Out of battery fire on my PMR 30

[deemus]

Finally got around to test driving the PMR 30 yesterday. It was fun to shoot. CCI 40g bullets functioned flawlessly. Hornady 30g Vmax bullets were problematic.

The 30g bullets chambered and fired fine, and provided the normal fireball. But most would not eject. I was curious if they would chamber, as it had a slight mdd to polish the feed ramp. Not an issue at all. But I didn't expect it to have problems ejecting spent rounds. It required a manual racking of the slide to eject the shell, them it loaded and fired fine.

We fired about 80 rounds through it, alternating the 30g and 40g bullets. On the very last 40g bullet, it apparently didn't chamber all the way.
When my son pulled the trigger he got a shower of unburnt powder and something bean his safety glasses.

The slide stop extension flew off. We think that's what hit the glasses. His shirt and arms had grains of powder all over them. Thanks to the glasses he was not injured.

I took the gun apart but other than the missing slide stop extension, it appears unharmed. I'm sending it in anyway. Let them check it out.

 

[orbitup]

No bueno!

 

[jrbfishn]

I have had a rimfire case cone apart at the base before. Semi- auto rifle, not out of battery, couple seconds between shots. Base and rim separated from the case. You WILL notice when that happens.
Unfortunately you will occasionally get a bad case. I have opened boxes to find unfired rounds with a gouged hole in the brass.
Could be the problem.

Sent by an idjit coffeeholic from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[IXLR8]

The manual states that it was designed for 40g ammo only. The PMR-30 is a very nice weapon when used as designed.

 

[BRD@66]

Yikes!

 

[deemus]

The round was ok when loaded in the mag. I loaded the mags myself as we shot. And the problem child was the suggested 40g hp.

Not sure how it happened. But it should not have fired out of battery. Most new guns are designed to prevent it. I thought maybe there was a buildup of soot in the chamber, but there wasn't.

 

[Moonpie]

This exact thing happened in my PMR-30 once.
Round fired, resulting head rupture blew out residue into my hand and face. The plastic button on the slide release vaporized.
Gun seemed undamaged except for that. Magazine was undamaged.
Had to order new plastic button from Kel-Tec.
Simple snap on fit.
Gun has run fine since with no issues.

 

[deemus]

Did you have them check the gun out?

 

[HKShooter65]

Hmmm.

Try something.
Pull a bullet and chamber the empty primed case.
Retract the slide about 1/16 inch and pull the trigger.
If the primer fires there is your answer.

Semi auto rimfire bolts quite often have a bit of bounce where the round chambers, the bolt bounces back a tiny bit and re-chambers yet again.
This is normal behavior I've seen on slow-motion vids.
Semi auto rimfire guns all build up grime.
I'll speculate that the round never fully chambered or bounced back and hung.

I'm betting the bolt fired 1/16th inch out of battery.

As part of messin' 'round I've played with this on purpose.
1/16th out of battery won't usually blow a LR 22 case.
A 22 mag OTOH......

Ask me how I know.

 

[EZ-E]

Damn... that sux. I have failure to feed & ejects with my PRM30 over the years but no out of battery discharge. Sorry that happened on the first test drive

 

[OutlawStar]

I had a disappointing first outing with my PMR30 as well; ran CCI (i think 30gr) and it wouldn't go more than 2 shots without a hard failure of some kind. Some suggested sending it to Kel Tec, but it 2 weeks for them just to respond to me to tell me to send it in. I've since manually adjusted my firing pin and it seems to work much better. Still can't go a full magazine without a fail to feed; usually just a good eject without bringing the slide back to grab the next round, or a mild jam up the feed ramp.

Its a fine pistol, you just have to fix it right out of the box.

 

[deemus]

I had zero issues loading. Aside from the OOB, my only issue is ejecting the 30g bullets. 40g worked great.

And you might be on to something in regards to the dirty chamber. I slid a bullet into the barrel after disassembly. It didn't just slide right in.

Got busy and forgot to call them this week.

 

[2ManyGuns]

Why are you using 30g bullets? Once again the pistol was designed around the 40g... if you are not using the proper ammo why complain?

 

[OutlawStar]

10 grains is a tiny amount of weight difference. If the gun cannot operate on 30, 35, 45, 50, and 60gr, then its just not a great gun. Might as well ask the user to buy a specific lube, only shoot at 73F, on tuesday, when mars is in retrograde, the range officer is named jimmy, and it must be only loaded to 22 rounds.

 

[smittyb]

10 grains is a tiny amount of weight difference. If the gun cannot operate on 30, 35, 45, 50, and 60gr, then its just not a great gun. Might as well ask the user to buy a specific lube, only shoot at 73F, on tuesday, when mars is in retrograde, the range officer is named jimmy, and it must be only loaded to 22 rounds.

Well, they do plainly tell you in the manual it won’t run with 30 grainers.
Don’t like it, don’t buy it.

 

[Hoji]

Phone in pocket reply. Sorry.

Stick with what it was designed around. This gun was never meant to be a serious defense gun. It is a range toy.

If you want a serious defense handgun with almost no recoil and a 20+ round capacity , a FN 5-Seven is what you seek.

 

[2ManyGuns]

10 grains is a tiny amount of weight difference. If the gun cannot operate on 30, 35, 45, 50, and 60gr, then its just not a great gun. Might as well ask the user to buy a specific lube, only shoot at 73F, on tuesday, when mars is in retrograde, the range officer is named jimmy, and it must be only loaded to 22 rounds.

Tell me then, if you are attempting to find the best ammunition for your weapon, for example if you are a long range shooter, why would you try to find the best round for your rifle. Kel-tec, in a way has already told you in general terms what is best for your pistol to function properly.

 

[TxStetson]

[

10 grains is a tiny amount of weight difference. If the gun cannot operate on 30, 35, 45, 50, and 60gr, then its just not a great gun. Might as well ask the user to buy a specific lube, only shoot at 73F, on tuesday, when mars is in retrograde, the range officer is named jimmy, and it must be only loaded to 22 rounds.

The difference is Kel-Tec doesn’t just recommend 40 grn rounds, they explicitly state it will not reliably function with 30 grn rounds. If that isn’t plain enough, I’m thinking maybe the gun isn’t your issue.

 

[EZ-E]

I've been running 30gr Vmax without issue. I think it runs better IMO than some of the 40gr ive shot out of it.

 

[OutlawStar]

You guys are still missing the point; now that I've had to do some tuning of all the parts in the gun, it does run 30 grain ammo as good as 40 and 50 gr.