Bought a New Kel-Tec P17

[Daekar]

I have been wanting one of these since I first saw them. 16+1 capacity, light weight, thin cross section, threaded fixed barrel, 3 mags from the factory, adjustable sights with fiber optic front, all for $200. What's not to like?

Well, to be fair they're a bit on the homely side, especially compared to a real looker like a Ruger MKIII Hunter or a classic Smith. That's not really a deal breaker though, because it will spend most of its time in the safe or under my shirt.

So after a shockingly fast approval by the state police, I brought one home today. Nice case, three mags, threaded muzzle adapter and thread protector for when you're not rocking a can, an Allen wrench and a tool for the thread protector.

I loaded the first mag, which took some effort after the first 10 rounds, and proceeded to experience one failure to feed after another. Literally, like the gun refused to strip a round from the magazine until there were at most 7 or 8 rounds in it. I got through them by pushing the slide forward until it freed the round from the mag lips, at which time the feed ramp and everything worked fine. Accuracy was great right out of the box with sights unadjusted for the variety of loads I used or my tendency to pull shots left. Trigger was odd feeling but light and easy to get used to. I love the mag release style and ambidextrous safety, as a lefty those things are critical.

The failures to feed continued for as long as I had patience to load magazines. From what I can tell, the mag springs are very very stiff from the factory, and need to be worked, and according the internet hive mind this can be done by loading and unloading the mags repeatedly, and by leaving them loaded. I had enough time this evening to do that to one magazine enough that it is significantly better, and noticeably easier to load compared to the other two. We will see over the next week or so if they can be brought to a reliable condition or if I have to resort to a refund... this thing is no good if I can't trust it. I am sure that Sig will be happy to sell me a P322 for $500 if things don't work out.

Still, I hope they do. Everything else about the user experience has been good, and I was shocked at how often I was hitting the gong at 50 yards offhand without having dialed in the sights.

[rond]

I've had mine for around six months and the only problem I had was with the Federal bulk ammo not cycling the action. Other brands work great.

[recumbent]

You have to read the manual and load the magazine just like the manual says.

[lawdog941]

Something I found on the internet (shocking), take apart the mags, spray with graphite on springs and inside mag. It helped on my PMR30 until it broke in. Although messy. Can't remember the spray graphite that I used, dried almost instantly. Also, just bc it says it will hold 16, doesn't necessarily mean it will function well. My mags held 30 very tightly. Found that reducing the rounds helped reduce feeding issues.

[Daekar]

I called KelTec today and they immediately offered me a shipping label to return the gun to them for service. Hopefully they can turn it around quickly once they figure out the issue.

As far as not loading the mags all the way, I feel like that's an unacceptable solution. If they can't handle 16, they are falsely advertising their product.

I will look at the manual again and see if I was somehow loading it wrong.

EDIT: Checked the manual, and while it has specific loading instructions, they don't say anything that anyone on this board wouldn't know automatically just by looking at the area around the feed lips. There really is only one way to load the thing, I can't imagine how you would even screw up badly enough to cause rim-lock.

EDIT: 7/11/2022: Received a shipping label in my email this morning, so there might've been a delay because of the weekend. I'll let everyone know how things turn out.

EDIT: 7/15/2022: Received notification that a work order has been created at KelTec for my pistol.

EDIT: 7/26/2022: Received notification that work on the pistol has been completed at KelTec, and that shipping information is forthcoming.

EDIT: 7/27/2022: Received notification that the pistol has been shipped via FedEx. Expected to arrive by Friday at 8pm.

[Daekar]

The P17 just arrived back!

According to the service notes from Kel-Tec, they updated the mag catch with the newest revision and polished the feed ramp. It passed their testing with CCI Minimags.

I verified that the feed ramp appears to be polished, and started loading magazines with the cheapest bulk ammo I have. I immediately noticed a difference in the effort required to load the mags, they felt very different. My wife would have lacked the hand strength to load them anywhere near max capacity before, but it's possible she might be able to do it now. The rounds chambered smoothly exactly like they were supposed to on all three magazines, and all three functioned flawlessly from first to last cartridge. More testing is required with other brands of ammo to be sure, but I am going to tenatively say that my gun is working as intended. And it's still a tack driver, the accuracy is great. If there's a difference between my wife's Ruger MK III Hunter and this gun, a gnat would starve on it. Pretty darn good for a gun that cost 25% as much, is much lighter, holds more ammo, is concealable, is fit for suppressor use, and doesn't require me to say 6 Hail Marys to disassemble.

I think the takeaway from my experience is more or less a confirmation of the stereotypical Kel-Tec expectations. Unbeatable price, good functionality, possible quality issues, good service. The timestamps on the service notification emails I got leads me to believe that they knew what the problem likely was and went straight to that solution based on past experience, it took 15 minutes for them to complete the service and testing. It was totally worth the little bit of wait and trouble to save $300+ when compared to a Sig P322, for instance.

Now... to find a AIWB holster for this puppy.