Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Brand Spankin' New Pocket Popper

Yep, I've been wanting something really concealable for a long time now.  I have some mid-size carry guns and a medium frame revolver, but have been lacking in a real deep-cover concealable pocket gun or back-up gun (BUG).  I've been threatening to do this for a long time and finally pulled the trigger (so to speak) and went with the Kel Tec P3AT-T (tan).  I asked Mrs. 45er for some input since this will probably be carried by her at times as well.  She liked the Coyote Tan.  I have to say I agreed with her.  It was really sight unseen since I got it through a friend that is highly considerate to have a dealer's license and allow me to buy from him.  I picked it up today and saw her for the first time.  She's purdy...

You're the one for me
Initial thoughts:

This thing is LIGHT.  It's easy to forget you have it.

Nice, aggressive checkering.  It fits well in the hand.  I don't mind the "pinky swing" that some people can't stand from the short grip.  I've adapted my standard grip and don't try to hold with the pinky, just use the left hand as a vice over the right.  It works really well and clamps the gun in with little notice of the short grip. 

Ok... sights.  What are you going to do on a pocket .380?  I wouldn't really want tall, sharp snaggerific sights.  I've seen a little better on comparable guns.

Trigger pull is firm, but smooth.  It is a long double action only and it feels safe to carry chambered without risk of any discharge.  The DeSantis Nemesis pocket holster is in the mail.

I like the tan finish, it looks good, not cheesy.

You'll notice I got the 9 round mag with the grip extension.  I was conflicted about that purchase.  Early versions of this mag dropped the floorplate pretty immediately after the first few shots were fired.  I consider that a "catastrophic" failure.  My emails to Kel Tec didn't give me the warm fuzzies that they had a handle on positively knowing this issue had been resolved other than they aren't getting as many returns as they used to.  Yay.  Well, my plan is to work this thing over with a LOT of ammo to make me feel confident.

Regarding mag color, they only had black at the distributor.  I've done some searching and haven't really been able to find tan.  I have personally seen the green one, but don't know about tan.  That Guy from Rock in a Sea of Chaos and I are going to "rattlecan" it as he puts it.  If the color matches, he has some tan Brownell's Alumahyde spray paint.  Mrs. 45er would prefer things to match.  I'm thrilled that she has an opinion.

I have a couple of different flavors of FMJ and Hornady Critical Defense ammo to test.  I will have a range report after the weekend.  I plan on doing a function test of the gun and the defense ammo (stacked water jugs with wet phonebooks to catch the rounds if they over-penetrate.  So that will (hopefully) be an informative post.  I look forward to doing that one.

2 comments:

  1. Nice! I have always liked my P-32, and this is like it's bigger, Desert tan, brother.

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  2. I can't wait to put it through the ringer. It sure does disappear (both visually and in weight) when you pocket it.

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