A lengthy word-fest on the Bodyguard 2.0 - my day in the desert w/the new micro .380

[CommunismDelendaEst]

Folks, I've written up a lengthy diatribe. I'm going to post it up in 5-6 posts so I'll reserve them for the additional content.


I recognize that I am a new poster and just some internet rando, and that you folks don't know me from a hole in the ground. I just wanted to share my experience with you and give you some feedback on this new handgun. Here we go!

 

[CommunismDelendaEst]

Last week when I acquired my four new guns, one of which was the Bodyguard 2.0, I had so many to “shoot-in and evaluate” that I had no real time to familiarize myself with any one of them. It takes a lot of time, effort, fuel, and money to get to the Pawnee Grasslands shooting site where I can shoot completely without interruption or even without seeing another person, so I will often take many guns to shoot… which decreases the amount I can learn from any particular firearm.

My initial (brief, 60-round) assessment of the BG2 was mixed - the firearm felt great, carried like nothing ever in history, and pointed well… until you got to the sights, which the rear is so wide that it is unsuited for any precision work. I noted like virtually every other person reporting on their experience here on the internet, that the firearm was shooting significantly to the left of the point of aim. I did not quantify my experience due to the pace of shooting last weekend with all the new guns.

So I was determined to take this firearm to the desert test location to evaluate it for its capabilities - I wanted to shoot it slowly so I could gauge its accuracy and its precision. I wanted to shoot it fast to see if its limitations for rapid fire recovery could be assessed. I also wanted to give this little pocket rocket an opportunity to misbehave in the feed and function aspect, if it was so inclined.

First Challenge: 10 yard Slow Fire at Center Mass.

The course of fire I chose was simple - two reactive targets and one full-sized IPSC plastic target holder, with a far-smaller IPSC Practice Target (12” x 18”) stapled to the middle. I was to shoot the paper target with the firearm in slow fire at 10 yards, measured with my laser rangefinder, aiming at the “A” letter in the A-Zone (which is 3.25” wide by 6.25” tall) center mass and determine how far off POA the impact cone would fall. Here are the results:

 

[CommunismDelendaEst]

Second Challenge: 7 yard Slow Fire at Center Mass.

I then wanted to move up to the 7 yard line and shoot the same course of fire at the “A-Zone” target in the “head” of the IPSC reduced target, which was 2.25” wide. The goal was to determine if I could still obtain “head shots” on this admittedly smallish target that would land despite poor sight regulation.


Here are the results:

 

[CommunismDelendaEst]

Third Challenge: UNLOAD THAT MAG - 7 yards!

This challenge is simple: You walk to the 7 yard firing line, raise the pistol and fire to slide lock as quickly as humanly possible without being unsafe. Can you get all 10 rounds in the reduced IPSC target? If not, can you keep all 10 rounds in the full size IPSC target?

I did not photograph this stage - suffice it to say that I have never done any shooting like this due to the fact that every staffed range would have heart failure if I wasn’t shooting S-L-O-W-L-Y (they’re afraid of reckless shooters unable to handle their handguns). Thus I have no experience doing this. Since this is the first time I’ve done this with any handgun, it’s also the first time I’ve done it with THIS handgun.

Result: Although the pistol was jumping around a bit, I moved at a very good clip (10 shots/5 seconds), and managed to keep 7 of 10 rounds in the reduced target, and all 10 on the full-sized one.

 

[CommunismDelendaEst]

Fourth Challenge: A sort of “Dicken Drill,” 10 rounds carefully aimed at as far as...

...you can shoot.

My approach was inspired by the story of Eli Dicken, a young mall-goer who stood his ground and killed a psychopath who shot up a food court in a mall. Dicken took shots at distance, then moved to close with his would-be killer. A detailed followup can be found here: https://www.concealedcarryforfree.com/new-details-about-how-eli-dicken-stopped-a-mass-shooter/

I did not attempt to duplicate Dicken’s shots taken and his movement-to-contact as he closed the distance and negated the threat. In future work I will definitely set up a course of movement and may even film it. After all, it might be funny watching a near-retiree trying to look like he knows what he’s doing!

I set up and fired at the target using my GX460 as a brace. Today I just took 10 slow-fire shots at the target, this time NOT aiming center-mass (I aimed for the extreme right edge of the full-size IPSC target). The hope was to get as many of the aimed shots on paper as possible. The distance of 28 yards to the target from the vehicle is exaggerated by the fish-eye lens of my cell phone. The small size of the target and the data is due to the site software being unable to handle larger images.


There are 5 shots on target to the extreme left next to the post. The other 5 shots never hit the full size target. The aiming point was the extreme right (the target's "left elbow").

 

[CommunismDelendaEst]

Analysis:

This handgun is capable of some pretty impressive precision, as is evidenced by the repeated number of shots in the same hole or group of holes. There were NO failures to feed, fire or eject at any time during today’s evaluation or during the initial shots. Total round count between both firing sessions is about 180 rounds, split between 100 grain roundnose and 88 grain hollowpoint. Mechanical precision in its construction and function is undoubtedly in evidence.

Shooter is clearly not yet conditioned to this firearm’s trigger pull, grip requirement and fine motion control as that trigger is traveling though its stroke. Recoil management is becoming better controlled by the shooter. Undoubtedly this will improve with practice.

The sights are apparently drifted out of alignment, although there is little apparent misalignment visible left-to-right. The difference is about 3/100ths (front sight right, rear site left - but the sight radius is brutally short at 4.36” (compare Beretta 80x @ 5.22”, Glock G43xMOS @ 5.44” and Canik TP9SF @ 6.85”). Any non-alignment of the sites during the trigger actuation, which is EASY with the mile-wide rear sight, will result in a BIG displacement down range. Could there be some kind of problem with the barrel or other manufacturing challenge which is causing this problem? Nothing seems apparent and the firearm runs flawlessly.

Clearly if I was in the unenviable and certainly unlikely scenario where I could afford to take slow shots at a large target from such short distances (I can’t even begin to envision how some situation like this could arise - perhaps being attacked by an extremely slow-moving yet deadly threat?), the pistol as it stands would deliver hits close enough to desired POA to be effective. Happily, shots that are rushed at near-contact distances aren’t as far off point of aim to be significantly problematic.

The real trouble comes when distances exceed 15 yards; clearly the 28 yard challenge was unsuccessful in every real way as the weapon, even with Kentucky windage applied all the way to the right edge of the full-sized IPSC target (its “left arm”), could not be estimated effectively to strike the target. Something like a long-distance slow fire shot could not reasonably be attempted with the firearm in its current state, so the sights will need to be carefully adjusted until windage stays substantially at POA to reasonable shooting distances.

 

[CommunismDelendaEst]

Side note:

I did get some “company” from a friendly (perhaps, NOT SO FRIENDLY) small 20” NopeRope with a rattly tail. It seemed to be a young creature, startled by an oafish man-beast hunting for valuable .380 brass in its home-space. I backed off and apologized for intruding.

Dad-style advice: You are NEVER TRULY ALONE IN THE DESERT! Watch where you’re walking!

 

[biku324]

Prepare to hear from lots of folks yelling at you that your grip is off or you'd be shooting dead on. It's much easier to set the sights to POA (the front were pretty adjustable with a Wyoming Sight Drifter on my 2 new Shields, both of which shot almost identically left) than to learn to change your normal grip to accurately fire only this particular weapon.

You heard here first! And welcome to the Forum!