A perfect pairing for your new CP33
Gun Features
Hey everyone, thanks for joining me for your Quick Start Guide for the KelTec CP33. Like many KelTec products, your CP33 comes in a nice hard case with two latches on the front. Here, simply pull them forward and flip the top back, and you're in. The first thing you're going to see is your CP33 manual. Get to know this really well, and if you have any other questions, our phone number is on the back, as well as our website information. We'll be willing to help you anytime.
Moving along with the contents, you've got a magazine here that is loose, a 33-round magazine. You're also going to have one in the gun, so go ahead and pull that out as well. You'll have a trigger lock, his is great for storage. You're also going to find some long-term storage paper. Hang onto this and keep it in the box in case you need to put your CP33 away for a while, like when going on vacation, etc. That will keep all the moisture off the metal components of your CP33.
Alright, your CP33 is loaded with features. First of all, we'll start at the muzzle end. It has a threaded barrel and comes with a thread protector. It's got fiber optic front and rear sights, and they're very high vis. It has a nine-inch sight radius, which is awesome for target shooting. The rear sight is fully adjustable for windage and elevation.
On the top, you'll notice it has a Picatinny-style rail, so you can actually put an optic. I recommend a Vortex Red Dot. On the bottom here, you've got an M-LOK slot for a light or laser combination or whatever accessory you'd like to put on the bottom. This is your bolt release and bolt stop.
You've got an ambidextrous safety on both sides of the gun. When you see red, that's for fire. That is on safe. It has an excellent trigger. This is your non-reciprocating charging handle. You've got your magazine release here. I also get a lot of questions about these two tabs on the back. They are aftermarket accessory mounts, so for those of you who want to put a pistol brace on your CP33, which we highly recommend, it's very fun to shoot that way, you do have the option to mount that right there on the rear of the gun.
A super important note is your serial number. It's right here on the back of the gun on the bottom side. Make sure you write that down, laminate that, and put it in your safe for safekeeping. You'll notice this tag on your trigger guard here. You can take that off, but definitely make sure you read that and get to know it. It talks about safely storing your CP33, which is very important.
Next safety tip, make sure you have a good pair of safety glasses for disassembling your CP33, which is what we're going to do here. And also, these make for excellent range glasses, so visit keltecweapons.com and pick yourself up a couple pairs of those.
Okay, so let's talk about loading your CP33 magazines. There we go, there's 33 rounds. Let's go ahead and load this thing up. What I like to do is hold the spine of the magazine up against the palm of my strong hand. I'm right-handed, so I hold it on my right hand. And if anyone remembers those Pez dispensers from when you were kids, I kind of hold it like that, and I use my index finger to actually push down on the rim of the cartridge to seat it back.
You'll see here there's this slight opening at the feed lips where the rim of the cartridge should sit, and that's where you press down. And then with my other index finger, I simply just push back and make sure that it's seated. And do that same thing with every round.
What you want to make sure is that the rim of the cartridge is pressed up against the back of the spine of the magazine. The reason for that is you don't want to get what's called rim lock. And what happens is, with rim lock, the bottom round goes in, and then the top round, if it comes in and ends up behind the rim of the one underneath it, as it tries to feed into the chamber, it's going to be trying to pull that bottom round as well. So you're not going to get anywhere. It's not going to feed, and it's going to make your CP33 malfunction.
This technique, for me, seems to be the easiest and the most consistent so that I don't get rim lock and that each round feeds nicely into the magazine. Don't get any malfunctions, and I'm also not killing my hands trying to get these 22 cartridges into the magazine. And now, since there are 33 of them, you're going to be doing this for a while. Obviously, you want to try to make it as easy as possible. So again, just use pushing the spine up against the palm of my hand, using my index finger to push down and then back, making sure that the top rim is in front of the bottom rim. And the best way to unload your magazines is to take it to the range and shoot your CP33 at a target. That's how you manually load the CP33 magazines.
The American Speed Loader has made this awesome little tool. It makes this a lot easier for you. So you just take the speed loader, you set it flat on the workspace, you take your magazine, you just place it in there, you take your round, you drop it into the little hole in the back of the loader, and then you simply push down on the magazine. And you just continue doing that 33 times until your CP33 rounds are all loaded into your magazines. And it's really just that easy. So pick up one of these American Speedloader CP33 magazine loaders.
The awesome thing about the CP33 magazines is that they're clear, and they also have these witness holes here that allow you to touch the ammo itself. So if you have any issues with it stacking improperly, you can simply just manipulate it by pushing on the rounds inside these little windows.
Field Stripping
Okay, so let's talk about disassembly for cleaning. First of all, you're going to want to keep your box out, keep that handy. Make sure there's no live ammunition in your workspace. We don't even have the magazines here. Alright, so what we'll do is take the CP33, and you're going to set it on the corner of your box like so. And then you'll take your scribe or your handy KelTec screwdriver, just set it on the small side of the assembly pin and give it a couple taps until you feel it come through. As you can see, it pops through the other side. Sometimes you can just pull on it with your fingers to get it out of there.
The next thing you want to do is simply just slide the grip off the rear section of the gun. So what I do is I go ahead and I grab this part with my left hand because I'm right-handed and just simply pull the grip back. And one thing to note here, guys, is when you're disassembling and reassembling your CP33, you want to make sure that your hammer is locked to the rear and that the gun is on safe so that the hammer doesn't pop forward on you. Okay, after that, you'll simply just pull the charging handle to the rear. Your bolt assembly slides right out of that, and that is as far as you need to take your CP33 down for cleaning.
Cleaning
We recommend using a high-quality contact cleaner, such as this Lucas Oil Extreme Duty stuff. This takes all the carbon off and debris. And then before you reassemble, you're going to want to use a high-quality CLP or the oil of your choice.
Reassembly
Step One: So first thing you'll notice, the charging handle has two sides. This is the side that you want facing up, and that is the side that you want facing down on your workbench. This end here is going to correspond with two slots in the upper receiver, just below the rear sight, as you can see there. You'll want to slide it in just maybe a quarter of an inch or so. And then on your bolt assembly, you've got a slot on either side that also corresponds with slots in the receiver. You'll set the bolt down on top of the charging handle, line up those slots, slide the bolt assembly and the charging handle in as one assembly.
A little trick to keep in mind here, guys, is I'm keeping my index finger on the buffer, my thumb on the front of the charging handle, and a finger on the back of the charging handle. And what I'm doing is holding the charging handle still while pushing the buffer forward so that it lines up with those notches. And once it's lined up, I go ahead and push the charging handle in, which brings the bolt up to the breech, and you want to make sure that you've got that closed off nicely.
Step Two: Next thing you want to do is just flip the gun up, muzzle down. There are rail slots on the lower that correspond with rail slots on the upper. And so you'll want to go ahead and line those up like so. Now, once you've got the lower on, you want to make sure that there's a very minimal gap between the upper and lower right here. So what I do is I just put it muzzle down and just give it an extra push just to make sure that my assembly pin is going to clear the parts that it needs to clear in the middle. Then I will take my gunsmithing hammer and give it a few taps in until it's flush.
Step Three: A little function check, and your CP33 is ready for the range.
For more tips, tricks, and accessories, visit our website at keltecweapons.com. Stay sharp and stay safe.