Teach me about the .380 caliber

Florida J Frame said:
LAPD approved the LCP for back up and off duty carry only when loaded with Hornady Critical Defense.
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Yes, until last year when due to failure to fire/misfire issues we went to this.

Speer Lawman, .380 ACP, FMJ, 95 grain, FMJ, Product Number 53608
 
Judging from what I've seen, that will serve you much better, my friend. You can make fun of the Feebies all you want, but those protocols of theirs are pretty darned sensible. :)
 
I carry flat nose FMJ ammo in my LCP, and have for years. Everyone has an opinion, but where I live, I don't have to shoot my way back home every night. I cannot attest to it's ability in a firefight, but it has served flawlessly dispatching opossums, stray dogs, and other assorted varmints. It also is small enough to be comfortable in my front pocket.

If I felt I was going somewhere that trouble was probable, I'd take a rifle, or better yet, stay home. No handgun, in my opinion, is a good fighting weapon, but the one you have with you is much better than nothing in a pinch.
 
mscampbell2734 said:
Yes, until last year when due to failure to fire/misfire issues we went to this.

Speer Lawman, .380 ACP, FMJ, 95 grain, FMJ, Product Number 53608
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Thanks for the update. I did hear that Hornady had some issues with hard primers a while back but I hadn't come across this info.
 
shouldazagged said:
I fail to see the advantages of a pocket .380 (the only kind of .380 I'd consider) when a .38 Special J-frame is an option, but I'm known to be an old throwback. I certainly would prefer a .380 over a .25 or .22, but I'd consider it as a BUG.
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I'm a revolver guy at heart, and own several j frames. I switched to carrying the LCP because it is flat, and therefore much more comfortable in the front pocket. I found the cylinder of the j frame less comfortable and more difficult to conceal than the flat profile of the LCP.
 
In a Sig P238 the Corbon Pow R Ball works well. The bullet expands and does not clog.

There is a place for the .380acp. In my mind it can be a backup that I can hand to someone I'm with in a dire situation or as a backup for the primary going down. Great for stuffing in a pocket holster for those times a tucked in shirt is needed.
 
I hold my nose and carry this Kel Tec P3AT when I can't contrive to carry anything larger and that ain't too often. A supply of the hot Santa Barbara surplus .380 ammunition was laid in back in late 2005 when the pistol was purchased. This speedy flat-nosed (slightly concave nose) bullet clocks an realistic 1033 fps out of the P3AT's short barrel and gives flawless function. I'm not a big believer in "trick, expando-matic" bullets anyway and would not carry the .380 with any sort of hollow-point bullets under any circumstances.



This P3AT was a stinker that wouldn't give dependable function at all. Rather than to go the "fluff & buff" route suggested on the Kel Tec forum I determined to make a hobby of shooting it until it either became reliable or got tossed in disgust. It took around 600 rounds to iron things out but it runs right now.

I don't personally find the .380 ACP very inspiring and loathe the P3AT's DAO trigger, the indistinct lumps that are provided as sights, and the plastic. My brother-in-law has an early Ruger LCP and I felt its sights were a marked improvement to an otherwise identically wretched pistol. I'd trade into one of the LCP's with the improved sights as was mentioned in the above post but it's not worth the bother and expense.
 
Better than a rock or big stick. That said, I still would NOT shot with one. Just empty the mag first!!
 
Taking the new .380 to the range in the am. Finally drove around today and found a couple boxes of ball ammo. Two blazer and one blue box fioochi (sp?) . Can't wait to see how she shoots!
 
Is there anyone here who can honestly say that they would not have fear facing someone ready to shoot them with a .380? A .380 is no one's first choice as a self defense weapon, and a .380 isn't going to have much effect against a PCP-fueled attacker unless you can put one into what is left of his drug-ravaged brain. However, as a small concealable firearm to be used in a self defense emergency, it will serve it's purpose 99% of the time.
 
If a 380 is good enough for James Bond it's good enough for us.

Only he calls it 9mm short.

We all know that Bond can shoot a running man from 100 feet away while diving for cover and hit and stop him every time.

What more could you want?
 
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C17 said:
Pretty much a worthless caliber. In between 25 ACP and 9 mm. If you want a pocket gun, Keltec makes smaller guns in 9mm
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This statement is false and misleading.
I would recommend an educational experience, and then, perhaps a flat, non-objective, strictly subjective statement.
Information is the key.
Experience is the teacher.
 
Use Full metal jacket ball it feeds good and penetrate's enough to reach vital's. Hollow points are to light don't reach vitals. Of a half dozen shooting's are ER room never seen one full metal jacket 380 go through a torso and half were DOA. Hp are a joke in 380's,32 acp and 38spec. snubby's.
 
jeeps said:
Use Full metal jacket ball it feeds good and penetrate's enough to reach vital's. Hollow points are to light don't reach vitals. Of a half dozen shooting's are ER room never seen one full metal jacket 380 go through a torso and half were DOA. Hp are a joke in 380's,32 acp and 38spec. snubby's.
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I've bet my life daily for a good many years that you're mistaken about hollow-points from a snub .38 Special. Decades of recorded shootings appear to validate my opinion that they are no kind of joke.

I have limited experience with .32 ACP and none with .380, but I'd much prefer not to be center-punched with a hollow-point or FMJ from either.

Just saying.
 
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I have a Mustang .380 that is too expensive to shoot.
It killed my chronograph with one shot.
It has a life sentence in the darkness of my gun safe for the rest of it's evil life. Neal39
 
Kanewpadle said:
I hate the 380.



They are indeed a "get off me" gun. Which means you've waited too long to act.

What I mean is that for most people the gun is useless at 7 yards. The point where most of us carrying a larger service caliber gun have already started shooting.
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really? 21 feet and you have started shooting? you know 21 feet away that someone is going to be a threat to your life in more than just the most unusual situation? the average self defense shooting is 6 feet or less. i hope you have a large legal defense fund and if not id start saving now.
 
drinva said:
I have been use to a .25 for many many years. My reason for the new .380 was more power, same size, that simple.

Besides all the "bad" you read on the .25, I never once felt "under armed" in close situations. I have many old soup cans that looked like major pin cushions, in and out and gone.

So the new .380 I cannot wait to try, being use to the .25 as a pocket rocket, the .380 should be a power house :D:D

DR
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Our home town had a bully, a tall fellow. He frequented bars and picked on littler folks. He took great glee in picking on one smaller fellow. The gent got tired of being bullied, slapped and humiliated. He bought a .25 semi-auto. 7 rounds.

The bully started his clown act, the smaller gent pulled the .25 and emptied it in the stomach of the bully.

The bully rushed to the emergency room thinking he was a dead man with all of his prized organs being riddled and all.

The town Dr went into surgery thinking he was working on a soon to be dead man. Not one bullet went past the abdominal muscles.

It was deemed self defense. The smaller gent left town. The bully quit running bars, drinking, started going to church and stayed home at nights.

This happened when I was a Deputy. I knew both men.

All the LE's in our area that carried a .25 pocket back-up quit them cold.

Our summary was the .25 is good to slow a bully down and convert him to religion. Not much else though.
 
I agree with Eric FMJ in 380 and the 32acp are proven stoppers when you hit center mass. Ball will reach the vitals. Too many people think Hollow points make magic stoppers. 9mm,38,40,45 all will not stop if you can not hit center mass,gut shot is gut shot and shot in the arm or leg the same. Today most web commando's think pray and spray and bad hits will stop a fight in bigger cals. 12-16 shot fired maybe two hits in non lethal area's. I would rather have a man with 32 or 380 with ball that can stay cool and hit center mass than a web commando with a 45 that can't hit anything and have a brown mark in his unders.
 
A few decades ago a women with a 25 Raven killed 4 people with one magazine of ammo. John Browning did not design his ammo to wound or maim people in the early 1900's.
 
medxam said:
In 4000 GSW autopsies, I have never seen a .25 cal projectile fail to penetrate the abdominal musculature. It must have been some very old bad ammo!

medxam
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Not taking issue with your results, but an infinitely more interesting number would be the number of .25 shots to the abdomen. I can say that I've worked on more than 200 handgun killings and more hundreds of shootings and I've never seen a case in which a .32 S&W Long shooting wasn't fatal, but what's more significant in that equation is that there weren't a hell of a lot of those. :) It would be helpful to say, "I've worked on five cases in which there were .25 FMJ wounds to the abdomen, and in every one of those cases the abdominal wall was perforated by the projectile that hit it."
 
Erich,
I've followed your posts for several years and I would be very interested in your current position on the .380 as a defense round. Do you still like the BB +P?
 
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medxam said:
In 4000 GSW autopsies, I have never seen a .25 cal projectile fail to penetrate the abdominal musculature. It must have been some very old bad ammo!

medxam
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It's always revealing to hear your ideas on this kind of thing, Doc. If anybody would have, you should pardon the expression, the inside scoop, it would seem to be the guy doing the post mortem exam.

That doesn't mean I'm going to trade my J-frame for a .25, but it would make me feel better if I had to pick one up and use it.
 
Florida J Frame said:
I would be very interested in your current position on the .380 as a defense round. Do you still like the BB +P?
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First of all, I note that SAAMI does not recognize such a critter as a ".380+P" - the truth is that these rounds are simply overpressure. I don't recommend them for anyone, and I only shoot them myself in locked-breech .380s. I have no idea whether they're safe in any particular gun.

The Buffalo Bore .380+P 95-gr FMJ is not my first choice (though it's what I have loaded in my LCP) for a defensive round, but I can't imagine it would fail to penetrate adequately on an unarmored assailant in a regular face-to-face defensive scenario. That said, I have never seen a shooting (out of a couple dozen) case with any .380 ball round that failed to penetrate adequately (and only one possible overpenetration - of a shot to the calf of a leg, which almost doesn't count). So . . . that sort of begs the question: does a person really need more than the much cheaper and less feisty standard ball round?

I think I've mentioned here before about how I sort of feel I bought into the All-American bigger/stronger/faster/lower-drag con ( :o ) in buying the Buffalo Bore overpressure round . . . it's unpleasant to shoot in the LCP (think getting your hand whacked with a ping-pong paddle) and tougher to bring back on target for follow-up shots (due to the increased recoil that comes with the 200 extra fps it delivers) tho it is very accurate for me from my gun and has a remarkably low spread in velocity.
 
Thanks Erich. It looks like the old standby WWB flat nose FMJ is still the most logical choice.
 
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BAM-BAM said:
"Bond ......James Bond"........ nuff said !

It you can shoot like him, need a good tux gun then.....PPK all the way!

"Hits like a brick through a plate glass window..... the CIA swears by them [in .32apc]"

Sometimes I need the later ........wish I could claim the former.

Though a lock breach .380 like the Colt Mustang or I think the Sig 238.... has less recoil than a blow-back Walther or Beretta.
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I have the Sig p238, great little pistol. Shooting is just like real estate, it is all location, location, location!
 
I don't always carry a .380.....but when I do its loaded with Winchesters white box ammo that has that flat tipped fmj bullet.
 
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