past experience with KT, I'm not holding my breath.

"When is Glock, HK or SIG going to build a true pocket pistol?"

Well, even if Glock or HK did, they couldn't import it to the US. SIG does build some guns in the US, maybe someday they will, but pocket guns are not SIG's "thing".

I am not a KT hater, as I stated before, I am willing to give the P32 another chance now that it has been around for a while. However, if it doesn't work right out of the box without going back to the factory, I am done with KT forever. Three guns from one manufacturer that are total POS is my limit.
 
I've stated this many times before....
It's a proven fact in any kind of industry, that a good Quality Control problem would save KelTec money, not the other way around.

Less end-of-line rejects, less time and parts spent on returns, etc.
(Not the mention the good publicity from people saying that the guns are great out of the box.)
KelTec could make the guns right the first time, without the cost going up.

Maybe they are.
Newer owners report far less problems than 2-3 years ago.

Landric,
You can't really use the P40 as an example.
That was a bad design for most people.
Probably very few people still own and shoot that gun.
Nothing wrong with the gun, if you had a grip like a gorilla!
The caliber was too big for the small frame.
(When Kahr wanted to make a "mini 9" they found that the best solution was to pay Seecamp for the recoil technology. If KelTec had gone that route, the P40 may have worked.)

KelTec got that one into the pipeline without enough beta testing.
However, they did it in response to consumer requests.
How many firearms manufacturers respond like that?

With the P3AT, KelTec is again responding to user requests.
And, I wouldn't be surprised to see a single stack 9mm in the near future. Because loyal customers have asked for them.

I've stated that I wouldn't buy a P3AT in the first year, but if one showed up at my dealer, and I happened to have a birthday coming up........:rolleyes: :D
 
"Landric,
You can't really use the P40 as an example.
That was a bad design for most people.
Probably very few people still own and shoot that gun.
Nothing wrong with the gun, if you had a grip like a gorilla!
The caliber was too big for the small frame.
(When Kahr wanted to make a "mini 9" they found that the best solution was to pay Seecamp for the recoil technology. If KelTec had gone that route, the P40 may have worked.)"

Actually, there was a lot wrong with the gun. My problems had nothing to do with limp wristing or other shooter error. Neither did most of the problems others I talked to had. The primary problem is that the gun did major damage to the ammunition as it tried to feed from the magazine into the chamber. This deformed the bullet and often forced it back into the case. Since the .40 is operating on the edge of safety anyway, this can be a major problem. Regardless of whether the P40 was a good design for most people it would still be on the market if it was not a flawed design. People would still buy it, regardless of how hard it was to control because its a very small, light .40S&W. The gun was put onto the market without nearly enough T&E. Kel-Tec should have discovered this problem, and corrected it, before they ever sold their first gun. They didn't.

"KelTec got that one into the pipeline without enough beta testing.
However, they did it in response to consumer requests.
How many firearms manufacturers respond like that?"

Respond like what? Put guns out on the market without nearly enough testing putting their customers in danger? Or putting out what their customers ask for? The latter is great, but it does not excuse the former.

"With the P3AT, KelTec is again responding to user requests.
And, I wouldn't be surprised to see a single stack 9mm in the near future. Because loyal customers have asked for them."

Great, but given their past failures to do proper testing prior to release what makes us think they have done prior testing this time. I'd be glad to test a P-3AT for them free of charge, but there is no way I'm going to pay to do it.

I hope they work, but I'm going to give the P-3AT at least a year before I even consider buying one.
 
I think the problem here is that I don't care all that much about manufacturer averages or who gives you the best chance of getting a good gun. I pick a gun to meet my needs and just want it to work and if it doesn't I'll deal with it. No, I'm not including Lorcins and Jennings and all those. They aren't guns to my way of thinking - nothing made from pot metal is.

Did I ever tell you the story about the new Python my father ordered? ("Yes John, you did.") The barrel was screwed in wrong and the front sight was crooked. Back it went.

John
 
I'm with Landric on this one. I've got a P32. Its a joyous event when it feeds a whole magazine without malfunctioning. Not only that, I shot it outside last summer when the temperature was in the 90's, and I think the trigger melted! I could pull the darn thing all the way back but it wouldn't fire. The only reason I keep it is that it cuts down on my trips to the casino. Anytime I feel like gambling, I just carry the P32.


P.S. I, for one, do NOT "limp wrist".
 
If the trigger is pulled completely to the rear and the gun won't fire it is a failed trigger axis. Mine was beginning to do that 2 or so years ago so I sent it back. It's been 100% ever since.

From what you seem to be saying your gun does fire sometimes, so I guess it isn't the trigger axis. Why don't you get the derned thing fixed? I know, I know, you just like to have something to complain about. I'm like that too, I just don't like it to be my guns or my cars.

I even have a 10-round mag that runs 100%.

John
 
Well,

I guess he could get the thing "fixed", but sending it back to KT is not a sure way to do that. They never fixed my P40 and I sent it back to them three times.

I accept that any manufacturer can make a lemon now and then. However, KT has enough lemons floating around out there that its not a fluke, it's a quality control problem.

John, you yourself just pointed out that your P32 had a problem also and had to go back to the factory. Is that OK with you? What if the next time it has a problem and has to go back to the factory is the time that you are trying to shoot it in self-defense?
 
Any gun can fail or jam. I had a Ruger autoloader years ago that did it regularly - until they fixed it. I have a Kimber that had one problem early on, but it did not require a return and since then I've fired 10k rounds.

I've carried my P-32 nearly everyday since I had it fixed and that's been around 2 years ago. I've had no other trouble with it.

In addition, the the trigger axis failure on mine was a very gradual thing. It happened so slowly over the course of 3 or 4 range trips that I almost missed it. Only at the very end, sitting on the sofa fooling with it and saying "Hey, this trigger is going waaaaay back.", did it fail to go click on a snapcap.

And another thing, I'd bet that my P-32 was dry fired a zillion times before my dad spotted it and I bought it a couple of weeks later. It sat in a little shop in a one-stoplight town for who knows how long because the front sight was cut way off to one side. So I'd bet the endless dry firing had something to do with ruining the trigger.

I've certainly gotten my money's worth out of the gun and am eagerly awaiting a P-3AT. If it works, fine, and if it takes work I'll whine about it like everybody else. Meanwhile, I have the P-32 and a S&W 442 loaded with 158-grain +P LSWHP.

Let's say I've used the P-32 a minimum of 600 days. That number divided into say $300(including the return and chrome upgrade) equals 50 cents a day.

If I carried it an average of 16 hours a day for those 600 days, that's 9600 hours divided into $300 for a per hour cost of $0.03125. Three and one-eighths cents per hour. (Yes, I'm aware I could have divided 50 cents by 16 hours to get the same number.)

I've ignored the cost of leather and mags, but also the residual value of the gun and the leather and mags and such.

John
 
A mixed bag...............

I've owned both the P11 and the P32 and they were like comparing apples and oranges. The P11 was a lemon and the P32 was a creampuff.

I have said in the past that I would like to see Kel-Tec make minor upgrades in their workmanship and materials. I'd like to see them strengthen certain components here and there, even if it adds a couple more ounces to a ridiculously lightweight gun.

However, I'm a fan of and admire Kel-Tec because they're out there on the leading edge in mass-producing small, lightweight, affordable handguns. I still think the P32 is a design of pure genius. Could it be made even better? Yes, of course.......for a price.

Notice the aftermarket items that have sprung up just for the P32. No one on earth makes a niche gun like Kel-Tec that is light, concealable, offers superior capacity for size, and is, for the most part, reliable. To their credit, they do offer a lifetime warranty which I have taken advantage of in the past.

Would I like a P-3AT? Oh yeh! Am I going to wait? Weellllll, I'm going to try and wait the obligatory year from initial shipping for the bugs to work out, but I don't trust my own patience! Time will tell.

I may be mistaken but I think I've read somewhere that Kel-Tec is now the world's fourth-largest firearm manufacturer, in terms of units produced. Statistics, probabilities, and the sheer numbers of Kel-Tec products out there would give the impression that there are a larger number of faulty products produced than is actually the case. Can someone please verify that?

Finally, not to name names but I find it irritating that some throw personal assumptions out here without any basis in fact. Before we make blanket statements about the ratio of units produced against defective units, at least make a weak attempt to verify your source for such statements! Do any of us have any idea which firearm manufacturers have the statistical edge on producing reliable firearms? Well, post us a trustworthy link! :fire:

Your comments are always welcome.......
 
22luvr,

KT says on their website the following:

"Specializing in handguns for concealed carry by law enforcement personnel or licensed citizens we are now in the top ten of handgun makers in the US. Lacking accurate statistics, we believe this can be extended to top ten in the World."

I wouldn't be surprised if they were in the top 10 in the world but as they say, that is hard to verify and would probably vary by year. If an overseas manufacturer got a big contract for military/police pistols, they would certainly move up in the rankings for the term of the contract. As far as just the civilian market, I'm sure KT is near the top.
 
The gun was put onto the market without nearly enough T&E. Kel-Tec should have discovered this problem, and corrected it, before they ever sold their first gun. They didn't.
Click to expand...

Landric,
I've frequented the KelTec forum, and used to get the daily email list, and the problem that you describe does not appear to be a common problem.
The gun could not be made to function for the average user, (in a cost effecient manner for KT), and that is why it was discontinued.
Too much recoil in a too-small frame.
For the average user, the gun could never be made to function, so it was junk.
(KelTec was getting a lot of P40s back for repair that had no problems. If it wasn't broke, they couldn't fix it.)

You are doing a lot of griping about a $250 gun, so I hope you have never bought a Kimber, or Para, Springfield, etc.
Pop over to www.1911forum.com and check out some of those complaints.
I don't like paying $250 for a gun that has to go back to the factory, but I would be really unhappy with a $1000 gun that needed work.
Any manufacturer that makes hundreds of thousands of machines is going to have some lemons get out. Chainsaws, cars, blenders, guns.....
It's a fact.
The only way to keep a happy customer base, is to have excellent customer service. KT has that in spades.

Respond like what? Put guns out on the market without nearly enough testing putting their customers in danger? Or putting out what their customers ask for? The latter is great, but it does not excuse the former.
Click to expand...

If the customer base asks repeatedly for a product, KelTec tries to please the customer.
KelTeck has put a huge number of guns into the pipeline, and all 3 models have had their share of teething problems.

I think you are the first person ever to accuse them of making an unsafe product.

Of the 4 KT guns we have owned, 3 needed service.
(None of these problems created a safety issue.)
I wish that number could be smaller, but then I've had to have work done on the following new guns also:
Ruger, Taurus, and Mossberg.
There may be others, but those come to mind right now.
I would still buy from those manufacturers, because they make excellent firearms.

Bottom line, if you are soured on KelTec guns, you have the right to not ever buy another one.
There are many, many users that think they still make guns that are an excellent value.
I hope I get to buy some more!
 
Interesting info. on the new P-3AT posted by a fella on the KTOG Bulletin Board:


"...something I neglected to share about my pilgrimage to the Mecca in Cocoa was that Val mentioned that a week before I got there, GK [George Kelgren] had come to her, handed her a stock P-3AT, and said "break it."

She said she had fired it...limp wristed, upside down, jerking the trigger...you name it...for almost 2 straight days before her trigger finger wore out and she had to give it to someone else to take over. She had someone loading mags for her, and she estimated personally putting somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 rounds of mixed ammo--FMJ, JHP, even .380+P, with nary a hitch.

Last she'd heard (when I was there), the little Mighty Mouse hadn't been broken, hadn't been cleaned except to run a patch through the barrel, and was still going strong."
 
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"Landric,
I've frequented the KelTec forum, and used to get the daily email list, and the problem that you describe does not appear to be a common problem."

Then maybe you remember the "smile" problem that almost everyone on the e-mail list had with ther P40s. Basically, this problem resulted from the nose of the bullet slamming into the base of the feed ramp during feeding. It would cause a u-shaped cut in the bullet that looked like a smile, hence the name for it. The damage to the bullet was often severe, and the impact could, and often did, force the bullet back into the case. The .40S&W operates at pretty high pressues anyway, and a bullet forced back into the case can result in serious overpressue, ruptured cases, or damage to the gun and/or shooter. That is a serious safety issue, which is why I made that statement. The "fix" for this problem was to send the pistol back to KT so they could remove excess metal from the base of the feed ramp. The problem was that they did that twice to my P40 and didn't correct the problem. I still had the "smile" and the feed problems that went along with it.

"The gun could not be made to function for the average user, (in a cost effecient manner for KT), and that is why it was discontinued.
Too much recoil in a too-small frame.
For the average user, the gun could never be made to function, so it was junk.
(KelTec was getting a lot of P40s back for repair that had no problems. If it wasn't broke, they couldn't fix it.)"

There is no excuse for not finding the "smile" problem in testing. I was far from the only person to have it, there was a lot of discussion on the e-mail list about it. One would also think that they would have found out that the P40 didn't work for the average person during testing, if that is actually the case rather than the reason it left the market is that it was a flawed design.

"You are doing a lot of griping about a $250 gun, so I hope you have never bought a Kimber, or Para, Springfield, etc.
Pop over to www.1911forum.com and check out some of those complaints.
I don't like paying $250 for a gun that has to go back to the factory, but I would be really unhappy with a $1000 gun that needed work."

Actually, I don't think it should matter what a KT costs. They bill it as a self-defense weapon, and the one thing a self-defense weapon has to be is reliable. If they can't make it reliable and sell it for $250, then they should either stop making it (as they did for the P40), or charge more and make it better quality. I bought both a Springfield 1911 and a Para 1911. Both of those were also lemons. I have not bought another since, mostly because I paid so much for such junk. The reason that I gave KT two chances and am planning on giving them another sometime soon, as I plan to give the P32 another shot, is that if it does turn out to be junk, it least it wasn't $700 junk.

"Any manufacturer that makes hundreds of thousands of machines is going to have some lemons get out. Chainsaws, cars, blenders, guns.....
It's a fact.
The only way to keep a happy customer base, is to have excellent customer service. KT has that in spades."

Yes, but KT seems to put out more lemons than most. Its a good thing they have good customer service, its too bad so many people have first hand experience with it.

"If the customer base asks repeatedly for a product, KelTec tries to please the customer.
KelTeck has put a huge number of guns into the pipeline, and all 3 models have had their share of teething problems."

My point exactly.

"I think you are the first person ever to accuse them of making an unsafe product."

See above comments on the "smile". If that is not unsafe, I don't know what is.

"Of the 4 KT guns we have owned, 3 needed service.
(None of these problems created a safety issue.)
I wish that number could be smaller, but then I've had to have work done on the following new guns also:
Ruger, Taurus, and Mossberg.
There may be others, but those come to mind right now.
I would still buy from those manufacturers, because they make excellent firearms."

So your own KTs had a 75% failure rate. Does that not suggest a quality control problem, or do you just consider yourself unlucky?

"Bottom line, if you are soured on KelTec guns, you have the right to not ever buy another one."

Yes, but that is not what I want. I think KT has some great designs. What I want is a KT that works so I can depend on it. I don't think that is too much to ask.

"There are many, many users that think they still make guns that are an excellent value.
I hope I get to buy some more!"

I guess that depends on what you consider an excellent value. A gun that costs less but it out of your hands for weeks at a time due to failure is not a better value than a gun that costs more but is always there for you. I hope that any KTs you buy in the future have a better record than 25%.
 
I've been waiting for someting like this for a while small light .380

However, I've learned over the years several valuable lessons, one of which is never buy the first round of anything. NOTHING comes out perfect the first time. It's against the laws of nature.

Let the eager fight over the beta runs, Maybe they won't have trouble but they are more likely to than one made in another year.

Until then I'll keep toting my little steel Makarov. To date it's the smallest thing I trust. But I look forward to shedding the weight difference.

Then again what's capacity on these 7???
 
My father taught me not to buy the first round of anything, too. He also said don't buy the cheapest or the most expensive in a product line either.

Recently though, he started buying first year cars. Now he's waiting on another one to be released in a couple of months and I expect he'll get one.

He says he's 81, won't gamble on living until the 2nd or 3rd model year, and can afford to make the mistakes now he couldn't afford years ago.

Live and learn.

John
 
So your own KTs had a 75% failure rate. Does that not suggest a quality control problem, or do you just consider yourself unlucky?
Click to expand...

Oh, if you do a search on TFL, you'll see that I have always suggested that KT needs better quality control.
As I stated above, it would cause the cost to KelTec go down, as final product quality went up.

You and I are probably on the same page.
The only difference is, all of my KelTecs are working now.
If you had talked to me when my first on went back to the shop, I would have been less mellow.
And now, I've learned to work on the guns.
The last couple of issues that came up with my KelTecs, I just called and they sent me free parts.

But, because of the issues we have discussed here, (at length), I won't be ordering one of the first P3ATs.

To answer the question that started this thread:
Not initially, but after a few months. :p
 
I won't be buying the first one out.

I'll wait until the guy that buys the first one shoots it, and then decides he doesn't care for the gun in a 380. Still, it'll probably be more fun to shoot than the Seecamp 380.
 
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