New P380 Range Report

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