DKD
03-11-2012, 10:38 AM
I've just recently been getting aquainted with my P380 over the past two weeks. I have discovered that all is fine with the cycling & function on both shooting and hand racking with the FMJ rounds (both store bought & reloads) but not with Speer Gold Dots & WW Siver Tips. I also for the hell of it tried some of my own reloaded JHP's and they functioned just like the FMJ round nose ammo. Now the funny part is that the FTF (hangs up on the feed ramp) locks the pistol up and can only be cleared by hitting the mag release which retracting the slide & gigling the mag free. What is even stranger is that it will consistantly do that with only the first two or three rounds in a fully loaded magazine, the issues stop after less tension in placed on the remaining three rounds.
This lead me to examine the orientation of the loaded top rounds in the magazine (Does it with all of my mags). I did notice that as the rounds are started forward they dip down slightly and are jambed against the feed ramp right at the leadind edge of the hollow point causing the failure to chamber the rounds. If I lock back the slide and pull up slightly on the top round then release the slide stop the round will chamber, however not real smoothly though but gets better with suceeding rounds.
This struct me as funny, so I went back to my JHP's and noticed they have a more slighly tapered nose and are also a bit longer. After performing this series of tests over again with the exact same result, I examined the Gold Dot Round nose, only to find that the nose was catching right at the leading edge of the hollow point and slightly deforming the nose of the bullet. Now I use this ammo exclusively in both of my other Kahr pistols a PM9 & PM45 with excellent results....this situation is puzzling as all three use the same mags and function in exacty the same way but work in the other two....puzzled & bewildered.....:confused:
This lead me to examine the orientation of the loaded top rounds in the magazine (Does it with all of my mags). I did notice that as the rounds are started forward they dip down slightly and are jambed against the feed ramp right at the leadind edge of the hollow point causing the failure to chamber the rounds. If I lock back the slide and pull up slightly on the top round then release the slide stop the round will chamber, however not real smoothly though but gets better with suceeding rounds.
This struct me as funny, so I went back to my JHP's and noticed they have a more slighly tapered nose and are also a bit longer. After performing this series of tests over again with the exact same result, I examined the Gold Dot Round nose, only to find that the nose was catching right at the leading edge of the hollow point and slightly deforming the nose of the bullet. Now I use this ammo exclusively in both of my other Kahr pistols a PM9 & PM45 with excellent results....this situation is puzzling as all three use the same mags and function in exacty the same way but work in the other two....puzzled & bewildered.....:confused: