For those that are interested, this is a report on my experience with the Smith & Wesson Body Guard .380 automatic. This is not a review of the pistol exactly. I won’t go over the specs of the pistol, pricing, take down procedures, etc. Just my experience after 500 rounds through the pistol.

It was bought new last November, serial number starting ECE I shot 500 rounds, that I loaded myself, 100 at a time then reloaded. All the brass I used had been picked up from the range grounds. I used a light load of HP38 and Berry’s 100gn copper plated round nose hollow base bullets with CCI small pistol primers. These traveled around 800fps. The pistol was cleaned once, after 300 rounds.

The long, stiff trigger pull had worried me some at first, but after the first 100 round outing the trigger became smoother and much easier to control. It stayed this way for the remainder of the report. Also, the magazines quit binding on the catch when inserting them.

Out of all 500 rounds, I only had 5 failures to fire! 3 in the 2nd batch, 1 in the 4th and 1 in the 5th. These promptly fired on the second trigger pull which is a testament to the advantage of a double action only pistol in a tight spot. There was only one failure to feed and this occurred in the 4th batch. This occurred after the spent brass had been cleanly ejected and next cartridge was being fed into the chamber. This was easy enough to clear. The spent brass was found pretty much in a 5 foot semi circle to right of the shooting position. Along the way I also shot Remington HTP and some loads I made with Hornady 90gn XTP bullets and these never had a failure to feed or fire.

I shot at 7 yards, standing, and the targets were 8.5 by 11” that I printed out. This pistol, with me shooting it, with these reloaded target rounds shot low at all times. At 7 yards if I aimed at the top edge of the paper the shots would be consistently in the center of the page. The grouping was good with almost all shots making it through the target paper. This seemed to be OK for what the pistol was designed for. The laser was useless for me. It was hard to turn on even though I tried several mods for this concern. I did not contact S&W about the laser buttons. I heard they have better ones now.

What caught my attention:
Reliably shot reloads with used brass and the DAO could be a lifesaver.

Nice little pistol!

(bullets recovered from phone books point blank)

Attached Images

BG.jpg (173.1 KB, 234 views)

Nice, thanks for the update and info. Just another testament..

__________________
Jack C

Thanks for the info and pic.

My BG has been very reliable and accurate. I found the trigger smoothed out ALOT. Its very easy to stage for accurate shooting. The laser was very easy to use as long as its not bright sunlight. In the shade, dusk, night or indoors, the laser is very effective and accurate.
I find myself carrying the BG more than any other handgun simply because it is a competent, accurate and reliable handgun regardless of its size. The fact that its a pocket pistol is just gravy.







A little orange reflective tape on the front sight makes all the difference.

I pretty much just pumped 500 rounds through the pistol to see how reliable it was. I would bet that the shooting low was due to me. I will say that the groups I had were pretty much like yours but many more rounds on the paper. And 100 rounds at a constant pace wore my hand out!
I feel that this pistol would never fail me!
Now, to work on that self defense load and train myself not to shoot low.

Hey that`s pretty good for the BG you have . I have just over 700 rounds through mine and i picked it up in April of 2013 with the serial starting with KAH . Had my share of fail to feed and mis-fire`s with all different types of ammo but the speer lawmans ammo i had 0 issue`s with , dont know why ? I started haveing alot of misfires/second and third strikes somewhere in the 600-650 rounds fired mark , got worried that it was the fireing pin giving up the ghost so i picked up a sight pusher , watched alot of you-tube vids on slide disassembly and broke my slide down to the fireing pin and found what looked like little black chunks of coal dust caught up in the fireing pin spring and channel , all else looked good so i cleaned it up put it all back together and lubed it according to the S&W users guide and went back out and ran some test fire rounds through it and so far so good , like it was new again !!

Froglube gave several of my handguns including the BG 380 issues. It migrated into the fireing pin area and caused issues. As soon as I cleaned it all out and went back to G96, the BG was flawless again. It doesn't take much in the fireing pin area to cause weak primer strikes.

When I got mine I took it apart before shooting and checked for manufacturing debris, none was found. Cleaned and lubed with CPL Breakfree. Cleaned and lubed again after 300 rounds using Breakfree once again. Still have not cleaned it after 500! I do wipe off the powder residue on the outside of the pistol before leaving the range.
I really neglected this littel pistol on purpose but it keeps on ond on. It has proven itself to me. It is time for a good cleaning and then use it as intended. It conceals very well, especially with shorts and a tshirt. I dont have the body to reliably carry a larger caliber CCW and not have it print or be seen. If I could get away with it would carry a 1911.

I pray that I will never have to use it for its intended purpose, but I will not be taken advantage of.

First rule of a gun fight is have a gun with you. Living in Illinois and just getting my CCL there is one thing I have found out, did my G26 CS9 360PD and Shield get really big . I am seriously giving thought to a mouse gun. Have any of you compared the BG to the 380lcp ,is there a pocket clip for the BG like there is for the lcp ? By the way, at 1 to 5 feet I don't think anyone would scoff at a .380 .

Yes there is a pocket clip by techna clip. It works really good in my front pocket.