Kel Tec CP33 Review

The Kel Tec CP33 is one of my favorite guns, despite being incredibly useless. The CP33 review will explain why the Kel Tec CP33 gun is one of my favorite guns, but also the downsides. Although it’s not perfect, it fills a need that there aren’t any other guns.
Table of contentsWhat is the appeal?Ergonomics SafetyPistol Grip CP33 ReviewMag Release Kel Tec CP33 ReviewCP33 Review Magazine WellBolt Release/Hold OpenCharging Handle Kel Tec CP33 ReviewHandguardTriggerKel Tec CP33 BraceAccessoriesKelTec CP33 Accessories ReviewOptics CP33 ReviewKel Tec CP33 Review IronsLightsControl Devices CP33 ReviewSlingShooting ExperienceKel Tec CP33 Suppressed ReviewCP33 ReliabilityFinal ConclusionRelated ArticlesProsCons
What is the appeal?
The Kel Tec CP33 is a small gun that can be used as a brace for 22 pistols. Although the gun doesn’t come with a brace it can be easily added. It also has a large capacity gun, holding 33 rounds of.22. This is quite a feat for a single-shot rimfire cartridge.
This gun does this by using a four-stack magazine. It’s a unique design, and the gun is awesome. My gun is assembled and I am confident that it will be the closest thing I have to an HK MP7 unless my SOT is granted. The CP33 is a great gun and there aren’t many like it. It’s the little brother to the PMR series, yet it’s also quite different. It’s a.22-long rifle which makes it an affordable gun to shoot. As you can see, I have suppressed mine and added red dots and braces. This gun is a great gun for teaching new shooters and can be suppressed.
Kel Tec CP33Find CP33s in Stock!New and Pre-OwnedGuns.com
It’s a great gun to shoot at the range, no matter if you’re an experienced shooter or a novice. Everyone loves this gun. Everybody loves this gun.
Ergonomics
The Kel Tec CP33’s ergonomics are what make or break a gun. It’s a unique gun, but it’s still fairly standard due to its design. It’s somewhere in between a PCC pistol and a traditional.22 pistol. It is a combination of several different setups.
Safety
The Kel Tec CP33 safety is almost a 1911 thumbsafety. It flips down to disengage the safety. You push it back up to reengage the gun safe. It’s a great design and I like how it feels. The safety lever could be extended a little. It would make it easier to reach. The slide or bolt lock can prevent you from re-engaging safety by preventing your thumb from engaging it. You will need to loosen your grip and move to safety.
There are always improvements. I have no major complaints considering the price of the gun.
Pistol grip CP33 Review
This gun has a pistol grip that is molded into it. It also carries the magazine. It’s more traditional in style and has a pistol grip. It is more like a 1911 pistol and less like a Bergman-style pistol, where the magazine is located forward of the trigger. The grip is quite large and long. In fact, it’s likely a bit longer and wider than I prefer. It is based on the Celtic CP33 housing with the.22 mag.
The magazine is quite long and could prove to be a problem for smaller-handed shooters. I have seen videos of children as young as seven and eight years old shooting this gun with no issues. The grip could be a bit smaller. It would be nice to have removable back straps that could accommodate a wider range of people.
Mag Release KelTec CP33 Review
This gun’s magazine release is not my favorite. It’s a magazine release in a heel-style, which isn’t something you will see a lot in 2021. This feature was more common on handguns in the 20th century than it is today. (When I refer to the turn of the century I don’t mean the latest time it happened. I refer to the time before, in the early 1900s.
It can be a bit difficult to use the magazine release. It is very easy to use and doesn’t require any special strength or other oddities. I wish there was an extended magazine, maybe three to four inches. This would make it easier to pull out the magazine and make it more ergonomic.
This gun is not one you will be doing quick reloads in a matter of seconds. This gun is for you to shoot 33 rounds and then take your own time getting the magazine out.
CP33 Review Magazine Well
This gun’s magazine well is as fast as the magazine release for a heel-style magazine. Although there is a slight bevel inside, it is not a significant bevel. To get it in, you rely on the angle of your magazine. To get it in, you must hit this exact angle every time. If you don’t, it will either miss it or jam up a bit before you can press it in.
Bolt Release/Hold open
This gun’s bolt release is similar to that on a Glock pistol, or any other standard handgun. It is located right in front the thumb safety. The bolt release, unlike the thumb safety is not ambidextrous. This is a bit disappointing.
I would have preferred to see the design move a bit further forward. It would have been less intrusive to safety, as we said earlier. It could have been a little larger. It’s very easy to activate with your thumb, and people with smaller hands will find it much easier to use.
Kel Tec CP33Find CP33s in Stock!New and Pre-OwnedGuns.com
Charging Handle Kel Tec CP33 Review
It is set up in the AR15-style charging handle. It is located at the rear of your receiver. It is easy to use, but it feels cheap. This is the most basic part of the gun.
Handguard
This gun’s handguard is very slim. It is a pencil-profile handguard. It has one M-lock slot at the bottom and no mounting options on the sides. It is very small and can be wrapped around your hand almost twice as often. It’s a small grip but it’s very comfortable to hold and helps stabilize the gun.
Trigger
This is a 22 so I don’t like to dry-harp. However, the trigger on the.22 has a very slight take-up before the trigger breaks. The trigger reset is quite long and not very authoritative. You’ll need to manually press your trigger finger out before it resets. The trigger doesn’t have enough spring tension so you can’t press your trigger finger forward. The trigger matches the gun and it’s a great gun to shoot. Although I don’t think most people will be disappointed by the trigger, they won’t be crazy-impressed.
Kel Tec CP33 Brace
The brace for the Kel Tec-CP33 will depend on what you choose to add on to the aftermarket. The company does not ship any type of brace. Personally, I chose a Farrowtech sliding brace. Although it’s not perfect, this brace is my favorite. It’s a sliding brace that fits into the receiver’s back. It is made up of two carbon fiber rods that are connected to a system. The rods have a notch that connects to a lever that allows you to push the stock back in. You need to be careful when you are deploying the stock, or pulling it outwards. Otherwise, the notches will become ineffective and the stock will fall out. This stock is mostly designed for looks and not complete functionality.
You can get a Kel Tec CP33 brace, which attaches via the Picatinny section at the rear. If you are looking for something more functional, Mounts are made that mount like the Farrowtech brace, but attach to a Picatinny Rail. You can attach a SB tactical brace, or any other brace compatible with a 1913 mount from there. Personally, I prefer the Farrowtech. It looks cool, but this is not a gun I intend to use for serious purposes. This gun could be used to hunt squirrels if I was allowed to use a 33-round magazine.
Accessories
The CP33 is not an exception. Accessories can make or break a gun. To get the best out of your gun, you will need the right accessories. This is a double-edged sword. The Kel Tec CP33 usually costs between $400 and $500. Although the prices are a little high at the time of writing, the gun is still a great deal if you can get it in that price range.
Accessories are the problem. Accessories can quickly become expensive. This gun is almost $2,000 in total, including the can stamp, gun, light, brace, optic, and light. It’s a very costly pistol. I bought these items without putting them together. If I hadn’t done so, I wouldn’t have the money to buy this.22. This.22 is the most fun gun I own and well worth every penny. The good news is that you can only use the gun and the brace. It is easy to move the light, suppressor or optic from one gun to another.
We’ll be talking more about these accessories in the future, but here is a list that includes all the accessories you can purchase for your CP33.
Kel Tec CP33Find CP33s in Stock!New and Pre-OwnedGuns.com
KelTec CP33 Accessories Review
Mounting accessories can be a challenge. While some of them are simple, there are many issues with most of them that we will address below.
Optics CP33 Review
It is very simple to mount an optic to the KelTecCP33. It is far enough back that there are no charging handles or other obstacles to it. This gun can be mounted with any optic, at least the red-dot variety. I can see issues with either eye relief or getting the optic far enough forward if you mount a fixed or variable power optic. It would also look strange. It’s possible to mount the red-dot to the 12 o clock rail if you want to.
Kel Tec CP33 Review Irons
Iron sights are where things get a little more complicated. The gun comes with iron sights made of fiber optic iron. They have a red front and a green back. These are right on top the rail. These sights are not my favorite. They are bright and I think the rear sight should have a blacked-out. But they aren’t that great. I would prefer to see more Picatinny bars towards the front and back of the gun in order to get regular folding AR-15 sights further forward and with a greater sight radius. This would be my preference, but it may not be the best for you.
Lights
It is difficult to mount a light on this gun. Mounting a light to this gun’s bottom rail is your only option. If you are using your support hand to grip front of firearm, you won’t want to do this. Mounting something to the 12 o’clock rail, as I have, is a good idea. I have a mod switch attached to the rail’s top.
It works great for a left-handed user who uses their left-hand thumb and thumb to activate the gun. Left-handed users will need to grip the gun around its light and use their thumb to activate it. Although it’s possible, I would be concerned about the.22 bullets hitting my arm or hand in certain situations. It could even lead to liability issues if one or more of those shells were ever to object to the chamber’s feeding process.
Control Devices CP33 Review
This gun is very small and I wanted to add a handstop to it. I ordered a UTG handstop for this gun. A UTG stop was the only stop that works with just one M-lock slot. I have ordered several hands-offs that didn’t work because they used two or three M lock slots. Although the handguard appears to be quite long, it doesn’t fit all the hand stops available. To find a hand stop, you’ll need to search far and wide. UTG is the easiest to find, and it’s the only one that I have found that works well with this gun. This is a problem in my Kel Tec CP33 review.
Sling
It is not easy to mount a sling on the CP33. A brace such as the Farrowtech can be used to mount a QD amount to your tail hook. This is what I did. I also added an offset QD mount to the top 1913 rail. It works well with my Edger Sherman design sling, and I love the setup. It works great, and I haven’t had any problems with the gun or the sling.
Although I wish there was an easier way to move the sling forward, I cannot do it without interfering in my grip and ability to access the pressure pad to the light. If I wasn’t going to run light on the gun, I might move forward the sling mount. Again, this is an area where it would be nice to have more Picatinny slots near the front of the muzzle. The Kel Tec CP33 Review has another issue.
Shooting Experience
This is where the trouble really begins. It’s not easy to load these 33-round magazines. You get two magazines with the gun, and once you have loaded them, you won’t want to load any more. I don’t have two magazines, but I do own ten or twenty magazines.
They are expensive. But the main reason is that it was difficult for me to load more than two magazines before I went to the range the next morning. After I arrive at the range, I don’t feel like spending half of my range day loading two more 33-round magazines. It’s a fantastic gun, but magazine loading can be a pain.
Kel Tec CP33Find CP33s in Stock!New and Pre-OwnedGuns.com
It goes in quite smoothly when you insert the magazine. Although there is some friction and abrasion when you insert the magazine, it doesn’t cause any problems. It holds in place very well. It feels a little fragile when you pull the charging handle. The charging handle on this gun is not my favorite. It works well and I haven’t had any problems with it. Once you have dropped the charging handle home, it feeds one round. You go and get your sight shot, flip off the safety, and it’s just fun.
Kel Tec CP33 Supressed Review
This gun is extremely quiet thanks to the Q Erector.22 suppressor. Q suppressors are great because you can add as many baffles that you like. I have all the baffles that came on the suppressor, so it is a quiet setup, especially for semi-autos that are so close to your face. This gun is a joy to shoot every time I give it to anyone.
Subsonic ammo is safe as long as it’s used in a hearing-safe manner. It’s an amazing gun to shoot. This suppressor is a great way to get small children semi-automatic shooting. It is large enough to hold the gun against their face, allowing for good sight pictures and allowing you to still control the firearm while they shoot. It’s a great setup.
As I said, I have more money than I want to admit in this gun and I wouldn’t have started this build from scratch. If this is something that interests you and you have a spare red-dot/.22 can lying around, the $600 investment in the gun and brace will pay off. You will be able to enjoy it for many years. This is my favorite part of the Kel Tec CP33 Review.
CP33 Reliability
This gun has been used for a fair amount of rounds. Although I have not shot thousands or even thousands of rounds through this gun yet, I am impressed by the quality and reliability. The only problem I have had with this.22 was when I left it outside in a closed area that wasn’t climate-controlled. The gun’s lubricant got a little gummy, and it froze.
The gun was still below freezing the next day when we went out to shoot. The first round fired perfectly, but the second one had trouble getting into the barrel. The gun warmed up quickly and had no issues thereafter.
This is a.22. It doesn’t need a lot pressure to operate so be aware of that. I don’t think there are any negative aspects to the gun. This was a very extreme situation. It will run well as long as it is well-lubricated. Even though the gun is KelTec, I have not had any problems.
Final Conclusion
Overall, this gun is a great deal of fun. This gun is great for anyone looking for a fun gun to shoot at the range. This gun may not be for you if you are looking for a gun with great practicality. It’s a KelTec gun, but the build quality is good. Although there are some features that make it seem more expensive, considering 22s’ price point, I find everything on it to be acceptable. The charging handle is the most expensive component of the firearm, and it’s the only thing that I don’t like.
Similar Articles
Pros
ReliableErgonomicsGreat suppressor hostPoor man’s MP7 cloneOne of the most fun guns to shootGreat for smaller adults and kids to shootCons
Brace options can be large or fragile.