P380 Range Report and Kudos for Kahr's...

[In-Yo-Grill]

Customer Service.

Long story short my wife didn't like the long trigger of the Ruger LCP so the search was on for something that could fit her needs. I visited a local gun show and got to fondle a Kahr P380.

I found one at a gun shop I hadn't visited in years. The price was right and the little pocket rocket came home.

Let me tell you that is one sweeeet shooter. Easily 4-6" group at 5-7yrds. Love the trigger and could not believe the accuracy. I had a couple of FTRTB's and one FTE but will say as I continued to shoot things just seem to get better.

Took her home and bathed her good. Can't wait to get out again and finish the break-in period.


Now...as for Kahr's CS...:cheer2::cheer2::cheer2:

As you know I was having problems with my P45 with too many FTE's and it ended up having to go back to the mothership twice. Each time I e-mailed Kahr they had FedEx at my office door the next day.

Unfortunately the first time it came back the problem actually seemed to get worse. So back it went. Each time they had the gun back in my hands in just over a week. So yesterday FedEx showed up with my gun and their second attempt at the fix...

Hallelujah!!! We have a winner. Not a single FTE and only a couple of FTF's with light primer strikes. Because of the amount of work they did on the gun I'm assuming I need to put it through another break-in period but so far I'm very pleased...

[racuda]

Is the recoil way less than the Ruger's?

I have a stainless AMT backup II which even though it weighs almost double the P380 at 19 ounces, kicks a whole lot more.

[In-Yo-Grill]

Is the recoil way less than the Ruger's?

I have a stainless AMT backup II which even though it weighs almost double the P380 at 19 ounces, kicks a whole lot more.

I personally felt that the recoil was less stout as I was able to get back on target much quicker than when I shoot with my LCP.

[recoilguy]

My wife is looking for a new small handgun. Does your wife like the P380? She keeps looking at the LCP and I will get it for her but I hate the trigger on the gun so much I have a hard time buying it.

I will get her the gun she is comfortable with and confident with after all it is hers and if she likes it and carries it it is better ythen one I like she wont carry. Because there are none to see locally, i am wondering how your wife likes it......

RCG

[In-Yo-Grill]

My wife is looking for a new small handgun. Does your wife like the P380? She keeps looking at the LCP and I will get it for her but I hate the trigger on the gun so much I have a hard time buying it.

I will get her the gun she is comfortable with and confident with after all it is hers and if she likes it and carries it it is better ythen one I like she wont carry. Because there are none to see locally, i am wondering how your wife likes it......

RCG

I'm going to get her to shoot it this weekend. I would not rule out the Diamondback 380 and will eventually trade in my Ruger LCP for one of these. Look them up on YouTube.

I think the Kahr is a better gun but for the price it is hard to beat. My main thinking was that this gun was for my wife to CC so I wanted to get her "the best". I am more willing to experiment on the guns I buy for myself but need her to be as comfortable as possible.

[jocko]

My wife is looking for a new small handgun. Does your wife like the P380? She keeps looking at the LCP and I will get it for her but I hate the trigger on the gun so much I have a hard time buying it.

I will get her the gun she is comfortable with and confident with after all it is hers and if she likes it and carries it it is better ythen one I like she wont carry. Because there are none to see locally, i am wondering how your wife likes it......

RCG

problem that I feel your wife will have is the inability to rack the P380 slide , compared to the Ruger lcp slide. There is a vast difference trust me. I own um both. i have been shooting for 48 years and I have found the P380 to be the hardest little gun to hand rack. If she uses the slide lock lever like kahr recommends she will love the P380. It is a real shooter. The best 380 shooter I have ever owned. But that being said the Kahr P380 is very small and one must get a good grip of what grip area there is or one will have FTF and FTE issues for sure.

remember it is not best to find the gun THAT YOU THINK your wife might like and let her shoot one first before buying it. We tend to buy for our spouses what WE THINK is right for them, not what they think and know is right for them.

If a woman has any doubts about making the gun work etc, like racking the slide or loading that first round then she will be forever leary of that gun and will loose faith fast.

My wife is a shooter and she cannot properly rack the P380 slide with any consisitency and as u know that is just not acceptable.

Just take some time and find someone who owns a P380 or what ever little gun you think you want to buy for your wife and then see if u can rent it, to shoot. She has to have confidence or it is a lost cause. So many women think small is great (in some things:D) but in a semi, this can be a real detriment, like for instance over a small airwieght J frame smith. She might not shoot a J frame as good as the P380 but it will go bang every time for her and she will easily know to clear and reload.

The P380 is just IMO the best semi on the market in all aspects but for some people it certainly is not. Remember tis is a big big step for a woman to carry (most anyway). they have to be confident in their own mind that the gun is totally safe, they hav eto know that once laoded the gun will go bang every time without alot of memory stuff to make it do so. Lesssafety's on a gun is better for a woman but yet they might not like that either. They can cook a post roast blindfolded but this does not hold true for most women in operating a handgun. It takes time and patience with the woman and indeed many rounds down range to...

Good luck..

[jocko]

oops forgot:

A case in point. I sold guns for a living for over 40 years and had many husband/wife combo's come into my business wanting a gun for his wife.

I would open the case and say what looks good to you. the hubby would about ever tme pick a semi auto. I then gave it to the wife and said make it work. She would look at me like some dumb sh-it. I could then do all the things necessary to make it work etc, like showig her how to load the magazine and rack the slide and hand it back to her and again she could not do any of it.

I could hand her any revolver and say make it work, and she would pull the trigger and it would go through the motions of properly firing a round (gun is unloaded).I could show her how to open the cylinder and to empty the cylinder etc and how the bullets would only go in one way etc. In 5 minutes time she could do all of that. I did not back then sell hardly any semi's to a woman and after the hubby seeing how incompetent she was with the handling of a seimi, he acknowledged that a semi was not for her.

My point is . LET HER DECIDE show her both the semi and revolvers. Some of these new Double action smiths today are ultra light and damn near as concealable as some of these small 380, but the revolvers will go bang for a woman, and if she encounters a dud round with a revolver, she just pulls again and goes to the next cylinder. where as she now has to know how to tap, rack and bang a semi and 90% willnever learn to do that.

Let alone there is some excellent revolver shot rounds that would also make a woman maybe feel safer in carrying it , especially in the home where there might be youngsters. Again for a woman it is mostly psycological. It she thinks she can, then she can, if she thinks she can't then ur screwed..

[In-Yo-Grill]

problem that I feel your wife will have is the inability to rack the P380 slide , compared to the Ruger lcp slide. There is a vast difference trust me. I own um both. i have been shooting for 48 years and I have found the P380 to be the hardest little gun to hand rack. If she uses the slide lock lever like kahr recommends she will love the P380. It is a real shooter. The best 380 shooter I have ever owned. But that being said the Kahr P380 is very small and one must get a good grip of what grip area there is or one will have FTF and FTE issues for sure.

remember it is not best to find the gun THAT YOU THINK your wife might like and let her shoot one first before buying it. We tend to buy for our spouses what WE THINK is right for them, not what they think and know is right for them.

If a woman has any doubts about making the gun work etc, like racking the slide or loading that first round then she will be forever leary of that gun and will loose faith fast.

My wife is a shooter and she cannot properly rack the P380 slide with any consisitency and as u know that is just not acceptable.

Just take some time and find someone who owns a P380 or what ever little gun you think you want to buy for your wife and then see if u can rent it, to shoot. She has to have confidence or it is a lost cause. So many women think small is great (in some things:D) but in a semi, this can be a real detriment, like for instance over a small airwieght J frame smith. She might not shoot a J frame as good as the P380 but it will go bang every time for her and she will easily know to clear and reload.

The P380 is just IMO the best semi on the market in all aspects but for some people it certainly is not. Remember tis is a big big step for a woman to carry (most anyway). they have to be confident in their own mind that the gun is totally safe, they hav eto know that once laoded the gun will go bang every time without alot of memory stuff to make it do so. Lesssafety's on a gun is better for a woman but yet they might not like that either. They can cook a post roast blindfolded but this does not hold true for most women in operating a handgun. It takes time and patience with the woman and indeed many rounds down range to...

Good luck..


Good advice for sure. The first thing I had her do when I got home was handrack the slide. She was able to do it but it wasn't easy. Unfortunately there's not a lot of places around here that rent Kahr's. I almost feel like a pioneer in my area.

So, unfortunately for me, I have to buy-to-try. If I don't like something I do my best not to take too big a hit and move on. I promise you that if she don't like it then it's going to be mine F-O-R-E-V-E-R...!!!

So if all goes well then I'll be carrying my P45 with the LCP or P380 as my BUG...

[jocko]

Good advice for sure. The first thing I had her do when I got home was handrack the slide. She was able to do it but it wasn't easy. Unfortunately there's not a lot of places around here that rent Kahr's. I almost feel like a pioneer in my area.

So, unfortunately for me, I have to buy-to-try. If I don't like something I do my best not to take too big a hit and move on. I promise you that if she don't like it then it's going to be mine F-O-R-E-V-E-R...!!!

So if all goes well then I'll be carrying my P45 with the LCP or P380 as my BUG...

she hand rack ther slide with a loaded magazine or just tried to hand rack. As u know there is a big big difference. If one ever so lightly rides a kahr slide back to battery it will FTF every time and P380's are very susceptable to that for sure, do to its small size.

Course in your case, if she doesn't like it you have just obtained yourself one hell of a handgun.

I am just merely specualiting on how my success is with the P380. I sincerely doubt if she can hand rack a live round in that gun.If she can lock the slide open which again my wife cannot do wirth regualrity even, then the P380 might work out, but I think you have just bought YOURSELF a nice gun..

[In-Yo-Grill]

she hand rack ther slide with a loaded magazine or just tried to hand rack. As u know there is a big big difference. If one ever so lightly rides a kahr slide back to battery it will FTF every time and P380's are very susceptable to that for sure, do to its small size.

Course in your case, if she doesn't like it you have just obtained yourself one hell of a handgun.

I am just merely specualiting on how my success is with the P380. I sincerely doubt if she can hand rack a live round in that gun.If she can lock the slide open which again my wife cannot do wirth regualrity even, then the P380 might work out, but I think you have just bought YOURSELF a nice gun..

I'm going to have to get her to HIT THE WEIGHTS...lol

I personally would still like her to carry a S&W Airweight and maybe she'll give in over time.

[recoilguy]

problem that I feel your wife will have is the inability to rack the P380 slide , compared to the Ruger lcp slide. There is a vast difference trust me. I own um both. i have been shooting for 48 years and I have found the P380 to be the hardest little gun to hand rack. If she uses the slide lock lever like kahr recommends she will love the P380. It is a real shooter. The best 380 shooter I have ever owned. But that being said the Kahr P380 is very small and one must get a good grip of what grip area there is or one will have FTF and FTE issues for sure.

remember it is not best to find the gun THAT YOU THINK your wife might like and let her shoot one first before buying it. We tend to buy for our spouses what WE THINK is right for them, not what they think and know is right for them.

If a woman has any doubts about making the gun work etc, like racking the slide or loading that first round then she will be forever leary of that gun and will loose faith fast.

My wife is a shooter and she cannot properly rack the P380 slide with any consisitency and as u know that is just not acceptable.

Just take some time and find someone who owns a P380 or what ever little gun you think you want to buy for your wife and then see if u can rent it, to shoot. She has to have confidence or it is a lost cause. So many women think small is great (in some things:D) but in a semi, this can be a real detriment, like for instance over a small airwieght J frame smith. She might not shoot a J frame as good as the P380 but it will go bang every time for her and she will easily know to clear and reload.

The P380 is just IMO the best semi on the market in all aspects but for some people it certainly is not. Remember tis is a big big step for a woman to carry (most anyway). they have to be confident in their own mind that the gun is totally safe, they hav eto know that once laoded the gun will go bang every time without alot of memory stuff to make it do so. Lesssafety's on a gun is better for a woman but yet they might not like that either. They can cook a post roast blindfolded but this does not hold true for most women in operating a handgun. It takes time and patience with the woman and indeed many rounds down range to...

Good luck..

Thanks that is great advice...........I was in the LGS yesterday and the guy that sells me a lot of guns had no Kahrs and was trying to get me to buy one of the Diamondbacks mentioned earlier. I will have my wife handle it and the Kahr. I do want her to own a gun she will carry and feels confident enough to shoot!

Thanks again.
RCG

[In-Yo-Grill]

My only complaint with the DB380 right now is that their are no night sights makers for this gun. Other than that I've heard very positive feedback and may own one myself soon.

[jocko]

even though this is a kahr site, I don 't think the P380 kahr is for everyone. It to me is a damn hard gun to rack. I say that from experience owning one and I know guns, been around them all my life. they are just a bastard to hand rack properly with a loaded magazne. I just in my mind have a hard time imagining a woman hand rack ing with a loaded magazine and not having issues. I sure can be wrong. no doubt some women can do it. But I have talked to alot of P380 owners and they all say, hand racking is a real beech.

I have owned many kel tecs 380's and own a ruger lcp, which now is a damn good an totally reliabe gun and also my P380. to me there is no comparision. The P380 is just the most accurate 380 I have ever shot. I can out shoot my PM9 with it,for reason I know not why either. They might be some what ammo sisnsitive. I had issue with some rounds hitting the inside of the slide stop lever and there fore pre engaging the slide lock lever. I have settled on a coupl.e of good defense rounds that work perfect, so that is a no brainer now. I am not one who totally expects this P380 to shoot every damn round out there either. It is a last ditch close up gun, made for that reason and that reason only. It is far more fun to shoot than any of my kel tecs ever were and my
ruger lcp. Now if I could just find some 380 ammo for range fodder that was reasonalbe in price.....

My point here guys is that what we think might be good for our women is not always good for them, and I just think the P380 is not a womans gun. I just can't see a women doing the tap, rack and bang thing if a jam or misfire occured. I think they would first sh-t their drawers and then drop the gun and run like hell. Just my 2Cents. course if you want a P380, then buy her it and then yoiu will surely get it back .

Hate to say it but for most women through my gun store experience a revolver is the best thing for a woman. I proved that to many times to myself and to prospecting hubby's.

[jocko]

someone here posed a reply that they thouught k ahr was coming out with a P380 Mass compliant. My higher up inside sorce was aksed that today and his reply was and I quote


NOT YET

My bet there will be one eventually....