Best Functioning .380 Ammo

[coltchris]

All you Kahr .380 owners, is there concensus on best ammo for consistant function & reliability? I'm asking about minimum FTF & FTE, not terminal performance. I'm new owner of the Kahr .380 and only have approx. 160 rds. fired with various ammo. Just trying to minimize ammo costs! Or, do you think its up to the particular gun and there is no concensus.

[rjt123]

The WWB flat-nosed ammo seems underpowered and lead to FTEs. Blazer brass has noticibly more POP to it. No problems there, so that's my range round of choice. For carry ammo, I like Buffalo Bore +P 90 grain JHPs. The first time I shot those they felt like a hot 9mm round. Definite WOW factor there.

Hope your search goes well. Lots of friendly, knowledgeable folks around here.

[wyntrout]

There are several types of ammo that I sold before getting my P380... had an 11-month wait for one with factory Night Sights when they first came out. I heard bad things about several... Hornady Critical Defense and Fiocchi, I believe. I sold the Hornady... without trying it, so I can't vouch one way or the other... and have since tried MFS/Fiocchi/Herters and many other kinds of FMJ with no problems. I like the Buffalo Bore +P 90-gr "Gold Dots"... possibly the most powerful .380 ammo available for defense and the Winchester Ranger T shoots well... mild recoil, but good performance. I shoot S&B 92-gr FMJ a lot, as well as MFS FMJ for the range. Check out the tests on Ballistics by the Inch for the .380:

http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/380auto2.html#RW

There is a lot of good information there. And Ljutic... one of our members has been doing testing on a variety of .380 ammo:

http://kahrtalk.com/showthread.php?t=11981&highlight=ljutic

I just got another P380 for my wife. I'm going to stoke hers with the Winchester Ranger T for CCW. It seems to have less recoil than some FMJ that I use for the range. The BB is fierce stuff... like .40 or 9mm +P. I like it!:D

I've done a lot of videoing at the range and pull stills off the video to show the flashes. The BB is awesome there, too. I've posted a lot of that on this forum and you can search for my range posts... some on the ammo forum.

There are others, but here's one link:

http://kahrtalk.com/showthread.php?t=7216&highlight=flash+testing+.380


Wynn:)

[Ljutic]

Thanks for the plug Wynn.

For cheap ammo, go with FMJ. For FMJ info, go here and find some candidates then shop for price. In my FMJ test I noted the FMJ that won't work in my P380.

http://mousegunaddict.blogspot.com/2011/07/great-380-fmj-jhp-ammo-test-results.html

[coltchris]

Thanks guys; alot of good info there!!

[TominCA]

For me more powerful ='s better function - the mousguns link above is good ammo testing!

Corbon 90 - Speer Gold dot - Magtech +p will all work the heavh, new recoil springs

[DarwinG31]

I use both wwb flat nose or remington UMC for range ammo. I usually carry Hornady Critical Defense. My pistol works 100% with these loads. It wasn't a fan of the hornady at first but I polished the hell out of my feed ramp and haven't had a problem since.

[kahrbw9]

I purchased fiocchi jhp 50 rounds for $17 and it is amazing lost cost self defense ammo.Which is perfect becuase I can train with what I would use in a self defense scenario.However I found fiocchi fmj for $14 50 rounds and it has numerous fte in every mag.I have also had remington fmj through my 380 and had at least 20% ftf's.Blazer is good as well and have used it in multiple calibers and never had a single malfunction in probably 8,000 rounds.