wyntrout
04-08-2010, 02:10 AM
P380 Range report on 04-07-2010
On April 30, 2009, I ordered and paid for a P380 with night sights. I received it on March 31, 2010, after waiting over an hour and a half for the UPS delivery… just before closing at the FFL dealer’s store at 7PM.
When I got home I checked the gun for everything that I could think of and noticed nothing missing or incomplete. I then went into a darkened room where I noticed the front night sight was dead. On inspection it looked okay, but the rear sight had horizontal gashes through the Trijicon Logo. I took lots of pictures and sent an email to Ian Burr at Kahr Service. He got FedEx to pick up the gun the next day – April 1st around 1:30PM. I got the gun back around 10:00 AM on April 7. I checked the gun out and noted that the "Action Taken was: Replaced front sight. Polished barrel. Lubed and test fired good."
The marred rear sight was not replaced, but it works.
I took the pistol to the indoor range where I fired 150 rounds of Aguila 95-grain FMJ and 50 rounds of Buffalo Bore 90-grain JHP +P ammo. I took movies of the firing for flash and recoil comparisons. The movies were taken at 1280 by 720(HD 720P) resolution at 30 frames per second using ambient light. I was at the left-most station which had a light on the wall to the left and just in front of my station. Stills were pulled from the videos and resulted in 640 by 480 resolution photos which I cropped to get below the 97.7KB limit for the Attachment Manager for .jpg files.
The first shot was kind of unusual in that after firing and recoiling, the pistol took .5 to .6 second to return to battery ~18 frames! I won’t show all of them, but that was weird and kind of like slow motion.
I’ll show a couple of shots of the Aguila flashes. Recoil was relatively light. The Buffalo Bore was markedly brighter, with a louder report and more recoil, but manageable… no problem. It’s listed as using low flash powder. The flash is very noticeable in the adequate lighting present. It was kind of like the Double Tap 9mm 124-grain JHP +P ammo I tried.
The Aguila ammo was relatively low in failures. There was the slow return to battery on shot #1, 2 FTFire(removed magazine, pulled slide to the rear about ½ inch to re-c0ck the striker, then fired okay), and 1 FTFeed(fed when slide pulled to the rear and released).
The Buffalo Bore had 2 FTfeed before and 3 FTFeed after cleaning at 126 rounds fired. The failures to feed were corrected by pulling the slide to the rear and releasing it, which loaded the round and it then fired with no problem. The FTFeed consisted of the slide back and the bullet at rest against the feed ramp... low on the ramp.
I cleaned the gun when I got home and then polished the feed ramp with my Dremel-like tool (buffer “wheel” and polishing compound), then I buffed and polished it some more… and more. I think that if the feed ramps on the Kahrs were about 1/16 of an inch longer and that bit was used to extend the angled upward portion of the ramp, there would be less or no failures to feed. The bullets hit the ramp where there’s not much angle and just stop and “stick” in place. The lower part of the ramp is kind of rounded. If this part were lower, the FTF problem would stop. IMHO.
This pistol is fun to shoot and I think the recoil was “light” for the target ammo and controllable for the +P ammo. It was fun to shoot. I hope that the polishing of the ramp will stop the FTFeed problems with the BB ammo, but I can’t trust it for CCW, yet. First Pix I omitted the at rest frame at the start and show firing, recoil,and finally returning to battery at frame 18 and at rest frame 19 ~ .6 second:
On April 30, 2009, I ordered and paid for a P380 with night sights. I received it on March 31, 2010, after waiting over an hour and a half for the UPS delivery… just before closing at the FFL dealer’s store at 7PM.
When I got home I checked the gun for everything that I could think of and noticed nothing missing or incomplete. I then went into a darkened room where I noticed the front night sight was dead. On inspection it looked okay, but the rear sight had horizontal gashes through the Trijicon Logo. I took lots of pictures and sent an email to Ian Burr at Kahr Service. He got FedEx to pick up the gun the next day – April 1st around 1:30PM. I got the gun back around 10:00 AM on April 7. I checked the gun out and noted that the "Action Taken was: Replaced front sight. Polished barrel. Lubed and test fired good."
The marred rear sight was not replaced, but it works.
I took the pistol to the indoor range where I fired 150 rounds of Aguila 95-grain FMJ and 50 rounds of Buffalo Bore 90-grain JHP +P ammo. I took movies of the firing for flash and recoil comparisons. The movies were taken at 1280 by 720(HD 720P) resolution at 30 frames per second using ambient light. I was at the left-most station which had a light on the wall to the left and just in front of my station. Stills were pulled from the videos and resulted in 640 by 480 resolution photos which I cropped to get below the 97.7KB limit for the Attachment Manager for .jpg files.
The first shot was kind of unusual in that after firing and recoiling, the pistol took .5 to .6 second to return to battery ~18 frames! I won’t show all of them, but that was weird and kind of like slow motion.
I’ll show a couple of shots of the Aguila flashes. Recoil was relatively light. The Buffalo Bore was markedly brighter, with a louder report and more recoil, but manageable… no problem. It’s listed as using low flash powder. The flash is very noticeable in the adequate lighting present. It was kind of like the Double Tap 9mm 124-grain JHP +P ammo I tried.
The Aguila ammo was relatively low in failures. There was the slow return to battery on shot #1, 2 FTFire(removed magazine, pulled slide to the rear about ½ inch to re-c0ck the striker, then fired okay), and 1 FTFeed(fed when slide pulled to the rear and released).
The Buffalo Bore had 2 FTfeed before and 3 FTFeed after cleaning at 126 rounds fired. The failures to feed were corrected by pulling the slide to the rear and releasing it, which loaded the round and it then fired with no problem. The FTFeed consisted of the slide back and the bullet at rest against the feed ramp... low on the ramp.
I cleaned the gun when I got home and then polished the feed ramp with my Dremel-like tool (buffer “wheel” and polishing compound), then I buffed and polished it some more… and more. I think that if the feed ramps on the Kahrs were about 1/16 of an inch longer and that bit was used to extend the angled upward portion of the ramp, there would be less or no failures to feed. The bullets hit the ramp where there’s not much angle and just stop and “stick” in place. The lower part of the ramp is kind of rounded. If this part were lower, the FTF problem would stop. IMHO.
This pistol is fun to shoot and I think the recoil was “light” for the target ammo and controllable for the +P ammo. It was fun to shoot. I hope that the polishing of the ramp will stop the FTFeed problems with the BB ammo, but I can’t trust it for CCW, yet. First Pix I omitted the at rest frame at the start and show firing, recoil,and finally returning to battery at frame 18 and at rest frame 19 ~ .6 second: