[SHOT 2025] Kel-Tec PR57: Personal Defense Gone Wild

With its announcement in the days running up to the SHOT Show, the new Kel-Tec PR57 has the gun world all hot and bothered… or at least curious, thanks to its unique design. Kel-Tec had their new personal defense pistol on duty at the show’s official range day, giving shooters their first chance to fire this unique stripper-clip-fed semi-auto, chambered in 5.7x28mm.

Kel-Tec @ TFB:

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Back To The Future

A couple of the earliest semi-auto pistols used stripper clips for loading, instead of box magazines. But for more than a century, detachable mags have been the standard for semi-autos. The PR57 throws that tradition out the door, feeding its internal fixed 20-round magazine from stripper clips. Kel-Tec sells 10-round stripper clips for the pistol. Users can also single-load the internal mag from the top, allowing shooters to top off their mag with loose rounds if they’ve only fired a few cartridges. Now, they don’t have to replace the mag to top off their pistol’s capacity.

But note that this also means that if you’ve got a fully loaded, non-detachable mag, you must eject every single round manually if you want to unload the gun. This is less than ideal for many shooters. But it sure looks like this pistol is ideal for the kind of shooter who wants to keep a loaded firearm handy, for a just-in-case scenario. Few self-defense scenarios require a magazine capacity of even half the 20+1 rounds the PR57 can carry; FBI statistics indicate most self-defense shootings only see the shooter firing three rounds. Stoke this gun to full capacity, and you’ll still have 18 rounds left over after the smoke clears. It’s not as many rounds as the load-on-the-first-and-shoot-all-month PMR30, but most self-defense buyers will be much happier with the reliability of 20 centerfire rounds vs. the 30 .22 Magnum rounds contained in the previous Kel-Tec design.

Shooting the PR57

When you pick up the PR57, it’s not a hefty pistol, even when you’re loaded up. At 13.86 oz, Kel-Tec says it weighs almost 40 percent less than the next-lightest 5.7 pistol. The rotary barrel, with its locking lugs at the muzzle, helps bring weight down, as does the use of lots of synthetic materials in the construction.

But after you’ve stuffed a few rounds in the top of the pistol (easily done with or without the stripper clip), there’s very little recoil when you start blazing away. This is a very easy-to-shoot handgun, and easy to hit what you’re aiming at with an optic installed. An optics plate ships with the pistol, and Viridian partnered with Kel-Tec to make the Viridian Custom RFX11 green dot sight specifically for this pistol. Trigger pull is 4.5 lb, and speaking of that trigger, there’s a neat trick built into it.

If you want to quickly field-strip the PR57, just push the trigger forward instead of backwards, and it will allow you to remove the slide assembly from the frame, exposing the pistol’s barrel and other internals for a quick clean-up. Little details like that make this pistol almost a no-brainer for the shooter who wants an affordable pistol that’s easy to shoot, but hits bad guys like a hammer.

Did we just say affordable? Yep, with a $399 MSRP, and shipping in the first quarter of 2025, this is a handgun that just about anyone can buy, anyone can shoot, and anyone can maintain. The question is, if this sounds good to you, will you get to your LGS in time to pick one up, before they’re sold out?

See more details on the PR57 here.