One of the big joys of the .22LR cartridge is free rein to be a little silly. Gun designers can be as practical or as silly as they want with the cartridge. A small, relatively low-pressure cartridge that is cheap and widely available gives manufacturers more room to be a little different, a little silly, and no one knows silly quite as well as KelTec. KelTec has a lot of silly rimfires, and my favorite is the CP33.
The KelTec CP33 is a semi-automatic, magazine-fed, blowback-operated .22LR. At first, it sounds like every other .22LR on the market, but it is different at first glance. The CP33 looks like it stepped out of some sci-fi schlock movie. The sci-fi look draws you in. It is a huge pistol, larger than a 1911. The gun packs a 5.5-inch threaded barrel with an overall length of 10.6 inches.
The gun is huge, but still only weighs 1.5 pounds. The size makes it somewhat deceptive, and you expect more weight, so it takes you by surprise. The CP33 does not have a traditional moving slide. The bolt moves back and forth, but everything else remains stationary. An ambidextrous charging handle sits at the rear of the gun to charge and clear the weapon.
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Across the top, we have a rail that goes from front to rear with plenty of room for everything your heart desires. Since there is no slide moving back and forth, you are not limited to small red dots. Hell, you can toss a long eye relief scope on this thing if you desire. There is enough room for a light of some kind, especially if you use an offset mount to avoid interrupting your view through the optic.
To complement the fixed, long slide, you have a handguard-looking thing that wraps around the bottom of the barrel. The handguard-looking thing looks M-LOK compatible, but it is not. That is a mistake in my opinion. The frame is polymer, and like a lot of KelTec products, it is bolted together. It works, especially with a .22LR.
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The CP33 has an ambidextrous safety that sits behind the grip. The magazine release is a heel design. The grip feels massive, like holding a 2×4, and that is because of the magazine.
Putting the 33 in CP33
What does the 33 stand for in CP33? It is a tease to the gun’s capacity. The flush fitting magazine holds 33 rounds of .22LR. KelTec achieves this through the use of quad-stack magazines. Yep, quad stack. The ammo is held in four separate rows and keeps the gun fed.
That is probably the most remarkable magic behind this gun. The quad-stack magazine is certainly a way to do things a bit differently. It makes sure your .22LR handgun is not just wallowing in the ten-round territory. The magazines are made of a clear polymer that gets dirty fast.
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Admittedly, they feel a bit cheap, but they have not given me problems. The price of the magazines is around $50, so they are not cheap to buy by any means. With that said, while they have not given me problems, it is wise to make sure you load them correctly, or they will.
We cannot thumb our rounds in with reckless abandon. You have to be cautious of the rimlock in this design. Just read the manual; I will not copy and paste it here, but it will tell you the right way to remain problem-free with a .22LR in a quad-stack magazine. Just be aware that if the magazine feels super tight the first few times you load it, that is normal.
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Unleashing Lead
With most modern semi-auto rifles, we have accepted that 30 rounds is the standard, but that is not necessarily what you expect from a handgun. The CP33 reminds me of how Confederate John Mosby described the Henry rifle: “that damned Yankee rifle that can be loaded on Sunday and fired all week”.
That is how I feel about the CP33. It just seems to keep firing and firing and firing. It is amusing to do a mag dump and have it feel like it takes forever to accomplish. The CP33 has dug through lots and lots of magazines with nothing more than the usual failure to ignite we see with rimfire guns.
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My go-to ammo for semi-auto .22LR is Federal Automatch, and the CP33 can shoot it up without complaint. KelTec advises you to use at least a 40-grain round for reliability. Outside of Automatch, it also runs well with Blazer and Aguila Super Extra. I have not run into a load that it does not run well with, but I am also only stocked with those three.
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As you would expect, there is no real recoil. It is a big gun, and it feels like shooting a BB gun at most. This again makes it quite fun to shoot. With a red dot, you have got a helluva Steel Challenge pistol. Sadly, the large grip means it is not going to work with a lot of smaller hands.
Shooting Straight
The gun shoots fairly straight. The iron sights are adjustable and have high visibility. An optic is nice, but not needed. The CP33 puts little .22LR pills where I want them at 10, 15, 25, and even 50 yards. Of course, at 50 yards, I am shooting an IPSC steel target, so it is fairly large, but for iron sights, it can be tough to hit.
The trigger is meh; it is a little longer, and a bit like pressing against a plastic spring, but it works. It is not going to detract from accuracy, and it is not overly heavy. The safety is easy to move, and the big downside is the grip. I do not prefer heel magazine releases, but on a gun like this, it hardly matters.
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The CP33 is a crazy looking, creative, and fun-to-shoot gun, and it does not break the bank. That is tough to beat.
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