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380 acp ??

2K views 18 replies 14 participants last post by  soundguy 
#1 ·
Is it my imagination or is this caliber the most finicky prone to jam caliber ever released in a modern era handgun ??
 
#10 ·
I have a Sig P238 and have never had a jam. But the Jennings/Bryco I had before jammed just sitting on the shelf. It's the gun, not the caliber that's to blame.
 
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#19 ·
I have a chrome 380 Jennings that hambed rill I took a file to the underside of the slide in a couple spots. Cheap gun I got decades ago new, hate zinc frame guns, but provided some protection when younger and had less $, incedently, have a haskel 45acp from same era, actually quite adequate! A d if you run out of ammo makes an impressive club!
 
#11 ·
My Bersa Thunder 380 was initially plaque city. I replaced the recoil spring and that helped all my issues except the last round failure to load. I keep the mag desert dog bone dry and the slide lubed with grease and that eliminated the last round issue. It was a timing thing. If I get lazy on the grease for the slide contact points (oil does not work for this on mine, had to be grease), I will have last round loading issues. Ditto for a new mag. Ditto with new mag springs. Funky for that issue. It's a good little shooter. There are a lot of little 380's that are junk but might be able to be saved if sent to the gun smith. Might take a few trips, but eventually it should settle down. If you can't get it to be solid for 500-1000 rounds, don't use it for your personal defense. IMO that gun has to have 100% proven confidence, not 99.9. Mine didn't like the broad flatter nosed ammo. I have not tried that ammo since getting it to shoot ok. My local Cabelas gets a lot of little guns from people that want to cash them back for 40% of what they were bought for so some of them may not be happy with them for what ever reason. I like reloading for mine and it uses less powder.
 
#13 ·
Like many of the guys above, I've had very few problems with my .380 Makarovs and the 1908 Colt Model M. (The M likes FMJ only...typical of the older semi-autos.)
My Maks eat a lot of cast-lead handloads too. It's one of my favorite small-game peashooters.

Now, the cheap .380s like the Davis or the Jennings that rawright mentioned....
Best thing you can do with em is throw the bugger at whoever you want to hurt and hope ot knocks em on the head. :D I've never seen one that was better than 75% reliable even with FMJ.

I can't speak for the new generation of pocket pistols like the Keltec, Ruger LCP, etc. Never had one at the range.
 
#15 ·
The only problem I ever had with my Bersa was the rear sight falling out. My CZ-83 has never failed nor has my CZ-82. I'm pretty much a hardball only shooter so that may have an influence.
 
#16 ·
We've had 2 Bersa's and a Makarov in 380. We had great luck with all of them. I bought a German made Mauser HSc, and later an Italian made HSc and both were jam-o-matics. I never could get past the reliability issues with them and sold them at a loss.
Over the years, my .22 pistols have been the most trouble prone, but alot of them were ammo issues.
 
#17 ·
My Kel-Tec P3AT has close to 500 rnds thru it without a burp. Also my new G-42 has 100 rnds with 1 fail to fire which has not yet been confirmed to be the fault of the gun. The .380 does seem to get a larger amount of bad rap than other calibers. Not sure I can figure out why that is.
 
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