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New P380 Range Report

4368 Views 7 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  mje63
I have had my P380 for several weeks. Below are my shooting results so far.

Before I fired the new P380 I manually cycled the slide about 400 times. I then disassembled, cleaned, and lubed it (Amsoil MP, Tretra Gun Grease). There were bits of black plastic in the slide area but that didn’t cause concern. The quality of the P380 looks good just like my PM9.

1st trip to the range
Ammo: Winchester 95 GR. Full Metal Jacket, Flat Point (USA380VP)
Firm, unsupported, two-handed grip to avoid limp-wristing. Alternated mags.
1: FTE (stove pipe)
2-11: no issues
12: FTE (stove pipe)
13-33: no issues
34: FTE (stove pipe)
35-78: no issues
79: Failure to fire – very light primer strike. I didn’t attempt to shoot this round again. I measured the round when I got home. COL was 0.944” which seemed to be about right compared to rounds from a fresh box.
80-100: no issues

Nice little gun. I shot from 7 yards and had no problem hitting what I was aiming at with reasonable accuracy. It was very pleasant to shoot. The casings eject almost straight up instead of to the side. Racking the first round with the slide release always worked but it took a few attempts to learn how to rack this pistol manually. Racking aggressively improved the situation but I still had to slap the slide forward a few times.

Cleaned and lubed after the trip - nothing unusual noticed.

2nd trip to the range Ammo: Winchester 95 GR. Full Metal Jacket, Flat Point (USA380VP)
100 rounds
The 1st round was a FTE (stove pipe). There was a 2nd FTE about midway through the 100 rounds. No other failures.

Cleaned and lubed – nothing unusual noticed.

I am getting better at manually racking the first round but I believe that the Flat Point bullet is contributing to the difficulty. I tried round nose next.

3rd trip to the range with hand loads
95gr LRN Missouri, Hodgdon HP-38, COL .957
I loaded up 100 rounds for this test.
First mag: 2 of 6 rounds - premature slide lock
Second mag: Being very careful that I wasn’t riding the slide release I had 2 more premature slide locks.
Stopped shooting.

Inspection showed that the slide lock lever was hitting the RN bullet with the round slightly forward in the mag. I filed off about 1/3 of the slide lock lever. The lever still touches the bullet slightly but I didn’t want to take off too much this time.

4th trip to the range to fire off the remaining LRN hand loads.Of the remaining 88 rounds I had just one premature slide lock. No other failures! The slide lock always engaged after the last round. I will file off a bit more of the tab since there appears to be plenty of engagement on the metal insert on the mag follower.

I am very pleased with the 95gr LRN. Manually racking is very easy. Accuracy seems fine. Cleaned and lubed again. No leading issue noticed.

I will be travelling so it will be a few weeks before I can load up some more ammo and test with a bit more of the tab filed off. I may also seat the bullet a bit deeper.

Regards,

MJE63
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This is an update to my last post
I filed off more of the slide lock tab to resolve the premature slide lock issue. I shot 100 more rounds of the 95gr LRN Missouri hand loads. Here are my results.

4 FTE in the first 50 rounds.
No issues with the last 50 rounds.
No premature slide locks. After the last round the slide always remained open.

This P380 tends to eject spent casings straight up rather than to the side. It is a bit irritating to have hot casings land on my head. I will focus on this and the FTE issue now that I believe my premature slide lock issue is resolved.
Mine is running good now, after a fresh set of recoil springs. I have sort of gotten used to it raining brass on my head, but if you figure out how to fix that let please let me know!
Here is an update regarding my P380.

The FTE eject problem continued to get worse. I switched back to Winchester and Remington FMJ ammo to eliminate any reload issues. I ordered and installed new recoil springs. The replacement inner spring from Kahr was a thicker gauge compared to what was installed on my new pistol. The new springs did not improve the FTE situation so I stopped at round count 400. I experienced roughly 1 FTE per magazine from first, mid to last shot.

My P380 is back from Kahr. The service work sheet states, “POLISHED EJECTOR, FEED RAMP. REPLACE EXTRACTOR. LUBED. TEST FIRED GOOD.”

I will let you know how is goes.
Here is an update following the Kahr repairs.

Qty 18: Berry’s 100gr plated, RN, hand loads. No problems
Qty 13: Winchester 95gr FMJ, Flat Point. One FTE (stove pipe)
Qty 7: Remington 95gr FMJ, RN. No problems
Not bad.
Yes, not looking bad. I will use up the rest of the flat tip ammo and will carry with the RN.
Several weeks ago I posted that I traded off my P380 for a Sig with an explanation. This post was later removed. Not sure why.
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