Some of you remember my lamentations over Kel-Tec’s customer service. Well, my barrel finally arrived in Friday, with a nice 2007 date on it, so it’s not like Kel-Tec was behind in manufacturing, they just take a while to get around to looking at service send backs.
So I put the new barrel in and took the gun to the range. I am able to hit a 7 circle pretty reliably with it at 10 yards. In that sense, it does what it’s supposed to do. A few things though:
- Damn, is it brutal to shoot! I sent 60 rounds through it and I got a blister on two of my fingers from where it contacts. Any pocket .380 is going to have this problem, though. With almost no size and weight, the impulse as to go somewhere, so it goes into your hand. With not much to grip on to, even with a death grip you have to readjust your grip every round to fire a comfortable shot. But I did rip through a few magazines just to make sure I could do it, and land on target, and I can.
- It really needs to lock back when empty. I like my pistol telling me when it’s empty. The Ruger LCP improves on the pocket pistol design by providing this.
- It beats up the brass something fierce. I’m not sure any of the .380 I recovered is reloadable.
- The pistol is reliable. I didn’t have any malfunctions.
- With Corbon JHP rounds, the flame from the barrel is pretty noticable. This could be problem in low light use.
- Cleaning the pistol takes all of 10 minutes. It’s a pretty simple design.
Overall, it’s living up to expectations so far, though I wish I could have gotten it up and running a bit sooner after purchasing it with a defective barrel.
