EAVxxxx. After moderate dry firing using new snap caps, weather permitted outing with a friend and prospective buyer of another BG for himself. I intended to cycle 350-400 rounds of various .380 ammunition for reliability test before using the piece for full-time concealed carry. Nice day, but it failed to fire.

I did not know that there was a firing pin breakage issue before checking online today. Field-stripped, I can only see the firing pin block, with no part of the firing pin showing rearward of it. I can depress the block pin and push the firing pin sufficiently to protrude from the breech face--but not by a lot IMHO. It's tiny and pointed.

Unfortunately, the YouTube movie referenced earlier has been pulled. But it seems clear that the pin block may at least be one factor in these failures, which must include poor design, weak pin steel, and too much machined from the firing pin to accommodate the pin block.

But I'm also wondering whether there is a problem with the actuator that is supposed to raise the firing pin block at hammer release. Mine seems to raise only at the instant of hammer break. That seems to be cutting full release of the firing pin much too close. [No, I do not let the hammer drop all the way]. But if the block pin cam does not actuate the block cleanly at time of hammer fall, it would likely impose a leveraged breaking moment to the bearing surface of the firing pin cutout and easily break the end of it off. Is this the failure the YouTube movie described and that others are experiencing?

I'm curious as to what armorers here may think about this notion. Can anyone confirm that the pin block actuator operates as described? It would not seem to take much wear or miss-adjustment of the block actuator to cause the problem.

As for snap caps, note that I cycled among 5 new snap caps so that none would become dented and thus not protective of the firing pin. That said, the apparent minute protrusion of the firing pin at the breach makes me wonder whether snap caps would do much to protect the firing pin on the BG 380 in any case.

Meanwhile, I'll stick with my P7-M8.