My wife wanted a small pocket semi-auto as she was not comfortable carrying her full size Springfield XD 40. A couple of days ago, we were in a gun store and found an AMT 380 Backup made in Covina, CA. It is a single action with a grip safety similar to a 1911 and a very short trigger pull albeit heavy. She liked the trigger pull much more than several others which were double action only. I faintly remembered AMT and thought they were decent firearms. Upon getting it home, I cleaned it and we ran about 25 rounds through it, 20 rounds being Blazer and 5 rounds being Remington Golden Saber's. We had a couple of glitches with the Blazer ammo.
We did a little research and found quite a bit of negative commments on the little pistol. Do any of you folks have any personal knowledge of this gun? What are your opinions? Should we run more rounds through it before making a decision or should we just dump it and look for something else? Thanks in advance for any of your input. - memtb
they are reasonably well made, but in my experience, not real reliable...
a real problem is the single action--if carried with a round up the spout--as they should be--the safety must be on--a real negative for a pocket piece, and just as important, many women would likely forget to disengage the safety in a critical moment...
one the other hand, the other negative is that "if it is carried without a round in the chamber", many women do not have the strength to easily rack the slide on that little pistol--even in casual drills on the range--it will almost always be more difficult to do in a time of sudden need...
a good choice for her could be a kel tec p3at, or a ruger lcp. both of these are great pistols.
if she can afford to carry a slightly larger gun, a kel tec pf9, kel tec p11, or ruger lc9 are also very good. have her carry it with a round in the chamber. almost all women do well with double action only pistols--just like they typically do well with da revolvers.
when recommending a carry piece for women, i almost always recommend the revolver--but the flatter profile of the auto is better in pocket concealment, and when combined with dao, it can be good medicine indeed. go for the pistols that do not have a safety, as it's one less thing to confuse her, and one less thing that is "needed". the kel tec p11 is my favorite of these i've mentioned, as it has second strike capabilty--but it may be bigger than she may want to carry...
