Kel Tec P32 or P380?

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kel tec P32 or the Kel tec P3AT

I have bouth do to some test I was running on ammo, I strongly recomend Kel tec P32, Carry it with the 32 acp FMJ remington realy has better balistic compared to the 380 acp, plus its more plesant in the shooting range, rnds cost about the same. At the end the decision is youres.
 
I owned a P3AT and have had personal experience with an associate's P32. My P3AT, as well as two other associate's P3ATs have never failed to jam and none of us take care of them. At all. The P32 is taken care of significantly better, but still hasn't jammed. So my personal experience: Kel-Tecs are reliable little sons of fill-in-the-blanks.

As for the bite, the P3AT is significantly more but not too much to handle. Especially in a self defense scenario! I'd rather have a .380 than a .32, because my understanding is that a .380 has the same ballistics in a person as a 9mm at close range (correct me if this is wrong). The .32 is fine and better than nothing, but the P3AT isn't too much bigger in size or in bite not to go for the better caliber.

As for the .380 holding one less round, neither one is gonna exactly be a one-shot stop and neither pistol is accurate enough to take on 7 assailants, either. It's good for one or two perps mugging you and you'll wanna empty the whole thing into their chests when you do so. If you want something more accurate with enough rounds to take on a gang then get a Glock 26 and don't even consider a Kel-Tec. You'd probably stand better with a small, high-capacity .22LR in that circumstance if a 9mm is too big.

Anyone know much about the single stack 9mm Kel-Tec is coming out with soon?

But in short, I love Kel-Tecs and especially the P3ATs. Whenever I'd go downtown I'd have it in my front coat pocket with my hands right around it, out of sight. If anyone wanted to assault me I'd have lit them up and they'd never see it coming. I know an undercover cop that did that with a Beretta .22LR during a drug bust gone bad and shot it through his jacket at point blank range into the guys crotch and it ricocheted up and bounced around inside his ribcage and made swiss cheese out of the poor chaps heart. Don't underestimate a .22LR. They are small enough to penetrate and bounce around. The .32 expands enough to get caught but doesnt do as much, whereas the .380 is big enough it makes a more dangerous wound cavity.

I have no statistics on this, just word from police officers with first hand experience, but please correct this if someone has numbers... Thanks!

TRL
 
If you want something more accurate with enough rounds to take on a gang then get a Glock 26 and don't even consider a Kel-Tec. You'd probably stand better with a small, high-capacity .22LR in that circumstance if a 9mm is too big.
Click to expand...

Are there pocket 22cal pistols that have more than 7 or 8 round magazines and how do you compare the reliability of a "rimfire" round with the reliability of a "centerfire" round?

By the way, I carry my P-3AT with a seven round magazine and one in the chamber and I'll take that over 7 or 8 rounds of 22cal anytime.
 
P3at vs. p32

P32 is a beter performer in rapid shooting test do to a lower recoil, They are bouth great well made pistols, they bouth perform some what diferent ballisticly spiking, but they are great consilable gund un equal to others the best out there in its class. The choice is youres.
 
40jjb said:
I strongly recomend Kel tec P32, Carry it with the 32 acp FMJ remington realy has better balistic compared to the 380 acp...
Click to expand...

Huh? The .380 has the advantage:

.32ACP -> Remington 71gr FMJ 784fps/92fpe out of a P-32
.380ACP -> Remington/UMC 95gr FMJ 874fps/162fpe out of a P-3AT

:scrutiny:

edited to add: More .380ACP numbers: CorBon DPX 80gr SHP 1013fps/182fpe, and CorBon Traditional 90gr JHP 983fps/193fpe out of a P-3AT. Larger diameter, heavier bullets traveling faster...
 
I have done a little looking around the "stoppingpower.net" message board for information on 32acp vs 380acp performance.

When they gelatin test, they use 4 layers of denim infront of calibrated gelatin.

They fire 5 rounds of each specific cartridge to come up with an average.

Seems that that in their tests, the 32acp was a pretty weak performer next to the 380acp round!
 
I have the 2nd gen P32. I carry it OFTEN. I never feel unsafe. FWIW, I can always hit clay birds at the 25 yrd berm with mine using Fiochi fmjs. Call BS all you want to on me for that statement but it is true. Enough to give a BG a headache.
 
Got my P3AT on Friday. Did a minor F&B Friday night. Put 75 rnds thru it yesterday and another 100 rnds thru it today. No trouble shooting S&B 92gr fmj or Independence 90gr fmj. But had some FTF hangups with Brown Bear (Russian) 92gr fmj. The first one or two rnds of the BB hungup when being stripped from the clip. Had to give the slide a little push with my thumb to chamber the rnd. I suspect that it is the ammo and not the gun since the other brands had no issues. I guess that's why the BB ammo is so much cheaper.

Actually, the BB ammo did the same thing in my Walther PPK/S and I've never had this trouble with the Walther in the past 23 years.

I don't think that I will shoot the Kel-Tec P3AT more than 50 rnds at a time because it just ain't that much fun. It has been fairly accurate my first 2 outings. I shot it at 7 yards using paper plates as targets. I believe that this will be a pretty good CCW pistol.
 
Your P-3AT will probably not work well/at all with steel cased-ammo. Stick to brass, and avoid Amerc and MagSafe. WWB doesn't work well on some guns either, especially First Generation ones.
 
32acp

Pocketgun have you shoot through media like pork ribbs and pork shoulder with jeans in front all attached to see the results, It will be very diferent than reported from jellatin test. 380 acp did crack the bone on the pork shoulder bouncing off it not penetrating it, 32 acp penetrated the bone and continiue, this translate reching vital organs even if there is bone struture. Just do some test if you can and share with me youre observations.
 
What exactly does shooting a bunch of pork tell me about (terminal) ballistics? Your .32 happened to penetrate when your .380 did not? Your test is not scientific and not repeatable. While an actual shooting isn't very scientific either, I don't see how you can make the leap from shooting some pork to concluding that the .32ACP will perform better on a human being. You just cannot make an accurate comparison of performance when you are using a test media that is effectively different depending on the exact location of each shot.

In any event, the .380ACP is certainly superior in terms of in-air ballistics to the .32ACP, specifically to the Remington round you cited.
 
32acp

You are right no test is acurate, Wether its Jellatin, Pork, Live animals, Metal medias, any kind of media used is repetable but not exact, is a estamit, Unsertanty, unless you use a live human subject and conduct test you will never now. My test were just for fun, knolydge and informatio, I came to the conclution for my satisfaction, No THE TEST WERE NOT SCIENTIFIC AT ALL! But an eye opener. I am glad you feel so strong about the 380acp, I feel good and strong about the 32acp, This is why is great to LIVE IN THE USA we have freedom of choice. Great pocketgun I would not like to be shot with a 32acp or a 380acp, By the way I have been shot 2 time one with a Markarov German round and the other with a walther PPK 380 acp, One was an asoult , the other was teaching a friend how to shoot, Bouth at close range less than 3 feet away, Place of impact first big ribb from the bottom up of the right side Thanks to GOD Round bounced off recoshade off the ribb not penetrating my skin but cousing a foot long scratch , it followed my shert from right to left made a nice hole on the left side of my shert. All shootings are not the same but I am a Surviver and I speek by experience. By the way It was steel painfull and man I had a black and blue for a long time!!!!!!!!
 
You are lucky to be alive!

It is not that I "feel strongly" about .380ACP, I just think it has better numbers than .32ACP, even if it isn't a large difference.
 
The Sellier and Bellot 73 grain 32acp ball gives 177 fpe, while the fiocchi 73 grain 32 ball gives 168 fpe in 32acp guise. Not much difference in those numbers and the 380's energy dumps given by others, seems to me:D

I've got S+B 73 grain ball loaded in two of my p32's. They penetrate 12-14 inches with ball, and I don't believe anyone is going to stand up to 4 of them as fast as I can pull the trigger. Oh, before I forget, I can pull the trigger faster with better accuracy [ less recoil ] with the 32acp over the 380 Keltecs to boot.;)

I don't want jhp's in these mouse guns. I want penetration first as that can be expected from the rounds "ball" design specifically with the S+B and Fiocchi fodder. No question on adequate penetration of either loading.

Jhp's will not get deep enough and likely will not expand to begin with, so why use them at all. If they were to expand, you'll be getting less penetration, and that is a bad thing.

Go with what you know on the mouse rounds, ball ammo, and specifically the hotter/heavier ball ammo from european makers like S+B and Fiocchi.

Brownie
 
The numbers I have for S&B 73gr FMJ out of a P-32 are 135fpe, and 120fpe for the Fiocchi 73gr FMJ. If you are going to compare ammo, barrel length is everything, at least when it comes to pocket pistols. The S&B is about as hot as you can get in .32ACP ball. The hottest non-expanding .380ACP I have seen is the increasingly-rare Santa Barbara de Toledo 88gr FNEB which managed 194fpe from a P-3AT. So that means that the hottest conventional stuff in each comes out with .380ACP having nearly 44% more energy, if energy is what you are after.
 
I don't go for energy, I go for penetration. The faster the bulllet moves in ball, the more penetration you get. With the 32acp, thats 12-14 inches, and enough to get to vital organs.

A 380 hp would be hard pressed to get that deep which most will carry in these guns, to the detriment of penetration and hitting vitals reliably.

If I were interested in expansion for the mouse guns, I'd go with hp's in either caliber, but no one is guaranteed expansion in any caliber reliably on the street, so a reliably penetrating round is in order for the mousers, and in that case, either is fine, but the 32 is easier to shoot with less recoil resulting in more rds in tighter groupings.

Brownie
 
I have heard the penetration argument, but I don't think it translates well in pocket pistols. I am working on an explanation of why, and will eventually post it elsewhere for your consideration. :)

BTW, the 177fpe for the S&B is out of a 3.94" barrel per their 2006 catalog; P-32 has a 2.68" barrel, hence the disparity.
 
It may/may not convince you to change. Then again, your counter argument may change my opinion as well. Every edge I can get with a little pistol I want. ;)
 
A 380 hp would be hard pressed to get that deep which most will carry in these guns, to the detriment of penetration and hitting vitals reliably
Click to expand...

That would be incorrect.

In the 380 gelatin tests done by the stoppingpower.net group, the 380 rounds that did not expand went completely through 16" gelatin blocks!

Matter of fact, on one of those real life police shows on tv, The police were investigating a death where the victim had been shot with a 380.

The round went completely through the guy, the back of his seat in his car, through the back seat and was found in the trunk!

The police investigator was surprised and said he did not realize that a 380 round would penetrate that deep.
 
380acp reply

So let me see a 380acp rd whent from the chest of the victim, through the back of his seet, through the back seet and in the trunk, I bet it was a FMJ, also not totatly prdictable how rnd are going to work each time, So Did the round come through the windshield to , I meen if the victim got shot in the front seet the round or trajectory had to be coming strait at him from the widshield, Weach then it might not have been a 380 acp, it might have been a FMJ 9mm. By the way I'm in The USA.
 
The shot was fired from inside of the car.

It turned out, it was a suicide and the victim still had the pistol in his hand.

By the way, I could clearly see that the pistol was a Bersa.

I thought it was strange that he shot himself in the chest!

Usually a person commiting suicide will shoot themselves in the head.
 
If you want to see a real test of .380 penetration, check out theboxoftruth website.
 
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