I had sort of the same thing happen this Saturday. I was out shooting with a friend. He had brought along a Star 380; I don't know the model number, but it was all stainless and had a locked breech. It was a nice gun with a very ergonomic grip. He wanted to try some hollow point ammo in it to see if it would feed, and thus qualify for concealed carry. The HP ammo seemed to stick about 2/3 of the way into the chamber. I tried it with my handloads and the same thing happened. Very puzzling as the pistol had been extremely reliable over the years.
I was unloading his magazines, and loading mine for the nickled and engravd Llama 380 that I have illustrated here before, when he asked if I had a cleaning rod. I did; I put it down the muzzle and felt resistance. It would not budge with hand pressure. I tapped it with a hammer, keeping hands clear of the muzzle in case anything happened.
A 32 ACP round fell out of the breech. It had fed from the magazine at some time, and had become lodged in the bore; preventing the 380 from chambering all the way. Good thing it had lodged where it did: if it had not prevented a 380 round from chambering completely, things would have got really exciting when he pulled the trigger. Probably both rounds would have gone off; the barrel would have bulged at the obstruction and both the 380 bullet and the 32 round would have come out the muzzle. I checked his half empty box of 380s: there was another 32 ACP in there, which he must have loaded into the 380 box when coming to the range. Gotta watch what's in your ammo boxes.
The picture is of my Llama 380; I don't have a picture of his Star.
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