Eight Ounces of Serious Seven Shot Protection

Tough morning. Our son, daughter-in-law and youngest granddaughter headed back to Texas after a two week stay. Great family time and lots of “Argh!” prefaced pirate imitations… which always concluded with the observation, “Grandpa’s silly”. Which is a good observation because, if nothing else, I am pretty silly.

Performance in summary… Details follow

Of the three types of ammunition fired, MAGTECH, produced the highest level of velocity and cycled flawlessly firing one hundred rounds. At seven yards, emptying the gun into a 1″ – 1.5″ from a rest is routine. 3″, with not much more than a point at seven yards, is pretty incredible for a very small handgun. The KEL-TEC did not function reliably with specialty Extreme Shock ammunition, nor did it function reliably with low velocity PPU ammunition. Wet ballistic penetration was good, 8″ to 13″ depending upon the ammunition. Bullet expansion in any case was non-existent. While all of this may sound hyper critical, it is not, as explained within the details that follow.

I like the gun and purchased it for my personal use. I would trust it to continue functioning with any ammunition that initially proved reliable and I think there is plenty of pop for self defense as a backupgun even without bullet expansion. The KEL-TEC P-32 is well made and it is easy to shoot well.

Live fire… and expansive thinking

A word for context – Sub compact autoloaders are notorious for not cycling reliably. This is not a reflection of quality of production or design, but rather a reflection of the laws of physics. Because of the very low reciprocating mass of the small slide, there is a comparatively reduced level of slide inertia, which makes the balance of cartridge load levels and recoil spring selection much more critical than would be the case with a larger gun with greater slide mass. Consequently, the chances of a sub-compact gun cycling reliability with all ammo are slim to none.

 

These noted problems are remedied by selecting a type of ammo that is found to function reliably, and/or by juggling recoil springs until one combination allows the gun to function reliably with the ammo of choice. The P-32 factory recoil spring is rated at 9lbs. Wolff Springs offers both 11 lbs and 13 lbs replacements.

 

To isolate gun from ammo related issues, a compact FEG AP-MBP, pictured above, was fired in parallel with the sub-compact KEL-TEC.

 

KEL-TEC P-32
MFG	Type	Grains	Act. Vel.	Rated
PPU	JHP	71	659	902
MAGTECH	JHP	65	807	922
Extreme	EPR	60	778	830
FEG MBP Model AP 7.65mm
PPU	JHP	71	671	902
MAGTECH	JHP	65	921	922
Extreme	EPR	60	892	830

With the exception of the low performer Privi Partizan ammunition, the increase in barrel length from 2.7″ to 3.9″ was worth approximately 120 fps, which is of consequence.

The only bullet that expanded to any significant degree was the MAGTECH jacketed hollow point, but only when fired from the FEG with the longer 3.9″ barrel where velocity was greater. Expanding to 0.465″ is a substantial increase in bullet diameter and weight loss was trivial.  Jacketed handgun bullets are that way. If they can’t be pushed into the 900-1,000 fps range, the hole will be no greater than original bullet diameter. This is characteristic of all small gun/small caliber combinations and it would be unrealistic to think otherwise.

 

Extreme Shock ammo, a product of
Mullins Ammunition, is described by the manufacturer as a “Fragmentable explosive entry enhanced penetration round (EPR)”… Unfortunately, Extreme Shock bullets neither expanded or fragmented when fired from either firearm. Additionally, the Extreme Shock case expanded excessively in both guns.

 

Case diameter above the extractor groove measured 0.330″ on fresh cartridges and 0.344″ when fired, leaving the impression that the guns were unlocking prematurely and the case was seeing pressure with less than full support. The other brands of ammunition uniformly case expanded to 0.333″ with no similar symptoms.