Broken Kel Tec P32

Some readers of this blog might own a Kel Tec P32. The trigger looks like its double action only, but not really. If the user has the gun empty with the slide forward, the trigger can be pulled. When pulled, the trigger causes the hammer to move from its resting place. The hammer moves rearward, then (should) go forward to the firing pin. After the hammer goes to the firing pin, it stays there until the hammer is reset by moving the slide. When the slide resets the hammer, the trigger can be pulled again to actuate the hammer.

Right now, the hammer does not go far enough forward to touch the firing pin. The trigger can be pulled multiple times and every time it resets itself without having to pull back on the slide. The trigger will occasionally actuate the hammer in the proper fashion, but to get the gun to do this, I have to pull the trigger very slowly while pulling toward the left or right. Something in the linkage is probably broken. It needs to go in for service.

Now I'm not so glad I Duracoated the gun. When it goes back, there's a chance that I might get a brand new 2nd generation P32 in return. I've read online of that happening a lot when 1st gen guns are worn or 1st gen parts are broken that Kel Tec no longer stocks. Apparently Kel Tec will put your serial number on a brand new P32 and send that to you. If they do that, I'm not getting back the slide I just worked on. Oh well.

Jennings J22 Duracoat Refinishing

I got a Jennings J22 for cheap. The finish on the frame wasn't great, but the slide was perfect. After helping a friend assemble his blasting cabinet, I stripped the Jennings' frame and sandblasted it in preparation for Duracoat.

The media we used was black and very fine. That's all I can tell you about it. My friend picked it up at Grainger, an industrial supply company. We used a #4 tip on the Harbor Freight blasting cabinet with 40 to 60 pounds of pressure.

I should've taken the barrel off of the frame to begin with. I definitely hit the outside of the barrel with the sandblaster, which meant I needed to remove it anyway to polish out the roughness. With the barrel removed, I was better able to sandblast all portions of the frame.

I shot the frame with Snow Gray Duracoat. I used my friend's Badger airbrush. The airbrush took forever to spray the paint and got clogged halfway through. The finish went on very thin. I reassembled the gun (aside from the one missing pin that I lost in my friend's shop) and took a photo. I like the look.

I really think I may be the first person in the history of the internet to duracoat a Jennings. This is history folks, history.

Henry Mare's Leg Pistol

In old Western movies, people sometimes had cut down lever action guns. I've never been a fan of that genre of movie, but I do like the guns. Rossi announced a few months ago that they were going to build a lever action with a short stock and short barrel, but build it from the ground up as a pistol. That's right folks, buy it like any other handgun. No NFA registration, no SBR paperwork, no tax stamp, and no engraving.

Building one of these from the ground up as a pistol was something I never thought of doing. Its a classic case of "Why didn't I think of that?".

Rossi isn't the only one jumping into this new handgun market. Henry has announced Mare's Leg style guns in 22LR and 45 Long Colt, also to be sold as handguns. I've got my eye on the rimfire Henry, which is basically a cut down Golden Boy. With an MSRP of $360, I hope to have one in my hands for under $300.

Making A Firing Pin

A friend of mine purchased a Ruby Pistol at a gun show. We went shooting and the gun barely struck the primers of the PRVI 32acp he was using. When we got back to my place, my friend used a punch to push on the firing pin (where the hammer would contact it) and saw that the firing pin barely protruded from the breech face. It was time to make a new firing pin.

This Ruby Pistol is marked "Looking Glass" and was made in Spain probably during the 1920s or a little before. There were a bunch of manufacturers of Ruby Pistols. Quality of a Ruby can be vastly different between manufacturers. The parts from one Ruby to another are usually not interchangeable either, especially if the user is trying to put parts made in one factory into a gun made in another factory. Each factory was a separate business and some of them did things differently, working to unique tolerances and measurements. A new firing pin just couldn't be found, so we spent a Friday night making one.

The old firing pin appeared to be brass or bronze. It was not coated or plated, that part was gold in color all the way through. It looked like someone had made that firing pin and we were about to do the same, except ours was going to work. While talking to the owner of the gun, we kicked around the idea of sacrificing a pin punch to make a firing pin. The owner decided to try pegboard hooks. The diameter looked about right and the material was probably sturdy enough. Why not, right? If anything, I thought the pegboard hook would be easier to work with than a punch.

We used a digital caliper to measure the thickness of the firing pin. The pegboard hook was slightly smaller in diameter, but whatever. Without a lathe on hand to get the slim portion of the firing pin down to the right size, we put the stub of metal into a drill and ran it across a bench grinder, then a file. The grinder worked a little too well. I wrecked a couple of potential firing pins because the bench grinder in conjunction with my spinning drill just took off too much material too quickly. The way to make this firing pin was to use the bench grinder/drill combination to start, then do the final touches against a file, which I had secured in my vice.

It is always easier to take off more material. Its not as easy to put it back on. We ground off a little, then checked the size, then went back to the file to grind off more. After a good two hours of us messing around, we had a finished product. The gun owner put the new firing pin in his gun, then I got out my bullet puller to pull the projectiles out of some 32s. I got a round of Winchester, a couple rounds made by S&B, and a Fiocci. We wanted to try different brands just to see how it would ignite different primers. I didn't want to shoot a full round of 32acp in my basement, so we used my bullet puller to pull the projectile and powder from each shell casing. Then, the gun owner tested the gun by chambering a shell casing and pulling the trigger. Just the sound of the primer wasn't too loud, but was enough for us to know that the new firing pin was capable of lighting off various primers.

It was fun and our first time making a gun part from scratch. My friend from Brookyln had joined us that evening. He had zero gunsmithing experience, but I think he enjoyed himself doing something a little handy.

High Capacity 22LR Handguns: Ruger vs. Excel

A new gun recently came on the market. I haven't seen a single article about it in any magazine or on any of the big gun blogs. This new product has become available but has remained mostly unnoticed.

The new gun is a 22LR handgun that vaguely resembles the old Tec-22. Like the Tec-22, it utilizes the ubiquitous 10/22 magazine, which is inserted in front of the grip. That is really where the similarities end. This new design uses an off the shelf AR15 pistol grip and has a built in rail across the top of the gun.

I first noticed the gun in September of 2010 while cruising Excel Industries' website. I just now decided to look for it online and found a few for sale on gunbroker. I think these guns would sell if consumers knew they existed. I mean it doesn't take much to get thefirearmblog or gunblast involved in a test/review. Traffic to those websites would undoubtedly equal an increase in sales.

Lets compare the Excel X-22P to the Ruger Charger. The Ruger Charger is identical to the 10/22 rifle from which it was based, except the Ruger Charger has a shorter barrel and a pistol stock. The Charger is manufactured and sold as a handgun, differentiating it from the 10/22. Both guns use the same magazines, both are pistols, and both have a similar layout.

The Charger has a lot of things going for it. Everyone who knows anything about 22LR rifles knows what a 10/22 is. A ton of people own 10/22s and are not only familiar, but comfortable with them. There is a whole cottage industry devoted to custom parts for 10/22s, parts which will fit in Charger pistols as well.

The real nail in the coffin for Excel is the price. It has an MSRP of $415 according to their website. That MSRP didn't bother me when I discovered the gun in September, because I know that guns rarely sell at MSRP on the internet. If guns do sell at MSRP, its usually right when they come out, and only if there is a line around the block to buy it. People are waiting in line to fork over their hard-earned dollars so they have the privilege of being the first kid on the block to have the newest gun.

Even this first wave of Excel X-22Ps on the market are priced below MSRP. You'd think if there was a big rush for this firearm, the guns would be getting snatched up left and right, maybe selling for over MSRP to start. The X-22Ps I've found on gunbroker are $379 including shipping. This price is still better than the $415 MSRP, but not low enough to entice buyers away from the familiar 10/22 and into the unfamiliar and untested Excel product.

I honestly didn't think that $379 shipped to my local FFL was such a bad deal.... until I went to look up the current pricing for a Ruger Charger. I was surprised to see the Charger selling for as low as $290 including shipping on the website for budsgunshop. The $89 price differential is just too much to make these somewhat similar products really compete against one another . Hopefully prices on the Excel will go down over time.

I'm a lover of the 10/22 platform and a self-proclaimed rimfire junkie. I'd still be willing to try something new (such as the Excel X-22P) because I like being a little different. I like showing people guns they havn't seen before. I don't have an AR-15, GLOCK, or 1911 and there's a reason for that. Everybody and their brother has one. You'll never hear someone say "Wow, an AR-15? I've never seen one of those before!" I don't want to have the same gun as the guy shooting in the lane next to me at the range. I want to have something that people haven't seen, a gun that spawns intrigue among those on the firing line. I can't get that with the Charger, even if it is $89 cheaper.

German Surplus Flare Gun

I purchased a box of 10 surplus 26.5mm flares at a gun show about a year ago for $25. Yes, I bought the flares before I bought a flare gun. I thought this would be a good idea because I just buy things when I see a deal.

I was looking through Numrich's website and found a GECO flare pistol for $36 in early January of 2011. I decided that I needed to have one at that price, considering when I see them elsewhere online they're $50 or more.

This flare gun was a better choice for me than buying an orion flare pistol intended for marine use. I have a small boat and have a need for a flare pistol. The feel of the Orion flare pistols feel extremely cheap. Being plastic, I don't have much confidence in them, so I was on the lookout for an inexpensive metal surplus flare pistol.

The flare gun I purchased feels solid, its definitely not a toy. Condition is decent, but not great. If this thing gets a little rusty on the boat, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

The gun had some yellow duct tape on the barrel. The tape peeled right off, but left a white adhesive which just won't come off. I don't want to scrape it because I don't want to jeopardize its parkerized finish. I tried using goo-gone on the tape residue, but it didn't work. I think whoever put the tape on the gun later got it really hot (by shooting it), probably cooking that tape residue into the gun.

The bore has some spots, but whatever. I'm sure it'll shoot just fine for a flare gun.

Kel Tec P32 Range Report

I went to the NRA range tonight, the day before Thanksgiving. After waiting for about half an hour for a lane, I got a chance to shoot. When i put my stuff down on the table, i saw the guy next to me had the new Kel Tec PMR30. While he was packing up his stuff, I asked him how he liked the new gun. He said it was great, then asked me if I'd ever shot one. I said no, then he handed me a full magazine. What a champ.

I shot the PMR30 and it was pretty awesome. It barely had any recoil. the magazine release is strange though, instead of being a conventional heel release, the heel has a button that must be pressed towards the magazine as opposed to the normal heel catch magazine release that requires the user to move the release away from the magazine.

Now, onto the P32. I shot my new gun with three brands of ammo. I first tried Prvi hollow points. The gun shot fine. After a magazine of hollow points, i decided to switch to Prvi FMJs. The FMJs did not work well. I went through a couple of magazines full of the FMJs and the gun just wouldn't fully eject. The gun wasn't stovepiping, but the brass was not fully ejecting from the gun. I also noticed a fair amount of unburned powder on the magazine follower after shooting this ammo.

Next, i went to try Fiocci FMJ. This was the cheapest ammo out of the bunch. The gun shot great with this ammo. Zero failures whatsoever. I'll be buying a lot more at 10.95 a box.

I was pleasantly surprised that the hollowpoints worked. I got a box at $16 as more of an experiment than anything else. I don't know if I will carry the gun with FMJs or hollowpoints. I debate the ability of 32s to expand in real world situations. I think an FMJ load would penetrate better. I'm honestly not worried about over-penetration with this caliber.

As far as the actual handling and shooting of the gun, I like it. The gun feels cheap. its very plasticky. If the magazine is not in the gun, I can squeeze the plastic grip panels together. The gun just feels very lightweight and fragile, a feeling I've never gotten from a Jennings/Bryco/Jimenez JA22. I guess I'm just oldschool when it comes to my love of guns that are made from metal and wood.

The trigger on the P32 is vastly different from any other small guns I've shot before. The P32 is double action.... kind of. After the slide is racked, the shooter can pull the trigger. The travel of the trigger is rather long, but it works in a good-feeling sweeping motion. I wouldn't consider it a true double action because when I think double action, I think of being able to pull a trigger, then pull it again. The P32 isn't like that. After the slide is racked, the trigger can be pulled resulting in the hammer going back then releasing it all in one fluid motion, but if you pull the trigger again for a follow up shot, the trigger does not work the hammer. I'm just very used to having a short single action trigger on small guns. This is similar in size to a Jennings or Raven, but the gun is vastly different. This is the smallest gun I've ever shot that doesn't have a fixed barrel. The floating barrel is cool, like a bigger gun would have, but it seems like an expensive way of building guns. George Jennings pioneered the small fixed barrel design in the late 1960s with the Raven pistol. Those Ravens could be made cheaply and cranked out by the zillion. I wish this Kel Tec had a fixed barrel because it probably wouldn't have cost so much.

Overall, I'm pleased with my $60 purchase. I will be carrying it often.