5.56x45mm Pistol . . . Worth owning?

**Misery Loves Shotguns** · December 25th, 2011, 10:49 PM

I'm looking at a Kel Tec PLR-16. Would a pistol with a 9" barrel (1 in 9 twist) put enough velocity on a 55 grain bullet to make it 'effective'? I'm not necessarily looking for performance comparable to a 16" M4 platform but does anyone have any idea what kind of FPS, maybe what kind of total energy we're looking at out of a short barrel? I figure with all the SBRs out there someone would know.

**gf45acp** · December 25th, 2011, 10:58 PM

I have a PLR, it's a blast (literally) to shoot.
No chrono or fancy testing done, but great fun.

**harold63** · December 25th, 2011, 11:05 PM

It shoots the popular 55 gr bullet over 2600 fps and will shoot under 2" at 100 yds. It is very affective.

**arjohnson** · December 26th, 2011, 12:41 AM

FWIW I saw someone at the range shooting one of those and they had multiple malfunctions with it. Not implying they are all like that, what I would do if I were you is build yourself an AR pistol. There are way more options when doing this. You can also SBR it or turn it into a rifle much easier than the kel-tec, just my opinion.

I am in the proccess of building an AR pistol but I am going to do a 9mm then down the road it will be an SBR.