So Thursday evening I impulse purchased a Kel Tec P17 .22 semiauto. $240 out the door, new.

Today I glommed a milk carton of yuck grade WalMart/Federal bulk pack. My only goal was to get 200+ rounds through it to consider it likely broken in. That I did.

1 These things weigh bugger near nothing. 10 ounces, best I recall. With an all aluminum suppressor on it, it felt quite muzzle heavy, and it's not like the can is of great weight.

2 The trigger pull is light, long and really mooshy. I think you could do decent work with it, but it would require a fair bit of practice.

3 It feels cheap. I have no illusions this is going to be good for tens of thousands of rounds, like what almost any Ruger from the Standard to the MK IV can easily do. Maybe it passes on to my heirs, or maybe it's trash by then.

4 The magazines are STIFF. Capacity is 16 rounds, but it was a struggle to get 10 rounds in them, since I had no loading tool.

5 More than 200 rounds of the blue box Federal bulk pack pack went through it today. This is pretty scungy ammo, but the little pistola had zero failures of any kind.

6 I only had the 100 yard line available to me, so no attempts at accuracy testing were tried. Anyway, I'm a crap shot these days.

7 It's easy to disassemble and clean. Reassembly is tricky the first few times, as you have to keep a recoil spring, barrel bushing, and slide extension from hanging up on the step which is the barrel's suppressor threading. By my 3rd or 4th reassembly, it wasn't a problem.

8 I ran all of it suppressed. It spits back into your face now and then. How much of this is a function of the poverty row ammo, I can't say. My much higher quality S&W SW22 "Victory" does the same thing. With Lapua.

9 No problems, ran with a can quite well, and it's affordable enough to leave in a pack. Not too bad, I'd say.

enthusiastic, spontaneous, testimonials.

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Sincerely,

Hobie

A friend of mine bought a Taurus TX22 a year back. These are the nearest competitor to the Kel Tec. Big magazine, polymer frame of ephemeral weight. In general, I think folks would consider it to be a step up from the Kel Tec P17. It retails around $60 higher. Fully adjustable rear sight, pretty good trigger.

Mike's Taurus has ended up being quite a good little pistol, but it took around 300 rounds of quality hi speed .22 to break it in. Mini Mags, I think. From round 1 'til 300 or so, it was not that reliable, with failures to feed, eject and apparently some light strikes which didn't ignite the priming.

After that, it runs like a sewing machine.

Point being, my Kel Tec never knew it was supposed to be broken in, and just worked from the very beginning.