Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Do you carry a .380?

If you got a chance to pick another .380 instead of the one you currently have, would you pick another one or stick with the one you already have?

I guess the Q is what features are driving the decision?

I have the pick of any .380 I want and I carry the Kahr P-380. It is solid stainless steel, DAO, striker fired, can withstand + P ammo, has the absolute best trigger in its class, has a slide stop, comes with good sights, has a lifetime guarentee, a polygonal rifled target barrel, and it shoots straight. What else do you want a .380 to do??

Uh, well okay. It WILL NOT fix you a 14 year old Kentucky sour mash burboun poured slowly over pure mountain spring water ice cubes and serve it to you. No it won't. But other than that, it'll do.

Had a LCP, difficult to shoot with big hands, no sights either, sort of point and shoot. Good gun if your target is about 6' away.
Now have a Sig 232, little bigger, but much easier to shoot and it has decent sights.
If I have a lot of winter clothing on I like my 9mm Colt Defender.

I too have a Sig P232. I don't know how many times I've thought to myself it would be perfect, if it was a 9mm.

I also have a Interarms PPK/s. The Walther is easier to pocket.

The only .380 on my list is a P7K3, but I'd be hard pressed to spend the money at current prices. I once had a HK4 in .380 and 22LR. To my thinking, it was a novelty of sorts.

I don't think I'll ever sell the Sig.

I carried a KEL TEC P3at for years (never an issue, many rds) in a Desantis. It is my grab and go.

I recently got a Glock 43 for carry.

I tried one once but could not handle the recoil. Now I carry a 1911 IWB all day ever day.

I have two Kahr 380's and they are good to go

Wrong forum. Sorry.

Those little SIG's sure are nice aren't they? Most come with the night sights which I really like. My problem with it is carrying it cocked and locked in my right front pocket with it pointed at Mr. Johnson and the twins. I don't get that same QUEEZY feeling when I carry a little model 36 Smith in that pocket, or either the Kel-Tec or the Kahr 380's in that pocket, but none of those are cocked in my pocket like that SIG would be. If I carried it outside on my belt in a holster, I would have no problem that way and indeed, have carried various 1911's that way for the last half century.

But they were never pointed at Mr. Johnson. I am not going to have anything that goes bang in my pocket that is cocked and pointed at Mr. Johnson, no I am not. You boys can trust the family jewels to a mechanical safety, but I am not going to do it because mechanical things can break and malfunction and that can happen even to a SIG.

Very very rarely.

Sometimes in the dead of winter I get a craving to drink burboun, play my guitar, and sing the blues. It's a feeling that just comes over me sudden like and I want to be around other people who like to do that too. On those occasions I strap on these right and left side Askins Avenger holsters and stick a pair of 1911's in them along with a bunch of extra magazines and a sharp knife in my vest pockets. I cover this with a long olive drab cotton vest made from an old Army coat with the sleeves and collar cut off. Thusly armed, I take my guitar and case and ease off across the railroad tracks into the wrong side of town into a blues playing juke joint or honky tonk and sit in with the blues band and sing and play and have a few drinks.

Some of those places have a few ole boys who are sorta ruff and unfinished around the edges, so I always go prepared to deal with them if I should be required to. I am an old man who just wants to sing some blues, and pick a few tunes on my guitar and those 1911's are my insurance that once I get in there, I can get out again. And if it ever happens that I don't come out, you'll hear about it on the 6 o'clock news because I am not going to be the only SOB that does not come out you can be dam sure of that.

I sometimes carry a Colt 1908 in a Simply Rugged pancake meant for snubbies but only for the novelty of woods bumming with old iron. I don't even have a spare mag for the thing but I've been hoping to get lucky on small game with it.



Some penetration tests of regular ball ammo have impressed me. I think the .380 is the smallest caliber that I would carry for SD if I had no other choice. The 9mm pistols simply do not get small enough to be seriously pocketable and that would be when I would be forced to ise a small .380.

For times when size is the most important thing, I cannot deny a true pocket pistol that can penetrate over 18" of ballistic gelatin. My Colt 1908 ain't small enough to trump my G43 so it is only for play.

The quality .380 semiautos are currently very intruguing to me.

Any opinions on how the Ruger LCP CUSTOM stacks up to the Sig and Kahr? It sure does look much smaller (and MUCH less expensive) than those two.

I have a Taurus TCP that I carry on occasion when I can't conceal anything else easily or I'm just running out for a quick errand. Never an issue with it. The trigger is much better than the LCP, Bodyguard or P3AT. It has decent sights and a slide lock and last round hold open.

The Sig Sauer P-232 is the only Sig I ever wanted . . .

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~ Sig Sauer P232 380

I do not know what to say in response to that except to ask how much you value your life.

That's my 2 cents worth anyway. I hope you get that figured out because it might be important. Look at the Kahr CW-380. It is less expensive than the P-380 and except for some cosmetic issues and a polygonal rifled barrel on the P model, it is esentually the same gun.

I carry a LCP occasionally, loaded with ball, runs great and shoots plenty well for a belly gun.

I've carried 380s before. Unless I needed something small for deep concealment I just don't see them as practical anymore. Like the single stack nines now. I carried ball FP, and the old style rem 88 gr jhp. The Remington was a cool load because it deformed yet rarely expanded which IMO made it ideal in doing damage. I think many modern 380 jhp's expand and limit penetration too much. For example I paralized a rather small coyote at 300 yards with a 22 mag. His back legs were pinned but he was upright when I shot him at 3 feet from the muzzle with me 380. I shot him in the top of the heart with a 90gr hydrashock. It BARLEY exited and he fell on top of the fully expanded projectile. I shot a few others with the hydra shocks and win silvertips. I felt penetration was poor.

That is because it likely was which is one of the reasons many people shy away from a .380, BUT if you load that .380 with Underwood Extreme Penetrator ammo, you don't have that problem any more. However, some small .380 pistols are not recommended to use + P ammo, so you have to make sure you have one that can use it. This ain't rocket science, but you do have to know about these kinds of things.

Additionally, some of the smallest .380 guns have minimal grip area and it is difficult to hold them properly. Then you shoot + P ammo in it and it jumps all over the place when you can't hold it very good anyway, and you have a problem. THAT IS WHY you need to have someone show all of that to you so you can make an informed decision about whether or not a particular pistol/cartridge combination is right for you. Too many people make buying decisions based on advertising, or because it looks good and that approach usually ends in disappointment.

The .380 is only as good as the ammo you put in it and if you put run of the mill 380 stuff in it, you get run of the mill performance out of it. But put modern high performasnce + P ammo in it with modern bullet design and construction and you have a little power house that is surprisingly effective. Just be aware that high performance comes at a price and that price is much increased recoil and muzzle blast and those things can make shooting a small, light weight 380 pistol an unplesant experience.

I have the earlier P-230 version. Blued, alloy frame, ridiculously accurate. Bought it in 1988. Only .380 I've needed.

What do you use it for? It is, like most SIG's, well made of quality materials and as you corectly observe, they are known for accuracy and dependability. I always liked the ergonomics of that particular little pistol and it seems to me that both Kel-Tec and Ruger copied the outward appearance of it in their .380 pistols. Too bad they didn't also copy the SIG habit of very high quality materials and build quality. As I recall, that is also a blowback gun and does not fire from a locked breech. Can you safely shoot + P ammo in a blowback gun? I never thought about that before.