Dissapointed in my new P380 (long)

[applawman]

I have wanted an all black P380 with night sights since I first layed eyes on one in a gun shop about 5 years ago. Finally pulled the trigger a couple months ago. First thing I did was to take it apart and clean it thoroughly, and work the slide about 150 times. Went to my local Wal-Mart, and picked up 2 boxes of PPU ball ammo. Shot all three mags in it, and at about round number 75 or so, I had one failure to return to battery where I just pushed the slide all the way to battery and it fired. Other than that, no problems. Since then, no Wal-Mart within 100 miles has had anything but steel-case Tul Ammo and I dont want to shoot that. So the other day I dropped by Dicks Sporting goods and they had one 250 rd box of Ten Ring ammo left, so I picked that up. Went to the range and fired 100 more rounds without a single hitch. Figuring I was good to go with that ammo, I took 100 rds to my annual qualification the other day (I am an LEO and plan to use this pistol as my backup/off-duty carry gun) and things started falling apart. Several times in the day-time course, I had failures to return to battery, stove-pipes etc. It was embarrasing. Finally made it through that course of fire by the skin of my teeth. On the night time course, about every 3rd or 4th round was jamming in some way (failure to fire, failure to eject, stove pipe, double feed, you name it). On the last string of fire, I had a double feed and went to clear it with the ole Tap, Rack, Ready, and two live rounds shot out of the magazine through the open ejection port and rolled into the dark at my feet. I couldnt believe it. I had shot 200 rounds to this point (100 of them with the same ammo I was shooting that night) with only one failure to return to battery and now this. It was like a completely different gun. BTW, I cleaned it thoroughly after every other time I had taken it shooting. It was a cool, raw, rainy night and was raining during the quals, so I dont know if that had something to do with it, but I hope it didnt. I need an all weather gun I can trust my life to. I was about to go with the Glock 42. I hope I didn't make a mistake. Thoughts?

[SlowBurn]

Wierd. Wonder if possibly something happened reassembling the gun after cleaning? It's possible to put in that slide stop/takedown pin wrong so that it rides on top of the spring. That can cause malfunctions.

Just a thought. Other than that I got nothing

[b4uqzme]

Good post applawman but I'm wondering why the thread title isn't "disappointed in Ten Ring ammo" since that was the only thing that changed. I couldn't tell from your post. Is the gun OK? If so, find yourself some really good break-in ammo and start from scratch. Just my recommendation. I hope you find that all is OK. Best wishes.

P.S. I probably also recommend you get through a lengthy break-in before you take the gun on quals again.

[applawman]

I'm hoping that the Ten Ring ammo is the problem. It just seemed odd that I fired 100 rounds of it (knowing that I had to qual with it, and wanting to be able to trust the ammo) without a single malfunction. Then I get to the qual course and everything comes apart and I look like I'm out there trying to argue with a Kel-Tec to get it to make it through a simple qual course. I went with the P380 thinking it was the "Cadillac" of the mini- 380s, I'm just hoping that it was the ammo and weather conditions.

[DavidR]

That is weird. With 200 rounds and only 1 battery failure I would have thought you were good to go. I agree with b4 that you should try it one more time with some different ammo before you send it back to Kahr.

[muggsy]

P380s run best clean and wet. I clean mine after every 100 rounds. I've had very good luck with Speer Gold Dot and Hornady Critical Defense ammo. The only foreign ammo that ran well was PMC ball. My P380 went from flawless to a jamb-o-matic in a single range trip. It turned out that the frame had failed. Kahr replaced the frame at no charge, but that required a NICS check as it was now considered a new gun due to the new serial number. I'm not saying that's your problem, but it's a possibility. Contact Kahr. They will probably suggest changing the recoil spring which could eliminate the feeding problem. If you had the magazines apart for cleaning make sure that you reassembled them correctly. If you haven't disassembled and cleaned your magazines, do so.

[pcv57]

I have also gone through the same issues.. It went back to Kahr for an overhaul and I got it back a month later. One thing I did was to take some #600 sandpaper, sand the ramp and front edge of the barrel,then polished them with a Dremmel. I clean it after every range session and use light gun grease on the rails instead of oil. Since getting it back, it's been flawless. I'm not sure if any of this has made a difference but it's worth a try

[P380_Kid]

I am currently on my 3rd P380. My previous other two models were the stainless slide and DLC coating both with standard sights. I sent them both back to Kahr with FTF, FTE, stovepipes, failures to go into full battery etc etc. Kahr was never able to get them to function perfectly after performing warranty work. I used several different types of ammo before sending each gun into Kahr. I sold the other two models. I then gave it one more shot and purchased another all DLC coating model with factory night sights. I have only used PMC Bronze 90gr & Hornady 90gr FTX critical defense and have had no issues. I currently have 400 rounds through my P380 and plan to put another 200 rounds on Sunday. This is just from my experience but you either get a good one from the factory or you don't. I have a Kel Tec P32 I pocket carry as well and never had an issue. I've read it can be hit or miss with Kel Tec models as well. Good Luck