lanternlad
New member
I picked up a Kel-Tec PMR 30 22 mag last week. I've been looking for a gun that I can shoot on a regular basis. I was in a bad car accident about five years ago and since then shooting takes a terrible toll on my hands. I can get through a mag or two of 9mm, then my hands shake too much to shoot. Good enough for SD, but not regular range time like I used to do. If I want to shoot on the range for a prolonged period, I shoot .22lr/mag.
The first thing that surprised me is how LIGHT it is. I've read the specs, but they just don't really prepare you. Overall, the gun doesn't feel as sturdy a plastic gun as a Glock/XD/M&P does, it feels more to me like a pellet gun. Even my wife was turned off about "how plasticky it felt". I wouldn't use this gun for more than range time. As nice a gun as it is, I wouldn't subject it to any "Glock torture tests", it will surely fail. Based on feeling the gun alone, I almost didn't buy it. It really feels like a toy.
But I had been waiting for this gun for a LOOOOOONG time and I felt I owed it to myself to get it and give it a run through it's paces. I figured I can always sell it if I don't like shooting it. So I took it shooting a few days later. I got set up at the range and began to load the magazines with Hornady Max-V Hi Vel red tip rounds. I'm here to tell you that loading the mags past 20 rounds is a ROYAL PITA. You have to be very careful when you put the mags in, or they will rim lock easily. The mags are all plastic, not metal coated plastic like Glock mags. The feed lips feel as though you could break them if you aren't careful loading. There is no metal reinforcement on the mags anywhere, so be careful with 'em. If you drop one and step on it, that's all she wrote. Kel-Tec recommends rapping the back of the mag every five rounds or so on a table when you load it to settle the bullets inside. I tried both doing and not doing it, didn't seem to make a feeding difference to me either way. The mags are grooved, and fit into grooved slots in the magwell like a puzzle piece, so there is no danger of them shifting and causing a misfire. After getting all 30 rounds in I fired it at a silhouette target placed about 25 yards away.
Wow. I REALLY like shooting this gun.
I had one initial FTE right away, but that was based on my limp wristing. When I corrected my shooting stance I had NO problems with FTE or FTF. I put 30 rounds through it as fast as I could, not really aiming for anything other than C.O.M. At 25 yards, with my bad hand, I perforated an area about the size of a large pizza box all inside the kill zone in about 7 seconds. Now just so you know, I hadn't cleaned this gun, it went straight from the box to the range. The gun is accurate and the small caliber allows for very easy follow up shots on target. I repeated this with 30gr CCI Maxi Mags FMJ, 30gr Winchester Super X FMJ, and Federal Game Shok 50 gr.
Then I got a kaboom.
Or what I though was a kaboom. There was a small explosion in the gun when I fired the 20th Fed Game Shok. Something powdery stung my hand hand something hard bounced off my shooting glasses.
It was a squib load. The back end of the round had blown off the case and hit my glasses. The powdery thing that struck my hand turned out to be the fragments of the plastic slide stop button on the gun. The slide stop still works, its just had to access the internal lever without that button sticking out. I'm sure Kel-tec will fix it. Other than the case lodged in the barrel there was no damage to the gun that I could tell. So I took it home and stripped it and cleaned it.
OMG. Now we get to the other PITA about this gun. Field stripping it. Not something you'd want to do in the field if you ask me. A lot of little parts to lose and a precise way of reassembly would make it too troublesome for field work/hunting/hiking, IMO. I can't really explain it, so I'll let you look at this and judge for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5_sX9GFgSY
All in all, I really like this gun. For a range toy. Or for SD if nothing else is handy. It was reliable with the 120 rounds I put through it, so I wouldn't have any problem using it for defense. I keep it on my nightstand. 30 rounds of .22 mag seems like the perfect choice when you get woken up in the middle of the night and have to deal with multiple intruders with a groggy head. I stoked it with Maxi Mag Hi Vels, put a laser/light on it and I'm ready to rock. But your situation may vary. Would I carry it? No. A little too big, difficult to conceal unless a holster was made especially for it. Also I'm afraid it just wouldn't make it out in the real world defensive-wise. I'm speaking of the gun itself, not the caliber. The gun just feels like a toy to me, so that's how I'm going to use it. It would be like trying to drive cross country on a four-wheel ATV. Could you do it? Yes. But there are much better ways of accomplishing the same task. Would I recommend it? Definitely. It's a really fun range toy and the looks you get as you just keep firing round after round after round when everyone else on the line has reloaded twice is priceless.
The first thing that surprised me is how LIGHT it is. I've read the specs, but they just don't really prepare you. Overall, the gun doesn't feel as sturdy a plastic gun as a Glock/XD/M&P does, it feels more to me like a pellet gun. Even my wife was turned off about "how plasticky it felt". I wouldn't use this gun for more than range time. As nice a gun as it is, I wouldn't subject it to any "Glock torture tests", it will surely fail. Based on feeling the gun alone, I almost didn't buy it. It really feels like a toy.
But I had been waiting for this gun for a LOOOOOONG time and I felt I owed it to myself to get it and give it a run through it's paces. I figured I can always sell it if I don't like shooting it. So I took it shooting a few days later. I got set up at the range and began to load the magazines with Hornady Max-V Hi Vel red tip rounds. I'm here to tell you that loading the mags past 20 rounds is a ROYAL PITA. You have to be very careful when you put the mags in, or they will rim lock easily. The mags are all plastic, not metal coated plastic like Glock mags. The feed lips feel as though you could break them if you aren't careful loading. There is no metal reinforcement on the mags anywhere, so be careful with 'em. If you drop one and step on it, that's all she wrote. Kel-Tec recommends rapping the back of the mag every five rounds or so on a table when you load it to settle the bullets inside. I tried both doing and not doing it, didn't seem to make a feeding difference to me either way. The mags are grooved, and fit into grooved slots in the magwell like a puzzle piece, so there is no danger of them shifting and causing a misfire. After getting all 30 rounds in I fired it at a silhouette target placed about 25 yards away.
Wow. I REALLY like shooting this gun.
I had one initial FTE right away, but that was based on my limp wristing. When I corrected my shooting stance I had NO problems with FTE or FTF. I put 30 rounds through it as fast as I could, not really aiming for anything other than C.O.M. At 25 yards, with my bad hand, I perforated an area about the size of a large pizza box all inside the kill zone in about 7 seconds. Now just so you know, I hadn't cleaned this gun, it went straight from the box to the range. The gun is accurate and the small caliber allows for very easy follow up shots on target. I repeated this with 30gr CCI Maxi Mags FMJ, 30gr Winchester Super X FMJ, and Federal Game Shok 50 gr.
Then I got a kaboom.
Or what I though was a kaboom. There was a small explosion in the gun when I fired the 20th Fed Game Shok. Something powdery stung my hand hand something hard bounced off my shooting glasses.
It was a squib load. The back end of the round had blown off the case and hit my glasses. The powdery thing that struck my hand turned out to be the fragments of the plastic slide stop button on the gun. The slide stop still works, its just had to access the internal lever without that button sticking out. I'm sure Kel-tec will fix it. Other than the case lodged in the barrel there was no damage to the gun that I could tell. So I took it home and stripped it and cleaned it.
OMG. Now we get to the other PITA about this gun. Field stripping it. Not something you'd want to do in the field if you ask me. A lot of little parts to lose and a precise way of reassembly would make it too troublesome for field work/hunting/hiking, IMO. I can't really explain it, so I'll let you look at this and judge for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5_sX9GFgSY
All in all, I really like this gun. For a range toy. Or for SD if nothing else is handy. It was reliable with the 120 rounds I put through it, so I wouldn't have any problem using it for defense. I keep it on my nightstand. 30 rounds of .22 mag seems like the perfect choice when you get woken up in the middle of the night and have to deal with multiple intruders with a groggy head. I stoked it with Maxi Mag Hi Vels, put a laser/light on it and I'm ready to rock. But your situation may vary. Would I carry it? No. A little too big, difficult to conceal unless a holster was made especially for it. Also I'm afraid it just wouldn't make it out in the real world defensive-wise. I'm speaking of the gun itself, not the caliber. The gun just feels like a toy to me, so that's how I'm going to use it. It would be like trying to drive cross country on a four-wheel ATV. Could you do it? Yes. But there are much better ways of accomplishing the same task. Would I recommend it? Definitely. It's a really fun range toy and the looks you get as you just keep firing round after round after round when everyone else on the line has reloaded twice is priceless.
