these sort of adds is how urban myths are formed.. its like the “training aid” for dry fire practice that has you racking the slide after every “shot”…we in the real world know about the rule of 3- the 3 S rule…
The gun is interesting from a design standpoint. But there are other guns - including one in 5.7x28 - with rotating barrels. And while 20 rounds is a lot of "stop that!" I would prefer a replaceable magazine personally. So, shockingly to people who know me, I don't have a lot of interest in this one. (Also ... no room in the safe, Mrs B's comments regarding "one more gun" have become a LOT more specific, etc.)
Re your actual point, Miguel. One reason to train with friends you trust, and to use things like The Drill Index (https://drillindex.net) card deck, is to keep things mixed up and maintain mental flexibility.
I always wonder about marketing material with messed up grammar; it makes the company look like it's not serious.
Odd they would say it has no magazine, rather than the correct statement which is that it has a fixed magazine. Of course, stripper loaded fixed magazines have been around for way over a century (the other day I was looking at a Dutch stripper-loaded rifle from 1873).
A rotating barrel action has been around for a while. They claim it makes a dramatic difference in weight. I wonder why they would say that, it doesn't seem plausible.
FWIW, an interesting handgun design featuring a rotating barrel action that actually is significantly different is the Boberg XR-9, now made by Bond Arms. I'm not sure the rotating action aspect is the key difference, though; instead, I would point to the fact that it manages to have a barrel about an inch longer than any other handgun of the same overall size. And that directly affects recoil.
I find the Boberg design fascinating. Pulling a round out of the magazine backwards, lifting it up to align with the barrel, and then driving it forward into the chamber; basically mimicking a tube-magazine-fed shotgun in a magazine-fed 9mm handgun. And that action allows for a barrel that is a full inch longer in the same size gun, or the same size barrel in a "micro-9" sized package.
Sadly I've never seen a Boberg "in the wild" -- not at the range, not in any nearby shops. I'd really like to handle one and, if possible, run a magazine or two through it to see if it's all it's cracked up to be.
I have two, the XR9 and the XR45. Part of why you don't see many is that they were rather expensive.
The XR9 works very well for me. There's a known sensitivity to certain ammo types, because the bullet crimp has to be secure or the bullet will pull out when a new round is chambered. So I have a list of known-good ammo, and a (much shorter) list of questionable or known-problematic ammo. Most of what I bought at local stores works fine; Blazer was the main exception.
Felt recoil is very civilized considering the small size; I have run +P ammo through it without trouble. Contrast with my short-barrel 38/357 revolver, where feeding it 357 ammo is definitely painful and not something I like doing more than once in a blue moon.
The XR45 is, unfortunately, a different matter. It too is very comfortable to shoot, but it misfeeds too often. I suspect the reason is the magazine design, and I've tried to modify the magazine but the particular tweaks I've tried don't help. The issue is that the magazine has to hold the case to position it correctly for the tongs that extract the round from the top of the magazine. In the XR9, that's done by ridges in the magazine that position the case mouth. For the XR45, Arne wanted to allow the same gun to feed .45 Super as well as .45 ACP, and those rounds have different case lengths. So in that magazine there is a fold in the metal that engages the groove at the case bottom. The trouble is that this doesn't extend all the way to the top case -- it can't because that case has to be extracted backwards. So the top case tends to move forward, resulting either in failure to feed or stovepipe malfunction at an excessive rate. As in 5% or so, which is clearly too much.
I expect that abandoning the .45 Super support, which was never actually officially approved, though it seemed to work in factory tests, and using the XR9 style magazine design would work. I may try to modify an XR45 mag to look like that, but that's tricky to do. I keep hoping that Bond Arms will revive the XR45 just as they did the XR9, but to date they have not done so and I haven't heard that they plan to. It would make a very nice pocket .45, good for people like Jeff Cooper who don't think a 9 mm is good enough.
When the fecal matter hits the rotational air movement device, it will happen in a situation where you are, by definition, NOT prepared for it. That guy that attacks you will not look like the person you are prepared for. Know why? Because you are already watching for "that guy." And, he can tell you are.
As to the number of shots, personally, I am not going to build my EDC rig based on "average." I do not care that most encounters are 3/3/3 rule compliant. If you train for the outlier, you cover that base. Train only for that basic standard, you lose.
Finally, I will not knock KelTec, but this top load design is the opposite of useful for self defense. It is not even useful for range training. There is no way anyone will be able to load that firearm as quickly as a mag swap. And, in order for this to be a quick load, it will require the mag to be empty and the slide locked back. If I am in a fire fight, and I get the chance to swap to a full mag after I shoot a half dozen rounds, piece of cake, drop the partially expended mag, slam in a new one. Oh... but wait... i have a top loading mag... crap... I have to wait until I am out before it becomes easy to top up.
RE: the top-loading: I wonder if someone at Kel-Tec knows something. California banned long guns with detachable magazines, and one of the innovations to get around that was a stripper clip designed to load a bunch of 5.56mm rounds into a "fixed magazine" (under the legal definition that you have to open the action to change the magazine) through the ejection port. This feature almost seems built in anticipation of California doing something stupid, like mandating the same "fixed magazines only" or "need a tool to change a magazine" crap with handguns. The 20-round capacity kinda supports that theory: if reloads will take a minute, you want to have a bunch in the gun before you have to reload.
But the ad, as others have pointed out, doesn't fit the gun's specs. This is NOT a gun designed for the so-called "Rule of 3s": 5.7x28mm is a flat-shooting, high-velocity round that excels at distance; an optic-ready slide shouldn't be necessary at point-blank or instinct-shooting ranges; and 20 rounds is MUCH more than three and even shooting fast, normal people (read: people who are not Jerry Miculek) would struggle to use them all in three seconds.
It's an interesting gun, like a lot of Kel-Tec's designs. But the marketing video's message makes very little sense.
(You'll have to forgive me for providing a link to an OBVIOUSLY biased "news" source. So many parroted opinions stated as undeniable fact....)
A few pull quotes:
- "The new bill spearheaded by Democrats is aimed at building upon existing gun laws by prohibiting the sale, manufacture or purchase of semiautomatic weapons that use detachable magazines."
- "Those types of firearms could still be sold under his bill, albeit in different form: If manufacturers and gun owners want to continue selling and using the weapons, Sullivan said, they would need to adjust to firearms that can only be loaded slowly, bullet by bullet, from the top of the weapon — not through detachable magazines."
- "'Realistically, you might as well try to ban these firearms,' [Rocky Mountain Gun Owners executive director Ian Escalante] said, referring to Sullivan’s bill as a de facto ban on the weapons. 'All manufacturers are going to have to remanufacture these firearms and make them with fixed magazines. I don’t know how that would work.'"
Apparently Kel-Tec figured out how that would work.
---------
* - Okay, Colorado, not California. And the bill supposedly does not target "standard handguns or shotguns", whatever that means. Nevertheless....
"average" gunfight? Well, so far as I know (which, admittedly, is not a lot), your Mark I, Mod Zero gun owner/gun carrier will not even BE in a gunfight.
Thank Ghod.
So, if I am indeed in a gunfight that I could not evade or other wise avoid, the odds are so miserable, my luck that day is so butt ugly, the Patron Saint Of Shitty Outcomes had selected me as Today's Special, that having several mag reloads strikes me as underplanning.
As Col Cooper is reputed to have said, asked what gun he would want to go to a gunfight with, "If I know I'm going to a gunfight, I'm not going. If I cannot avoid a gunfight, I want a rifle and several additional magazines. And a lot of friends who all have rifles." (I may have misquoted)
Design is interesting, but suffers from a lot of KelTec's emphasis on sci-fi styling. I've a Palmetto State 5.7 which holds more rounds, albeit is a heavier pistol. It's pleasant, but the price on 5.7 doesn't make me comfortable for EDC (it's far cheaper to hit a range once a week on 9mm)
Train for awareness. Get ahead of the game. SEE trouble brewinig, SEE people's body language, SEE how to avoid them or that you'll have to act BEFORE you have to act.
If you are ahead of the game, you won't have to rely on luck or fast reactions.
these sort of adds is how urban myths are formed.. its like the “training aid” for dry fire practice that has you racking the slide after every “shot”…we in the real world know about the rule of 3- the 3 S rule…
The gun is interesting from a design standpoint. But there are other guns - including one in 5.7x28 - with rotating barrels. And while 20 rounds is a lot of "stop that!" I would prefer a replaceable magazine personally. So, shockingly to people who know me, I don't have a lot of interest in this one. (Also ... no room in the safe, Mrs B's comments regarding "one more gun" have become a LOT more specific, etc.)
Re your actual point, Miguel. One reason to train with friends you trust, and to use things like The Drill Index (https://drillindex.net) card deck, is to keep things mixed up and maintain mental flexibility.
3 shots? 3 yards? I thought one Advantage of the 5.7x28 was how flat it shoots over distance.
I like (and carry) KelTec products. The innovation is interesting, the ad leaves open questions.
I always wonder about marketing material with messed up grammar; it makes the company look like it's not serious.
Odd they would say it has no magazine, rather than the correct statement which is that it has a fixed magazine. Of course, stripper loaded fixed magazines have been around for way over a century (the other day I was looking at a Dutch stripper-loaded rifle from 1873).
A rotating barrel action has been around for a while. They claim it makes a dramatic difference in weight. I wonder why they would say that, it doesn't seem plausible.
FWIW, an interesting handgun design featuring a rotating barrel action that actually is significantly different is the Boberg XR-9, now made by Bond Arms. I'm not sure the rotating action aspect is the key difference, though; instead, I would point to the fact that it manages to have a barrel about an inch longer than any other handgun of the same overall size. And that directly affects recoil.
I find the Boberg design fascinating. Pulling a round out of the magazine backwards, lifting it up to align with the barrel, and then driving it forward into the chamber; basically mimicking a tube-magazine-fed shotgun in a magazine-fed 9mm handgun. And that action allows for a barrel that is a full inch longer in the same size gun, or the same size barrel in a "micro-9" sized package.
Sadly I've never seen a Boberg "in the wild" -- not at the range, not in any nearby shops. I'd really like to handle one and, if possible, run a magazine or two through it to see if it's all it's cracked up to be.
I have two, the XR9 and the XR45. Part of why you don't see many is that they were rather expensive.
The XR9 works very well for me. There's a known sensitivity to certain ammo types, because the bullet crimp has to be secure or the bullet will pull out when a new round is chambered. So I have a list of known-good ammo, and a (much shorter) list of questionable or known-problematic ammo. Most of what I bought at local stores works fine; Blazer was the main exception.
Felt recoil is very civilized considering the small size; I have run +P ammo through it without trouble. Contrast with my short-barrel 38/357 revolver, where feeding it 357 ammo is definitely painful and not something I like doing more than once in a blue moon.
The XR45 is, unfortunately, a different matter. It too is very comfortable to shoot, but it misfeeds too often. I suspect the reason is the magazine design, and I've tried to modify the magazine but the particular tweaks I've tried don't help. The issue is that the magazine has to hold the case to position it correctly for the tongs that extract the round from the top of the magazine. In the XR9, that's done by ridges in the magazine that position the case mouth. For the XR45, Arne wanted to allow the same gun to feed .45 Super as well as .45 ACP, and those rounds have different case lengths. So in that magazine there is a fold in the metal that engages the groove at the case bottom. The trouble is that this doesn't extend all the way to the top case -- it can't because that case has to be extracted backwards. So the top case tends to move forward, resulting either in failure to feed or stovepipe malfunction at an excessive rate. As in 5% or so, which is clearly too much.
I expect that abandoning the .45 Super support, which was never actually officially approved, though it seemed to work in factory tests, and using the XR9 style magazine design would work. I may try to modify an XR45 mag to look like that, but that's tricky to do. I keep hoping that Bond Arms will revive the XR45 just as they did the XR9, but to date they have not done so and I haven't heard that they plan to. It would make a very nice pocket .45, good for people like Jeff Cooper who don't think a 9 mm is good enough.
Absolutely correct. No doubt about it.
When the fecal matter hits the rotational air movement device, it will happen in a situation where you are, by definition, NOT prepared for it. That guy that attacks you will not look like the person you are prepared for. Know why? Because you are already watching for "that guy." And, he can tell you are.
As to the number of shots, personally, I am not going to build my EDC rig based on "average." I do not care that most encounters are 3/3/3 rule compliant. If you train for the outlier, you cover that base. Train only for that basic standard, you lose.
Finally, I will not knock KelTec, but this top load design is the opposite of useful for self defense. It is not even useful for range training. There is no way anyone will be able to load that firearm as quickly as a mag swap. And, in order for this to be a quick load, it will require the mag to be empty and the slide locked back. If I am in a fire fight, and I get the chance to swap to a full mag after I shoot a half dozen rounds, piece of cake, drop the partially expended mag, slam in a new one. Oh... but wait... i have a top loading mag... crap... I have to wait until I am out before it becomes easy to top up.
RE: the top-loading: I wonder if someone at Kel-Tec knows something. California banned long guns with detachable magazines, and one of the innovations to get around that was a stripper clip designed to load a bunch of 5.56mm rounds into a "fixed magazine" (under the legal definition that you have to open the action to change the magazine) through the ejection port. This feature almost seems built in anticipation of California doing something stupid, like mandating the same "fixed magazines only" or "need a tool to change a magazine" crap with handguns. The 20-round capacity kinda supports that theory: if reloads will take a minute, you want to have a bunch in the gun before you have to reload.
But the ad, as others have pointed out, doesn't fit the gun's specs. This is NOT a gun designed for the so-called "Rule of 3s": 5.7x28mm is a flat-shooting, high-velocity round that excels at distance; an optic-ready slide shouldn't be necessary at point-blank or instinct-shooting ranges; and 20 rounds is MUCH more than three and even shooting fast, normal people (read: people who are not Jerry Miculek) would struggle to use them all in three seconds.
It's an interesting gun, like a lot of Kel-Tec's designs. But the marketing video's message makes very little sense.
Called it!*
https://www.denverpost.com/2025/01/03/colorado-legislature-gun-control-tom-sullivan-assault-weapons-ban-strategy/
(You'll have to forgive me for providing a link to an OBVIOUSLY biased "news" source. So many parroted opinions stated as undeniable fact....)
A few pull quotes:
- "The new bill spearheaded by Democrats is aimed at building upon existing gun laws by prohibiting the sale, manufacture or purchase of semiautomatic weapons that use detachable magazines."
- "Those types of firearms could still be sold under his bill, albeit in different form: If manufacturers and gun owners want to continue selling and using the weapons, Sullivan said, they would need to adjust to firearms that can only be loaded slowly, bullet by bullet, from the top of the weapon — not through detachable magazines."
- "'Realistically, you might as well try to ban these firearms,' [Rocky Mountain Gun Owners executive director Ian Escalante] said, referring to Sullivan’s bill as a de facto ban on the weapons. 'All manufacturers are going to have to remanufacture these firearms and make them with fixed magazines. I don’t know how that would work.'"
Apparently Kel-Tec figured out how that would work.
---------
* - Okay, Colorado, not California. And the bill supposedly does not target "standard handguns or shotguns", whatever that means. Nevertheless....
"average" gunfight? Well, so far as I know (which, admittedly, is not a lot), your Mark I, Mod Zero gun owner/gun carrier will not even BE in a gunfight.
Thank Ghod.
So, if I am indeed in a gunfight that I could not evade or other wise avoid, the odds are so miserable, my luck that day is so butt ugly, the Patron Saint Of Shitty Outcomes had selected me as Today's Special, that having several mag reloads strikes me as underplanning.
As Col Cooper is reputed to have said, asked what gun he would want to go to a gunfight with, "If I know I'm going to a gunfight, I'm not going. If I cannot avoid a gunfight, I want a rifle and several additional magazines. And a lot of friends who all have rifles." (I may have misquoted)
Design is interesting, but suffers from a lot of KelTec's emphasis on sci-fi styling. I've a Palmetto State 5.7 which holds more rounds, albeit is a heavier pistol. It's pleasant, but the price on 5.7 doesn't make me comfortable for EDC (it's far cheaper to hit a range once a week on 9mm)
Train for awareness. Get ahead of the game. SEE trouble brewinig, SEE people's body language, SEE how to avoid them or that you'll have to act BEFORE you have to act.
If you are ahead of the game, you won't have to rely on luck or fast reactions.