I've long had a weakness for .22 Magnums or to be more technically specific, .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire.
Many years ago I had the good sense to buy a Winchester Model 94 .22 Magnum lever-action rifle which is now long out of production. Then I had the stupidity to trade it for a shotgun which I needed for hunting. I quit hunting long ago and converted the Ithaca Model 37 12 Ga. pump I got for the Winchester 94 into a home-defense gun by shortening the barrel to 18.25". But like the few other guns I've sold or traded, with few exceptions I wish I had held onto them.
One of those few exceptions was an AMT AutoMag II .22WMR semi-auto pistol, a rare model with 4" barrel. I found out the hard way why the AMTs have a reputation as a "jam-a-matic."
I tried every .22WMR load I could find and none of them would feed at all in that AMT so I took it back to the dealer and traded it in on something else. So far as I know to this point, no manufacturer has built a .22WMR semi-auto pistol that will reliably work, which is to most of us gun nutz sort of a basic requirement for a pistol. If it won't shoot reliably, it ain't worth squat.
But now Kel-Tec, a Florida manufacturer of small semi-auto pistols from .32 ACP to 9mm, has announced they have solved the engineering problems and will soon offer a .22 WMR pistol that will reliably work with a wide variety of different velocity ammo.
I've got a Kel-Tec PF-9 which is quite reliable and I carry it often as a pocket pistol and even occasionally as a backup pistol. If the new Kel-Tec PMR-30 proves to be what they promise, then I shall certainly get one when it becomes available.
It sounds like a great pistol, fiber-optic sights front and rear for these aging eyes, 30 rounds of .22WMR in the magazine, what's not to like? If it works, I'm going to be all over.
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