Your thoughts on .380 ACP?

[RolinThundr]

I'd like to know what everyone thinks about .380 ACP ammo- I know it's a popular backup/pocket pistol caliber, but how is it as a defensive round?

[Bug Splat]

I was skeptical when I was looking to buy my Bersa. To me 9mm Luger was small enough. Well I bought the gun anyway and hit the range. I was shocked by the amount of pop this little round puts out. After the first shot I felt a lot more comfortable with it.

The numbers will never be better than its bigger brothers but it will get the job done. If you can find them in stock there are a number of great defense rounds on the market that come darn close to 9mm power and penetration.

[chaled]

I like my .380 but that finding the ammo is a pain. Occasionally ammotogo.com and natchez have good deals on hollowpoints.

[professionalcoyotehunter]

I have a few of them and like them. I have a .380 AMT backup for sale?

[IrishPirate]

A hit with a .380 is better than a miss with a .45

SHOT PLACEMENT, SHOT PLACEMENT, SHOT PLACEMENT!!!!!!

if you look at the statistics, most defensive situations don't even require shooting the gun, just pulling it out is enough to ward off most attackers. When you do need to shoot, the .380 may not have the best knock down power, "but it wont matter when i put two in your chest and one in your head".

.380 hollow points have been known to have not enough penetration when multiple layers of clothing are covering the target, but if you're just going through a single t-shirt they do they job just fine. again.....

SHOT PLACEMENT, SHOT PLACEMENT, SHOT PLACEMENT!!!!!!

there are lots of guns out there with 15+ round magazines.....if you need alot of ammo on your side without a whole lot of weight these would be great! (as soon as the hi-cap ban goes away!!! )




PCH: how much for the AMT?

[jdberger]

I have a few of them and like them. I have a .380 AMT backup for sale?

I love those little AMT Backups. I've an older one. Never a jam - and I used to carry it in a back pocket.

.380 is an OK round, but I'd rather carry something full sized if I can.

They make some pretty small .45s these days. Like this one from CT Brian.

[professionalcoyotehunter]

Mine has never jammed either. It has been a well pocket pistol but I am upgrading to a 9MM this weekend.

[Bug Splat]

Mine has never jammed either. It has been a well pocket pistol but I am upgrading to a 9MM this weekend.

Not to derail the thread but what pistol are you getting to replace it?

[professionalcoyotehunter]

A Ruger P-85 9MM.

[oddjob]

A .380 is better than nothing. Having said that I heard of an incident where an off duty officer fired a .380 at a robbery suspect at an ATM. Three to the chest and then the suspect ran off. He was later caught with three welts on his chest. The pea coat stopped all three rounds. It did scare the suspect away so I guess you can say it worked. I quit carrying a .380 off duty. I now carry a 5 shot .38.

[Peter W Bush]

90 grains of lead going about 1000 feet per second were stopped by 1/8" of cotton????????

[FieldsofFire]

Personally, 9mm is about the smallest I will carry for personal protection purposes. Sure, shot placement does matter, but I am not going to concern myself too much with trying to score a headshot on a moving target under stress at 7-10 yards with my adrenaline pumping using a tiny gun. I don't hate the round or think badly of it, I just don't have 100% confidence in the round to put my life on especially when dealing with a lot of these bigger criminals out there. I would not want to be having to defend myself against two or three 6'4" 250lbs. assailants with a .380 and only seven rounds. I'm thinking larger caliber and higher capacity automatically.

[CalNRA]

with all the miniture 9mm with locked breech set up, I see little need for the 380s with straight blowback operation. The former tames the recoil of a 9mm to a level of 380 as it is.

[oddjob]

I don't know the weight of the .380 cartridge or if it was a FMJ or JHP, but the sgt said it it did happen to one of the officers on his crew. I didn't ask if the suspect had other layers of clothing under the pea coat. He very well could have (and probably did), but his point was regardless of the clothing the suspect was wearing it still didn't go through. His dept was rather surprised by the performance of the .380.

I shoot USPSA competition with a X-Ray/MRI tech. He was checking out a shooting victim who was screaming he had been shot in the chest. As he was removing the heavy wool jacket 4 or 5 22lr slugs fell to the floor. Not one penetrated skin. The officer picked them up and placed them into evidence bags. 22lr casings were found at the original scene. The "victim" by the way was a drug dealer who got ripped off.

I have coffee every week with retired officers and out of ten officers. Only one carries a .380. Most carry a small single stack 9mm (as CalNRA stated there are lots of smaller 9mm's out there), .45 acp or a .38.

If you are going to use a .380 for carry I would restrict its use to the summer days when light clothing is worn (and just carry fmj's....not enough velocity for jhp's to do any good). For all around use I think a S&W 442 is ideal.

[CalNRA]

Although I must confess, I have been waiting for Seecamp to put their LWS380 on the roster, there is no reason it can't be rostered as it has loaded chamber indicator, safety, and magazine disconnect.

Those things are so tiny carrying it as a backup would be a non-event.