Is this what is meant by "rim lock"

[Prince Yamato]

I recently purchased a Kel-Tec P32. I noticed that when feeding Winchester Flat-nosed bullets (the only ones I tried in it) that on occasion, a bullet would fail to chamber, "lock" the slide, and force me to drop the mag and then rack the slide to get the bullet to extract. Is this what is referred to as "Rim Lock". The cure for this is to use round nosed bullets, yes?

 

[XDKingslayer]

Maybe. Rim lock is where the rim of the bullet gets caught on the extractor groove of the bullet underneath it.

Rim lock may be what is causing your problems, but only if your bullets are short and can move around in the magazine. The P32 can rim lock with some hollowpoints it appears. Are your flat nose bullets shorter in OAL than round nose?

http://www.1bad69.com/keltec/rimlock.htm

 

[wally]

Sounds like a garden variety feed failure assuming what you are ejecting when you rack the slide is a live round. It would be an extraction failure if an empty case comes out.

With rim lock you have to either disassemble the magazine (stuff flies everywhere!) or use a small screw driver in one of the witness holes to relieve the spring pressure to enable the locked rim to pass over the one its jammed behind.

--wally.

 

[R.W.Dale]

Feed your Kel-Tec 71grn round nose ammo ONLY and watch your troubles fade away into distant memory

 

[moooose102]

a rim lock is what keeps the bead of a tire from slipping on a wheel (tube type) during extreem accelleration or decelleration. usually used in high performance motorcycles.

 

[Ske1etor]

a rim lock is what keeps the bead of a tire from slipping on a wheel (tube type) during extreem accelleration or decelleration. usually used in high performance motorcycles.

The more accepted vernacular for a rim lock when used in the wheel/tire world is bead lock.

Rim Lock, in the firearms industry, is when you are shooting a magazine fed firearm that is chambered in a revolver cartridge and two cartridges become locked together because one rim "locks" onto another. Revolver cartridges have a "rim" that sticks out beyond the diameter of the casing itself so it doesn't slip forward when in the cylinder of a revolver. Most "auto" cartridges have a flush rim due to the idea that the casing is held in place by the I.D. of the barrel.

 

[KBintheSLC]

Yeah, that might not be rim lock that you experienced. Could just be a plain ol FTFeed or FTEject. Rim lock is a much more devistating failure in which merely racking the slide will not fix. Usually you have to pry out the locked round out of your mag with a screwdriver.

I never use anything but 73gr Fiocci FMJ round nose, and I have never had a failure of any kind. I would say ditch the flat ammo and try again.

 

[Claude Clay]

rim lock is in the magazine. when the rim of a lower round is forward of the round above it. then the slide may have trouble stripping the round because its rim is locked behind the lower round.
most pistol rounds are rimless for this reason. (32acp is semi-rimed). more likely to happen with box feed rifles like the mosin nagant 's and sks's. strippers tend to eliminate the problem. and this will never happen to your gun twice if you sell it after it happens the first time.

 

[gb6491]

The cure for this is to use round nosed bullets, yes?

Rim lock may be what is causing your problems, but only if your bullets are short and can move around in the magazine. The P32 can rim lock with some hollowpoints it appears. Are your flat nose bullets shorter in OAL than round nose?

Rim lock can occur with any .32 ACP ammo, but, as XDKingslayer pointed out, it is more likely to occur when the overall length of the round is short enough (ie most hollow points) that it can move around in the magazine (doesn't take much space).

The fix for this is to use the longer ball ammo (as you surmised and krochus suggests) or modify your magazines with either a kit that Kel-Tec sells or a "flyer wire".
The kit or a flyer wire will most likely preclude the use of longer FMJ rounds in your magazine (as it does in mine).
Regards,
Greg

 

[Prince Yamato]

I shoot FMJ ammo almost exclusively and the Winchester technically is FMJ, but it's flat-nosed, so it for all intents and purposes feeds like HP ammo. The misfeeds didn't happen a lot, but they happened enough that I figured it was more than just regular "break-in". (I put my first 100 rounds through the P32 this weekend). I'll load it with some standard FMJ ammo this weekend. I want to put 100 rounds through it without a failure to feed.