lklawson wrote:personl1 wrote:I would love a brief review of the PMR-30. It is a pistol I have been mulling over for some time now. My wife has a Walther P-22, and the gun shoots great (was the first gun she ever bought with no "expert" help from me). So, in an effort to one up her, wanted to get something with a little more down range pop and still in the .22 family, and being that I don't have anything in .22WMR, I figured it would fit the bill nicely.
There are a lot of good reviews of the PMR-30 but I'll certainly post up my impressions.

OK, I went shooting today. Wanted to test the reliability of ignition on my CZ-70 with the shortened Hammer Spring. 26 rounds and only one of them required a second strike. Now, this ain't "good" but it does mean I need more testing to see if it was fluke. I'm out of .32ACP ammo for now. I was shooting Fiocci but have a few hundred Prvi on the way to me.
So, my impressions of the PMR-30. My impression is that I'm going to have to buy one for
me after I give this one to my dad!
The sights are fantastic. And it is more accurate than I can hold free hand and
far beyond the capabilities of my presbiopic eyes. It's light light light, even with a full 30 round mag home in the well. And even then it is pleasant shooting. Light recoil. Very light. I tried, I mean
REALLY TRIED to limp wrist it. But it just wouldn't FtFeed from a fairy grip with three fingers. It barks LOUD though. Judging from the bark, I'd say that the claims that a .22WMR from a PMR-30 has the same energy as a light .38 Special "target" round are spot on. For a rimfire, this handgun speaks with authority.
You know the old saying about the Henry repeating rifle?: "Load on Sunday. Shoot all week long." Yeah, a 30 round handgun mag is like that. I had to count rounds or I completely lost track.
There are a few downsides though. First, .22WMR is just a bit less expensive than standard 9mm FMJ range fodder so, while it is cheap shooting, it's not a cheap as .22LR by a looooong stretch. Second, loading the mags properly is a bear. A friend showed me the trick of hammering the butt end of the mag into your off hand while thumbing in a round on top so that the weight of the rounds already in the mag would compress the spring and let you load in the next round. Works great when you're in the last 10 rounds of that 30 round mag. But you have to do it juuuust right or it will misalign the cases in the mag and then the blasted thing won't feed at all. And I do mean "
at all." I ended up tap-rack-bang drilling 7 times in the first two mags (well, actually "tap-rack-tap-eject-rack-tap-eject-swear-tap-eject-fiddlewithmagstop-tap-swear-reseat-rack-bang" but you get the idea). If you get the mags loaded right it's luv-you-longtime shooting.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk