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On Saturday I sold my S&W Sigma for a whopping $225.00 to a pawn shop in Mckinney which is great because I paid only $200.00 after tax for it used a month earlier at Bullet Trap in Plano. I bought a "Nib" Keltec P3AT, O.D. parkerized and 2 magazines for $279.00, fairly good price. I've heard of some real bad break in problems on KTOG has any one here had these issues with their's during break in. This gun is so light "loaded" you can carry it in your underwear around the house and it won't pull them down. It's sad the Sigma turned out to be kind of a loser in the real world, it fit really nice in my hand but the trigger was awful.

I would not trust a Kel-Tec as my primary. I know that some have a very high opinon of the little guns, but my experience did not leave me with a love for them. I shot the little 9mm and I am still a bit shell shocked from it.

My P3AT is my "always" gun but is is carried as a "get off of me I hate you!" gun. The .380 is just too low powered and the KelTec platform is just too small for a good warm and fuzzy feeling at ranges beyond 3-5 yards.

Underwear gun? Remind me not to share with you

Due to my job, Carying my P99 is not a good idea. In and out of cars all day. So I got a P3AT for when Im at work. Then I put the NAA finger extension and a ArmaLaser on it.

Now I find myself carying the P3AT more than my P99. I have never had a issue out of it.

Many people hate the P3AT, I on the other hand am 100% pleased with it.

I like the P3AT for its size and concealment factor. Mine, so far, is way to unreliable to carry as a BUG or CCW. It is currently at Kel Tec for the second time to see if they can fix the problems. (FTE mainly and some FTF)

Any other gun with these reliability problems would be long gone, it is just so perfect size wise as a BUG that I have been unwilling to give up on it. All I have heard about Kel Tec's service department indicates that eventually they will get it right, sure hope so as patience is wearing thin.

Currently I am using a S & W 637 as a BUG - great reliability, great gun, but a lot less concealable.

By the way I was suprised (in a positive way) at the accuracy of the P3AT even out to 15 yds.

Dave B.

Yes bauerdj, EVENTUALLY is the operative word. Several of us have had the same experience. Accuracy for the 1.75 barrel is very accurate. The only BUG that small I consider more accurate is the Baretta Tomcat. It is utterly reliable out of the box. Trigger ain't quite IDPA quality though.

bauerdj wrote:I like the P3AT for its size and concealment factor. Mine, so far, is way to unreliable to carry as a BUG or CCW. It is currently at Kel Tec for the second time to see if they can fix the problems. (FTE mainly and some FTF)

Any other gun with these reliability problems would be long gone, it is just so perfect size wise as a BUG that I have been unwilling to give up on it. All I have heard about Kel Tec's service department indicates that eventually they will get it right, sure hope so as patience is wearing thin.

Currently I am using a S & W 637 as a BUG - great reliability, great gun, but a lot less concealable.

By the way I was suprised (in a positive way) at the accuracy of the P3AT even out to 15 yds.

Dave B.

Dave,

Be certain to inquire about what they thought the problem was...and what they did to "fix" it. I would be scared to death to carry a gun that exhibited problems more than once, without knowing exactly what was done to it.

Also, by the time you get it back, Kel-Tec will have had it three times not two, (they built it to begin with) that was their first chance to get it right.

I ended up sending mine to Jack Fuselier who knows how to make one run. The rest of my Kel-Tec experience I will not bore you guys with again, but I remain unimpressed with them no matter how small, cute, accurate, affordable, etc....

Its gotta go bang every time.

I hope it works out for you.

I fired a friend's P3AT, and then his S&W Sigma .380. Of the two, I'd choose the SW380 any day, although I suppose you're talking about the 9mm version?

I find the trigger pull on the P3AT to be disgustingly long and hard. I found myself wondering when it was going to break, and it resulted in poor accuracy. By contrast, I did much better with the S&W.

Sadly, the SW380 doesn't seem to be in production anymore. Here's to searching on gunbroker. Thats the BUG I want :)

For a gun that small, I'd prefer a Colt Pony or Colt Mustang. Heavier frame to absorb recoil while still being light enough to forget about, and reliable to a fault (but I own neither).

Even so, there's darn few situations where I can't conceal my .45, and I'm 5'6" (Not a large person by any means). A 3" 1911 is the smallest gun I'm comfortable carrying. I've got a Galco Deep Concealment (I think that's the model name) tuckable holster, and it works -very- well. Most folks have no idea I'm even carrying.

Now, for a backup, I'd look at the .380s. Heck, my current "backup" is a .25 ACP FN-Browning that's seen better days, and a larger round would be a marked improvement.

I can second the little Colt .380's. Comfortable to carry, and easy to handle. They're the smallest I'm willing to carry as a backup, but they can and do double as a primary carry when I can't have the .45 with me for whatever reason.

What can I say - I just like Colts.

the sigma was actually the .40 cal. version "40VE" the gun had a interesting story originally bought at the beinging of this year it's been through 5 owners, each person before me returning to bullet trap to sell on consignment. Anyways I shot my keltec yesterday and not a single failure of 200 rounds. The very first round was 6 in the mag and one in the chamber apparently a problem for many new P3AT's and beutiful and acurrate. I was nicely surprised with the accuracey but the trigger pull is huge. I'm gonna see what a gunsmith can do for trigger if anything this week. But overall I'm pretty happy, though I have to admit aftre reading many posts I was alkost hesitant to find out but it all turned out good. So I'm one of the random lucky few that bought a keltec that works correctly right out of the box.

This gun is so light "loaded" you can carry it in your underwear around the house and it won't pull them down.

Them must be some really tighty whities.

I like my P3AT. It is my always gun. I prefer not to carry it as a primary, but on rare occassions it can be. In those cases even the Kel-Tec is better than no gun.

I guess I failed to mention that the P3AT has the belt clip on it and is not being simply restrained by the underwear alone.