Extractor Modification

Back to Kel-Tec stuff

Some people have been experiencing extraction problems with the P-32 and now the P-3AT that are directly extractor related. One sorce of this extraction problem is the width of the "hook" of the extractor being to wide for the groove in the rim of the case.

An easy way to check for this is to remove the recoil springs, then reassemble the pistol, and slowly chamber a round from the mag while looking down the ejection port, and/or by manualy pushing a round up (like it would come from the mag) while holding just the slide (off the frame). Look specificaly at how the extractor claw fits into the groove in front of the rim.

Is the front of the extractor hitting anything? if so it may be keeping the extractor from being allowed to seat fully into the groove, and thus slipping off the rim durring ejection before the rim hits the ejector causeing a Failure To Extract(FTE) or Failure To Eject(FTE) (depending on when the extractor slipped off the rim).

A fellow member of KTOG, steveg, tested this theory, and fixed his P-3AT by modifying a spare ejector that KT sent him for free.

Also you can see in the after pic (red arrow), that the newer extractors have a bit of a step in it to allow it to pivot towards the center and allow it to grip the case better.

Here are the before and after pics, and a red arrow on the before pic to show where metal was removed:

Before:


After:




Another area of the extractor that can sometimes use some tuning, is the actual claw area. The contact area of the claw (where it grips the rim) is squared and flat, but the rim is rounded. What happens is that as the barrel tilts down, the case is pulled down as well, and leaves only the bottom corner of the extractor gripping the rim. The sign of having this problem is having small chunks of the rim deeply gouged or ripped through by the corner of the extractor on cases that failed to extract/eject.

If you were to file off the bottom corner and maybe even make it curve a bit to better fit the rim, the claw will have more grip area to hold onto the rim, and ensure better extraction.

This is a pic of what Pbbbfischer (on ktog) did to fix his extraction problems, and even got it to reliably function with Wolff ammo!!

The right side is the bottom of the extractor and was originally straight across.