Is the .380 cartridge underpowered?

[DWalt]

I assume some know that the .380 is the deadliest round ever, and know the reason why.

 

[Rustyt1953]

I assume some know that the .380 is the deadliest round ever, and know the reason why.

 

[fdw]

no it is not under powered...


hope this helps...

 

[texmex]

I assume some know that the .380 is the deadliest round ever, and know the reason why.

The .380 in the picture Rustyt1953 posted killed 17 million people by starting World War One.

 

[Grayfox]

My one and only .380 shooting story......
I was a mechanic for the city I live in. One day the police showed up with a car. It seems that the owner was sitting in the drive up line at a fast food place and got to fiddlin' with his brand new .380 carry gun. Yep, he shot himself.
I don't know the exact gun used, but it was described to me as one of those little pocket pistols. (On further reflection, I believe they mentioned it was an AMT Back-Up.)
Anyway, police asked me to try to find the bullet. It turns out that the bullet passed completely through the guys upper leg, through the seat, two layers of inside door panel, broke the window glass and finally stopped when it hit the outer door panel where it made a healthy dent. I found a nicely flattened FMJ inside the bottom of the door among all the broken glass.
All in all, this bullet traveled about 24" through a variety of materials including human flesh, foam rubber, plastic and auto safety glass.
I don't know about you, but I consider that pretty good penetration for an under powered .380.

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

Never fails to penetrate a Caldwell... what else ya looking for?

 

[Mister X]

"Some experts will say it's barely adequate, and others will say it's barely inadequate." -Massad Ayoob

I'm kind of on the fence regarding the .380's suitability for self-defense purposes. If you gave me the choice between a Glock 42 and a 43, I can't think of any scenario where I wouldn't choose the 9mm. There are some really tiny .380's that are a delight to carry, but I carry a gun because I believe there is a realistic chance that I might have to use it to defend my life and the lives of my family. I honestly would not feel all that comfortable and confident with trying to do so with a 10 ounce .380 that only holds 6 rounds.

A high percentage of the really small .380's seem to suffer from reliabilty problems and are usually pretty finicky about what ammo they'll accept. The ones that are shootable, handle well and seem to run fine(like the Glock 42) are minimally smaller than currently available small 9x19's, which I view as being substantially better suited for defensive use.

YMMV

 

[Lostaro]

I think we can all agree that a .380 isn't the best choice for self defense...I do feel it has a place in my arsenal.

There are times when carrying a larger gun isn't practical. I'm happy to have my LCP for those rare times. It is reliable (when I do my part) and I shoot it well at reasonable ranges. The 90grn XTP does well in my informal tests also.

My general rule is to carry the largest revolver I can conceal. Usually that's a j frame but when the situation allows a medium frame .357 is my preferred choice.

We all walk different paths...what works everyday for you may not work for me. The micro .380's allow some of us to go out armed when we might otherwise have to go empty handed.
That's a far worse choice than having an "underpowered" round.

 

[Bat Guano]

A 442 has been my drop-in-the pocket gun for the last 10+ years now. So it has the virtue of always being there, and--a big deal to me--always works. Mini semi autos are flatter, might carry a couple more rounds, etc, but in my experience, eventually choke for reasons of their own.

When out and about I carry something "bigger and better", with demonstrated reliability.

 

[Mister X]

I think there is a problem trying to make the .380 into something it's not.

I'll thumbnail this, because many here have heard it before. I've worked in some capacity on more than 200 handgun killing cases. After a while a pattern started to emerge, and it's stayed true. The only thing that will guarantee the cessation of offensive action by a human is a hit to either 1) the brain/spinal cord or 2) the heart/aorta. An effective defensive handgun is one that allows the user to accurately target these vitals and provides sufficient penetration to hit them. That's all. Other hits might stop a person, but these will. Period.

You might want expansion to increase the diameter of the tissue damage. Fine, so long as it doesn't trade off the penetration you need to reach these vitals. You might want expansion to prevent overpenetration. Fine and noble - Rule 4 should always remain prominently in our heads.

Turning to the call of the question for this thread: Is the .380 cartridge underpowered?

I have worked now on dozens of killing cases in which .380s were used. I have never seen a case in which .380 hardball failed to penetrate to the depth needed to hit the heart/aorta or brain/spinal cord. .380 ball appears to be effective. (And, while I've worked on one case in which a .380 ball round overpenetrated its intended target and wounded a person beyond, it only hit the first guy's calf so I have a hard time saying that it's a dangerously overpenetrative round.)

However, I have worked on three shootings in which .380 hollow points failed to penetrate sufficiently hit these vitals. (And these were fired from guns with longer barrels than the LCP types have.) Boy, but so many have been convinced that hollow points are the way to go (just look up-thread, for instance), and that's all the gun magazines show as defensive ammo from these guns. Not for me!

Think about what a hollow point does. By opening up and transmitting energy to the target medium, it loses the energy of its forward motion. The opening of a hollow point is like putting on the brakes, like opening a parachute.

It's exactly what you want/need when you're using something penetrative like a 9x19 in an urban setting, but is it a good idea for the slower/lighter .380? In my opinion, based on those three failures I've seen, no. A 115-gr 9x19 bullet traveling at 1150 fps is one thing; a 90-grain .380 bullet at 925 fps is another thing entirely. It can't afford to have the energy bled off - it may well not penetrate enough. Look at the gel tests out there. Do you have a .380 hollow point that meets FBI protocols for penetration from your gun? I doubt it. I would say that a .380 hollow point is not an effective defensive round.

But everyone should use whatever you determine is right for his own needs after doing his research.

Do you have an opinion on how .380 ACP performs when it hits bone? Especially in comparison to 9mm or .38 special +P.

Against someone armed with a contact weapon, I would imagine inflicting injuries involving shattering bone would often essentially ensure a stop(mechanical or mobility), depending on the specific injury.

 

[josp]

I've seen homicides with 22's, 380's, 40's, 45's, and lowly FMJ 38 spl from a snub nose. One thing in common was hitting vital organs or brain/spinal shots.
I shoot a full size Glock 45 really well, but carry a J frame daily cause it's easy to have with me and I can shoot it accurately enough.
Situational awareness has saved me more times that the gun I choose to carry, on duty or off.
Stay safe my friends.

 

[Erich]

Do you have an opinion on how .380 ACP performs when it hits bone? Especially in comparison to 9mm or .38 special +P.

Against someone armed with a contact weapon, I would imagine inflicting injuries involving shattering bone would often essentially ensure a stop(mechanical or mobility), depending on the specific injury.

Two of those JHP failures were against a skull. Several cases had skulls penetrated by FMJs.

 

[OMCHamlin]

I can echo what texmex and Captain TMD have said. While I'll often carry a .357 or a .45, when the situation dictates and I can't carry something larger, I certainly don't feel helpless or uncomfortable packing my Ruger LCP in .380 loaded with Hornady Critical Defense ammo.

Not to disagree with Ken Hackathorn, but I'd certainly prefer to have my friend carry a .380 than to carry nothing.

Sure there are others that are more powerful, but to put it simply...I sure as heck wouldn't want to get shot with one.

Nice pocket knife...

 

[jimmyj]

When I am limited to a small .380acp pistol, I practice facial and crotch shots

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

If the .380 ACP is inherently less effective at stopping a bad guy in real life situations (not gelatin bad guys) compared to other common carry calibers like 9mm, 38spcl and 45ACP, you'd think it would show up among this collection of data, but it doesn't. The results among these calibers are eerily similar. Significant differences in failure to incapacitate seems to generally break with calibers either smaller than .380 or with magnums, higher and lower rates of failure to incapacitate.

An Alternate Look at Handgun Stopping Power | Buckeye Firearms Association

 

[Mister X]

If the .380 ACP is inherently less effective at stopping a bad guy in real life situations (not gelatin bad guys) compared to other common carry calibers like 9mm, 38spcl and 45ACP, you'd think it would show up among this collection of data, but it doesn't. The results among these calibers are eerily similar. Significant differences in failure to incapacitate seems to generally break with calibers either smaller than .380 or with magnums, higher and lower rates of failure to incapacitate.

An Alternate Look at Handgun Stopping Power | Buckeye Firearms Association

Consider what the author of that article(Greg Ellifritz) had to say about .380 ACP and the guns that fire it... Is the .380 ACP an Adequate Caliber for Defensive Use? | Active Response Training

 

[fdw]

I carry a LCP custom and feel fine with it. I will say that I only load round nose though....

I concur with Erich's long post regarding hollow points...

 

[Old TexMex]

I'm not a LEO or a Coroner. I do analytics. Seems to me, in all of these caliber debates, people are trying to use the probability of one event to predict the probability of another event without knowing if they are correlated.

As a civilian CHP holder, I carry to stop a threat that could kill or severely injure me or my loved ones (and possibly a stranger depending on circumstances). The statistic that matters to me is how often a particular caliber and type round failed to protect a defender from death or severe injury when it was fired in self defense and struck the BG.

One extreme could be that every BG that was shot with a .380 died, but before they died the BG was still able to kill or severely injure every GG that was using the .380 (or any other caliber).

OTOH, the other extreme would be that no BG was ever killed with a .380 fired in self defense, but no GG that used a .380 for self defense was ever injured or killed either. That would be pretty effective.

It's what happens to the GG that fired their weapon in self defense that matters (again - pick a caliber) .

The outcome for the BG might be relevant if there was some data that showed that the outcomes for the CHP GG and the BG are correlated. I've looked. I haven't seen anything that relates the two things.

Hey, stop making sense, will ya. We're tryin' to have a argument here....

I carry a .380 when it's the only legal caliber I'm allowed.

 

[Wise_A]

It's not that .380 is ineffective--it's that I don't feel like I need it.

I could say the same thing the other way:

"It's not that .357/.41/.44/.357Sig/10mm is overkill, I just don't feel like I need to carry one all the time."

 

[shouldazagged]

That horse must be just about beaten to mush by now.