Through our research, and backed up by our firsthand testing, we found that a good general use duct tape should be around 11 milli-inches (mil) thick, use a natural rubber-based adhesive, and be made using a co-extrusion process.

Before getting into these specifics, it helps to know a bit about the three ingredients that make up a piece of duct tape: a polyethylene sheet backing, a cloth grid, and a rubber-based adhesive.

The polyethylene sheet plays two roles: It serves as a bonding area for the other two ingredients and creates a waterproof backing. It’s basically a sheet of plastic.

The cloth grid (or scrim)—typically made of polyester or a cotton/polyester blend—decides the tape’s strength, flexibility, and tearability. The threads that run the length of the tape are what give it its material strength—how much weight the tape can hold before breaking. The threads that run across the tape determine its tearability. Duct tape tears along the thread line, so the smaller the space between threads, the cleaner the tear. If the threads are far apart, getting a straight, even tear is difficult. It’s like holding one edge of a piece of paper while trying to rip it down the center.

All true duct tape has a rubber-based adhesive, but each tape has its own adhesive recipe. Some are thicker and flow better in order to stick to rough porous surfaces, while others are stiffer, making them more stable for extreme temperatures and flat surfaces. As we found out in our testing, some adhesives are so gooey that they’ll melt in the hot sun. Some tapes are made with alternatives to rubber-based glues, but those tapes (often made with what’s known as hot melt adhesive) are less reliable in extreme temperatures, and they don’t have the strength of the rubber-based glues, so we dismissed those.

After many conversations with four prominent duct tape manufacturers (and confirmed through our testing), we’re convinced a process called coextrusion is the best way to assemble these three ingredients. The defining characteristic of coextrusion is that the polyethylene sheet enters the manufacturing process in molten form. This means that when the cloth grid is added, it melts directly into the plastic, forming a single, fully bonded piece. The rubber adhesive is then applied to one side, creating what we know as duct tape.

The other way to make duct tape is called lamination. It’s easier to do, but there are issues with the finished product. As Hillary DuMoulin, communications manager at Berry Plastics, explained to us, lamination involves pressing all three ingredients together. The cloth grid is held to the poly either by a separate laminating adhesive or the “squish-through” method, where the rubber-based adhesive holds everything together.

The problem with lamination is the poly/scrim connection is nowhere near as secure as it is with the coextrusion method. Air bubbles can form between the laminated layers. Over time, particularly during exterior use, the poly and scrim can come apart. If you’ve ever pulled off an old piece of duct tape and the cloth grid remained stuck in a crusty bed of adhesive, you’ve seen the major flaw of a laminated tape. With a co-extruded tape, the scrim is really an internal component of the poly, so this kind of separation doesn’t occur.

There are visual ways to distinguish a laminated tape from a co-extruded one. The most telling is that co-extruded tapes have very small, clearly defined dimples on the exterior of the roll. These correspond with gaps in the cloth grid and represent all of the places where potential air bubbles could form if the tape were laminated. It’s harder to see on high-end tapes because as the tape quality increases, the grid gets smaller and dimples become difficult for the eye to pick up.

Another way to visually tell the difference is that laminated tapes (at least the two that we tested) have a wrinkled texture. On one tape, the ridges were so extreme that we were unable to get it to sit flat against any surface for more than a day or so. Co-extruded tapes have a nice smooth finish.

For thickness, we found that tapes around the 11-mil range offered the best compromise between strength and maneuverability. Thickness is measured in “mils” (or milli-inches, roughly .0254 millimeters) and tapes vary from as thin as 3 mils to as thick as 17 mils. Thinner tapes are too floppy to handle. Trying to wrap a thin, flimsy, wet noodle piece of duct tape can become a frustrating experience as it constantly folds over and sticks to itself. Once this happens, especially if it’s adhesive to adhesive, it’s pretty much a permanent bond, so you have to discard the piece and start over.

But thick tapes have their own drawbacks. The beefier they are, the less flexibility and conformity they have. During testing, we found that this negative outweighed the added strength of the really thick tapes, like the 17-mil Gorilla. Those tapes are extremely strong, but it’s very difficult to wrap a piece around a contoured surface (like the floppy sole on an old work boot, or the 90-degree elbow of a copper water pipe). This lack of flexibility also causes problems if you’re bundling something together with the tape. It’s much better if you can give the tape a strong pull and add a little stretch to it as you’re adhering it. This little bit of flexibility, which tapes around 11-mil usually have, can add just enough tension to secure the whole bundle together. This kind of stretching is nearly impossible to do with a thick 17-mil tape.

Other handling characteristics play a role in performance. Berry Plastics’ Hillary DuMoulin, told us that tearability, “finger tack,” and the ability to unwind are all important in evaluating duct tape. So during testing, we took these factors into account as well.

What’s not as important are width and length. The standard roll of duct tape is 2 inches wide (it actually measures around 1.88 inches but is always referred to as 2 inches). Other sizes are available, but even after 10 years in the construction industry, I’ve never needed anything more than a 2-inch roll. The lengths of the rolls are also standardized. The rolls I looked at were a variety of 35, 40, 45, and 60 yards. (45 and 60 yards are the most common lengths.)

Good, high-quality tapes designed for general purpose sit in the $8 to $13 range. You can get cheap and poorly made stuff for less, but it’s not worth saving the couple bucks unless it’s for a really simple and temporary job like sealing garbage bags or wrapping rolls of pulled-up carpeting. You can also get more aggressive tapes loaded with turbo strength and crazy adhesive that can cost over $20, but you probably don’t need that strength and you definitely don’t need the frustration that comes with working with tape that’s too thick and too sticky.

There is a dizzying variety of available duct tapes—Berry Plastics alone sells roughly 35 different types of duct tape under the Nashua and Polyken names—so after our research, we asked the major brands (Intertape, Duck, Scotch, Nashua, and Polyken) to suggest their best product for general all-around use. To give them a sense of what we had in mind, we gave the examples of patching a bike seat, repairing a backpack, and fixing a leak in a hose. Each company came back to us with a tape in the 9-to-11–mil range. In addition, we tested a number of tapes from these manufacturers based on reputation and customer feedback. These were typically thicker tapes and ones that tended to have specific strengths (and, as we discovered, specific weaknesses). We tested a total of 10 tapes.

Thirty-three rounds. That’s 33. The Kel-Tec CP33 holds 33 rounds of .22 LR. Unless, of course, you slap on a little magazine extension and load up 50. Fifty rounds in a pistol magazine. A factory magazine. You have my attention.

Boy oh boy is it easy and fun to go through all of that .22 LR, too!

courtesy Oleg Volk

There’s plenty to discuss when it comes to the CP33, but at first glance it’s all about that magazine capacity, right?

Whether it’s the flush-fitting, standard 33-round clear plastic magazines seen above…

Or extended to 50 rounds with the optional extra capacity baseplate. The 50-round extensions we used were 3D-printed prototypes, but they functioned just as well as the 33-round jobs.

Which is to say perfectly fine as long as you don’t rim lock the ammo. You see, .22 LR is a rimmed cartridge and in order to slide forward out of a magazine and feed into the chamber, the rim of the round being fed must be in front of the rim of the round that’s on deck.

Loading the CP33’s magazines is simple, though it takes some time. The feed lip design is such that avoiding rimlock is taken care of by the magazine and there’s little for the person loading the mag to worry about. However, it makes you slide each round in deliberately, one at a time, pushed to the rear, and it’s a process.

The CP33 is so dang fun to shoot (and shoot FAST) and the magazines are slow enough to load that I [jokingly] told Kel-Tec they should start a core exchange program. I’d love to purchase loaded mags, fire them empty, then ship them back for a refund of my core fee. We’ll just send mags back and forth — full from Kel-Tec to me, empty from me to Kel-Tec.

By the way, no, your eyes do not deceive you. The CP33’s magazines really are quadruple-stacked. There’s a clear polymer rib at rear that keeps each double-stack rim side from interfering with the other, and a stainless steel bar that keeps each crossed bullets side from interfering with the other. Somehow the feeding at the top just magically happens.

Good news; should you manage to rimlock a couple rounds — this happened to me two times over the course of about 30 magazines — it’s usually fixable through the skeletonized sides of the magazine. Unloading the fruits of your labor isn’t typically necessary. Or, just ignore a rimlocked round and sometimes it’ll feed anyway or cause a stoppage that you can clear easily enough.

But enough about the magazine capacity. On to the gun . . .

Courtesy Oleg Volk

Holy cow 33 rounds, though, right? That’s wild. Sorry, sorry . . .

But seriously 50 rounds!?! That’s a lot of pew in a pistol. Especially in a standard-format (i.e. not a drum) magazine. In a caliber that’s affordable to shoot in quantity.

Okay so actually over to the pistol and it’s a big ol’ thing, right? It shares a significant amount of frame or “lower receiver” design with Kel-Tec’s CMR-30 carbine (possibly identical), which has lots of shared features with their PMR-30 pistol.

There’s much more rear overhang than a typical pistol. Which is usually a good thing for reliability; plenty of bolt travel provides fudge factor in design and timing.

It also means an extremely long sight radius. I was pinging steel targets past 100 yards with impressive reliability.

Some of that is the extra long sight radius and some of it is the really clear, bright sights. A swappable/removable green fiber optic front sight really pops.

And a fully adjustable orange fiber optic sight is at the rear.

My only real gripe about the feel or impression of quality on the CP33 is also visible in the photo above: I don’t like seeing those injection molding marks in the charging handle, and wasn’t a big fan of how the handle felt in my hand, either.

Excepting Kel-Tec’s standard assembly process of bolting together two clamshell halves to build their firearm frames, this is the only aspect of the CP33’s fit, finish, or overall quality that was below my expectations.

Also helping in the accuracy department is a stellar trigger. I mean truly great. It’s light — I didn’t get to measure it, but I’d guess 3.5 lbs. — extremely smooth, and it breaks crisply and cleanly. Crisp, short reset, too. The Kel-Tec CP33’s trigger is probably better than that of 95% of the sub-$750, .22LR pistols on the market.

As you’d expect, it’s a fixed barrel in the CP33. This, too, contributes to solid accuracy.

Courtesy Oleg Volk

But the accuracy of the semi-auto CP33 exceeded expectations. We shot many examples of the gun and they were all incredible tack drivers. They made every shooter look far better than usual, as we unrelentingly drilled distant targets at a much faster rate than anyone was used to.

Between the great trigger, great sights, and shockingly high mechanical accuracy plus the size, grip, and rimfire chambering that result in a most incredibly flat- and soft-shooting gun, the CP33 hits the mark. Fast.

Though who relies on iron sights? Thanks to the full-length top rail, the CP33 is ready for a red dot.

Thanks to threaded holes in its aluminum upper receiver, it’s also ready for other bolt-ons like thumb rests.

With a threaded barrel, the CP33 is ready to accept muzzle devices like compensators and suppressors. It suppressed extremely nicely — quiet, with no gas blockback or functional issues.

Cut into the CP33’s dust cover is a single M-LOK slot. Judging by the bolt at front and rear of this aluminum section, it looks like Kel-Tec has kept its options open for different dust cover designs, too.

An M-LOK slot provides plenty of options in and of itself, of course. Like a section of Picatinny rail or any number of direct-to-M-LOK accessories.

At rear, Kel-Tec included a steel tab on either side below the charging handle. These could be used for a sling or possibly bolting on some sort of pistol brace in the future.

In the meantime, Kel-Tec will be offering a QD sling socket attachment. Nice.

But the accessory you really want is a suppressor. It’s the best muzzle device possible, right? Hit up Silencer Shop and they’ll walk you through the process. It ain’t that hard!

And a suppressor fits so very nicely on the CP33, too. That barrel shoulder is just the teeniest hair proud of the front of the upper receiver, so there’s no gap. It looks great with a can on it.

Functionally, the CP33 runs as you’d expect. Ambidextrous manual thumb safeties in the normal location — they snick cleanly on and off — and a bolt stop where it should be.

Only one control is located outside the norm — at least for us ‘Muricans — and that’s the heel magazine release. I happen to like this quite a bit, as it’s perfect for grabbing with your thumb as you strip the magazine out of the grip. It’s very natural when done that way, and I appreciated it on the CP33 just as I did on my PMR-30 and just as I always have on my HK P7.

Though I didn’t see this occur with any shooters and have never experienced it myself, shooters with large, meaty hands could accidentally depress the magazine release with their strong hand palm. At least according to the interwebs.

So it was extremely cold in Gillette, Wyoming, in mid-November when I shot the CP33 from Florida-based Kel-Tec CNC, Inc.

The guns were cold.

I was cold.

But things ran pretty well. Not perfectly, but pretty well.

Some of the lubrication was gummy in the single-digit temps. There were a few instances where the first two or three rounds didn’t want to feed from the magazine because the bolt was slow — just sticky in the thick lube.

There were a few mid-magazine feeding issues caused by a rimlocked round. Those may or may not have resulted in a stoppage if bolt speeds were higher along with the temperatures.

And by “a few,” I do mean just a few. Maybe 10 total stoppages out of a couple thousand rounds. Overall the CP33 pistol ran pretty freakin’ well. At least as well as most rimfires might in these conditions. Unquestionably better than any .22LR handgun I’ve ever shot with a capacity over 30 rounds.

And it’s fun. Oh man, is it fun. Throw a suppressor on and the CP33 is a hearing-safe, high-capacity, rapid-fire little laser beam of a smile generator. It’s the kind of gun that reminds me how much fun target shooting is.

Kel-Tec’s CP33 pistol was so fun I needed a smoke. Plus it was cold in freaking Wyoming in freaking mid-November.

Kel-Tec’s new gun, the CP33, was so fun I changed my religion. Or it was just really, really cold for this now-Texan.

Kel-Tec’s CP33 was so fun I made reliable hits at 800 yards with a Kel-Tec RFB looking through a 6x Vortex scope with an off-kilter reticle shooting plain ol’ American Eagle ammo. In hindsight this may not be related to the CP33, but I was already in a good mood and determined to keep that going, so missing wasn’t an option.

Why a Florida gun in Wyoming? That I can’t answer. But I’m glad the question was asked, because shooting the CP33 made the cold and snow all worth it. It’s a 10 out of 10 on the fun scale. And did I mention it holds 33 rounds? Or 50!?

Specifications: Kel-Tec CP33 .22 LR Pistol

Caliber: .22 LR
Capacity: 33 rounds. 50 rounds with extension (!).
Weight: 24 ounces
Length: 10.6 inches
Height: 6 inches
Barrel Length: 5.55 inches
Sight Radius: 8.64 inches
MSRP: $475

Ratings (out of five stars):

Reliability * * *
I experienced a few hitches, but overall these early production models ran pretty darn well with a few brands of ammo. Feeding issues were primarily due to the cold temperatures and thick lube, but there were a couple stoppages due to rimlock.

Accuracy * * * * *
Shockingly accurate. Not only mechanically accurate, but incredibly easy to shoot to its potential.

Ergonomics * * *
The grip feels good in my hands, but there’s room for ergonomic improvement. I’m not a big fan of the Steyr-style rear charging handle, but it’s perfectly functional. The CP33 is a large thing, but once you’re shooting it all clicks.

Customize This * * * * *
Suppressor-friendly threaded barrel, rear accessory attachment point, M-LOK section under the barrel, full Picatinny optics rail, threaded attachment points on either side of the aluminum receiver, and fully-adjustable sights. This is a heck of a lot of customization potential right out of the box.

On The Range * * * * *
Fun in a gun. Have some gun fun with a fun gun. The CP33 is a rapid-fire smile machine.

Overall * * * *
As much as I love the CP33 — and I do! And I’ll be buying one — it isn’t quite a five-star gun. Maybe when Kel-Tec ramps up that loaded magazine core exchange program. Or if the rear charging handle sees some design tweaks or the aftermarket steps in. But if they make enough that they’re widely available and they can be found for the MSRP price or less, I’m all-in and this thing earns a rock solid four stars all day long.

Hidden Path Entertainment, headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., announced on Wednesday that it will release a remastered edition of Defense Grid 2 on the Nintendo Switch on February 7th.

Defense Grid 2 is a “tower defense” game, where players must protect vulnerable assets from enemy attack by setting up layers of fortifications, obstacles, and automated weapon systems. You rarely if ever take direct offensive action. Instead, you build up a potentially elaborate series of defenses that slow, stop, redirect, or destroy the enemy’s onslaught.

In DG2 in particular, your goal is to keep hordes of invading aliens away from your outposts. You can set up systems that shoot down, reroute, block, or slowly whittle away at the advancing aliens before they’re able to reach, grab, and escape with the floating cores that power your defenses. The game features “couch co-op” on the Switch, with each player using a Joy-Con controller.

We are excited to announce that Defense Grid 2 is coming to the Nintendo Switch on February 7th!
Head over to our Blog to read all the details!https://t.co/KPEDqUoPW1#NintendoSwitch #TowerDefense #DG2 #DefendTheCores

— Hidden Path Ent (@HiddenPathEnt) January 16, 2019

In its press release, Hidden Path wrote that the Switch port “marks two longtime dreams our team has had: to bring you a Defense Grid game you can take on the go, and offering the game on a Nintendo console.”

In 2013 through 2014, the making of Defense Grid 2 was chronicled by Russ Pitts in a series for Polygon, beginning from its earliest planning stages. The game was initially funded via a successful Kickstarter campaign, but when that proved insufficient, an angel investor came aboard to bring the game closer to completion. The result, in 2014, was critically and commercially successful, and led to a VR port two years later.

The 2019 Defense Grid 2 features the original 26-mission campaign, as well as Aftermath, an additional chapter with five extra missions that was formerly exclusive to the game’s VR release. As with the other versions, it will ship with platform-specific leaderboards, which let you track your performance on each stage against other members of the game’s Switch community.

Hidden Path Entertainment was founded in 2006 by a group of ex-Microsoft developers, and made its debut with 2008’s Defense Grid: The Awakening. Its other releases include Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the updated 2013 Steam port of Age of Empires II, and last year, the real-time strategy VR game Brass Tactics.

Defense Grid 2 will be available digitally for $19.99 via the Nintendo eShop, and those who pre-order the game will receive a 10% discount. DG2 is also available via Steam for Windows, Linux, and OS X; on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One via both consoles’ online marketplaces; and has been released for virtual reality on the Oculus Rift and Samsung GearVR.

Opinion

United States of America – -(AmmoLand.com)- This month, the seating of a new anti-gun Congress, makes for a good chance to provide Second Amendment supporters who are new to actively working to protect our rights some pointers, as well as to give those who have been long-time activists a bit of a refresher (it never hurts). We all know our objective is to preserve the Second Amendment. But how do we get there from here?

That is a good question, but before you know how to get there from here, you first need to know where “here” is. So, the first step for a newly-politically active Second Amendment supporter isn’t to set up a protest of some anti-Second Amendment politician. It’s to hit the books and the internet search engines – because you have a lot to learn. Defending the Second Amendment involves more than spouting off in a comments section, where everyone already agrees. All too often, the Second Amendment supporter who goes off half-cocked ends up helping Bloomberg.

You need the facts on Second Amendment issues. NRA-ILA has a number of fact sheets that can give you a good handle on the federal issues we face. You don’t have to be a member to access them, either. But that is not all you need to learn in order to effectively defend the Second Amendment in the political arena.

You need to learn more about your local community – who represents it in your local state legislature and Congress, how they have generally viewed your Second Amendment rights. You even should learn what the current laws are at the state and federal level. This knowledge matters because an argument that would work well in rural Kansas or Wisconsin isn’t going to work in the suburbs of Philadelphia or Washington, D.C., and a message that works in the suburbs could be counter-productive in New York City, Seattle, or Boston.

The approach should also change based on your elected officials’ track record on the Second Amendment. If they are loyal friends, often a “thank you for your support” is all that is needed, as well as their sense of what the situation is on thre ground in your particular legistlature. If they are on the fence about some issues, politely discussing the facts – especially when you can show them that gun-control extremists are not being factually accurate – could win them over. As for determined opponents… well, you smile sweetly for the cameras, agree to disagree, and work to vote their anti-Second Amendment butts out the next time they are up for election.

Why hit the books so much? Well, when people protest, the media will come to cover the protests at some point. It may only be your local newspaper or TV station, but don’t knock it. Many big-name reporters with national profiles got started at smaller outlets, so if their experience with Second Amendment supporters is a positive one, it will have benefits down the road. It also gives you a chance to reach your local community. But that only works if you are knowledgeable about the issues, and aware of the situation.

Find Support: NRA FrontLines

Another thing to do to help your learning process along is to see if you can find other Second Amendment supporters in your area. One good way to do this is to join a network like NRA-ILA’s FrontLines. This way, you will not only have the benefit of working with others who have experience in being politically active in defense of your Second Amendment rights, but you will also not feel alone or isolated. In an era where the Second Amendment faces social stigmatization, this is far more important than you can imagine.

If you are reading this, then you have the objective of protecting our Second Amendment rights and securing the legacy of freedom and an effective means of self-protection for future generations. But you cannot figure out how to achieve that objective unless you are aware of the current situation. Only then can you figure out how to get there from here.

About Harold Hutchison

Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.