Kel-Tec P32 review - just how small can you go?

Just how small can you go and still have a viable, reliable self defense tool. That is the question that drove me to try a small American made 32acp pistol. I have purchased a few 32acp's over the years and none of them seemed to be a solution to me. The Beretta Tomcat is an overpriced lead thrower, and I mean a lead thrower, much beyond 10 feet and the bad trigger and challenging ergo's make it a pretty, but not easy to shoot pistol. I tried the European versions of 32acp's , CZ 70, CZ50, and a PEG all have a similar design , long gritty triggers , overweight for the task and not that great for anyone who isn't very familiar with pistol shooting and has time to really practice. Of course the blowback design of those versus the locked breach of the Kel-Tec is worth considering. They are all reliable , except for the used/surplus magazines.

My other metric for choosing the Kel-Tec is , I need my small caliber pistols to be easy to shoot for older kids, and ladies with small hands. I like to step up in size when training new shooters. We start with air soft, then BB, then 22LR, then move to centerfire pistols. This 32 makes a nice first step up, followed by 380 and so on. I had reservations about purchasing a Kel-Tec (note the Sub 2000 debacle that Texheim shared a few years ago, and the recent recall I posted up a few minutes ago) as well as lots of internet complaints in general. But the reviews for the P32 mostly are good. So when Sportsmans guide put them on sale for $169 I jumped.

The first thing you should do is put a dab of white paint on the front sight, and get mag extensions. The combination of those two upgrades make this little wonder a decent range toy, and would help if ever used for self defense. I won't go into the debate about the usefulness of the 32acp round, better than a short stick for sure. It's performance today on my range was encouraging enough , that I would carry it in certain circumstances as a backup.

This is how the P32 looked after 50 rounds of Fiocchi range ammo. Everything cleaned up nicely except the bore, that took what I would consider more work than it should have, Fiocchi ammo is kinda dirty so I will blame the ammo. So lets go over the specs:Unloaded weight is 6.6 oz's, loaded with 7 rounds of 73 grn ammo 10.1 oz's. Length is 5.1", height is 3.5", width is .75". The barrel is 2.7" long, and the stated trigger pull should have been 5lbs per their web page. I am not sure what Kel-Tec is thinking here, but after 50 rounds I measure the trigger pull average at 6.5 lbs. There is a 3/4 inch long smooth pull until you hit a spongy wall, but a good break. The reset is all the way out, but not hard to learn how to use it. I did not short stroke the trigger today.