Adventures in .22 Magnum land with AMT, Winchester, Kel-Tec et c.

We've had a scant few of the new Kel-Tec PMR-30 .22 Magnum pistols in stock at the gun shop where I work, but they disappeared so quickly I hardly got a peek of one. It's supposed to be at long last that elusive unicorn of a semi-auto pistol, a .22 Magnum that won't jam.

I had a brief fling with an AMT AutoMag II .22WMR, the compact 4.5"-barrel version, and found out why they have a reputation as a Jam-A-Matic. That's it at the bottom of the next photo.

The other two handguns are also now departed from my fold, at left is a Steyr M357-A1 that also had a slight case of jam-itis. I have zero tolerance for pistols that are not 100% reliable. This is my life we're talking about here when it comes to carry handguns.

At right is my former S&W 1076 10mm, which I traded away for a much more carry-friendly Glock 29 10mm subcompact, which has been 100% reliable so far. The big Smith was just too ... big.

I also had a Winchester 94 lever-action .22 Magnum that I foolishly traded away years ago. It was a great shooter but alas, I was young and oh, so foolish.

Now Oleg Volk give us a peek of the Kel-Tec RMR-30, a carbine based on the PMR-30 pistol.

It's still under development, so be patient. This is going be even hotter than the PMR-30 or the RFB-18 .308 semi-auto rifle. Speaking of the latter, we've finally been able to get a few of those and keep it in stock at the gun shop. Oops, spoke too soon, out of stock again.

And I've already picked out my next carry pistol after my long-awaited Sig P239 .357 Sig compact arrives from Exeter, Mass., where it's been on special order for about a month.

It will be a .22 Magnum single-action mini-revolver from North American Arms they call the Black Widow.

Mark Walters at Guns & Patriots recently rated a NAA .22 Magnum mini at the top of his list of Top 10 Carry Pistols. And I've decided he's right.

I had a 4"-barrel NAA model called The Earl on layaway at the shop briefly before I had second thoughts. It's a neat pistol, but just a shade too long of snout for easy pocket carry.

So I took another look at the NAA models and chose the Black Widow. This will have to be a special order also as we currently have no Black Widow models in stock at the gun shop.

I want the conversion model with adjustable sights which comes with two cylinders, .22LR and .22WMR.

We've got several NAA mini-revolvers in stock at the shop but they all have either 1" barrels or 4" barrels.

As Goldlilocks said, the 2" barrel on the Black Widow is "just right," not too short, not too long. It fits in the pocket of any garment I might ever wear. Please don't even try to imagine my large posterior wearing a speedo. It would not be a pretty sight. Shudder!

Kel-Tec promises delivery of a .22 Magnum semi-auto pistol that works

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.

Flirting with .22 Magnum pistols, for fun or seriously?

I'm such a twit. When it comes to pistols I'm still a kid at heart, or more accurately a raging-hormone teenager with a head that's easily turned.

Such is the case of my latest would-be sweetheart, a Smith & Wesson 351PD AirLite .22 Magnum 7-shot Revolver with a beautiful set of wood grips.

I listed one on gunbroker today for the gun shop where I'm working and it stole my heart. Again.

It's a bit pricey, $600, but it just so happens that's there one at the shop in like-new condition that someone traded in just the other day that's priced a bit lower than that and maybe it will fit into my light-carry handgun plans.

I've been fond of .22 Magnum since Hector was a pup and I was, too. I bought a Winchester 94 .22 Magnum lever-action rifle some 30 years ago or more and like a fool I traded it away for something foolish. At least I still have the Ithaca Model 37 12 Gauge pump shotgun I got for it.

I needed a hunting shotgun at the time more than I needed a plinking rifle, or so I thought, and it must not have been a totally bad idea as I've quit hunting now but my Ithaca is enjoying a second career with a shortened 18.5" barrel as my home-defense riot gun.

I had a second fling with .22 Magnum more recently when I ran across an AMT AutoMag II semi-auto pistol in a local gunshop. I'd been wanting one for years and hadn't took seriously some tales I'd heard about the AMT's being jam-a-matics.

I bought it and then I found out how they earned that reputation. There's a good reason that .22 Magnum semi-automatic pistols aren't widely manufactured and the AMTs are exhibit no. 1. The engineering problems are hard to overcome and the one I briefly owned was not an overcomer.

The one I had was a very-hard-to-find 4" barrel model, center in the bottom photo, shown with my currently owned Steyr M357-A1 .357 Sig pistol and my formerly owned S&W 1076 10mm pistol.

I tried every type of .22 Magnum ammo I could find in that AMT AutoMag II and it didn't like any of them. Best it ever did was cycle two out of 10 shots without jamming. Not good.

I traded it back to the local dealer where I got it and moved on. But that S&W 351PD may be more than just a passing fancy. It only weighs 10.5 oz. and though it is hardly serious enough for a main carry, I think it is serious enough for a back-up carry. Since I took the job at the gun store, I've gotten very serious about carry, always toting a main and a backup piece to work.

Gun stores and cop bars are probably the two worst places in the universe to try to rob because almost everybody in both places will be armed and ready to respond vigorously. But crooks aren't rocket scientists in the first place or they wouldn't be trying to rob places. So as the military experts say, plan for what can happen, not just what you think may happen.

Or as gun writer Clint Smth puts it, one gun equals no gun if it fails, so two guns equals at least one. As another gun writer I like, Massad Ayoob puts it, I think I'll carry one semi-auto and one revolver on the theory that St. Peter will surely smile on Jeff Cooper and Bill Jordan.