erichard
10-20-2016, 05:12 PM
I recently got hold of a P380 barrel locally for very cheap and wanted to try it out in the CW380 I have. Before I bought, I saw some have done this successfully, and one person noted it was a tighter fit in the gun as i recall. Well, I tried it out today, and in placing the barrel in the slide, I did notice the barrel was a tighter fit. It was perfect with no slop when fully situated in the slide. The CW380 barrel had a very slight front to back movement, almost imperceptible, but definitely there. Now every gun is a tiny bit different due to tolerances, etc., so maybe others have a barrel that fits exactly as well as this P380 did, dunno.
The other thing I noticed was that the feed ramp seemed just ever so much wider than the CW380 barrel. I tried some calipers, and it seemed to suggest they were very close in width, so maybe it was an optical illusion, not sure.
So what I was hoping, being the obsessive gun owner that I've become, was that maybe my gun might cycle the Xtreme Defender bullets as it does for some other folks with these guns, a number of them being P380 owners. I always wondered why one would cycle it and another wouldn't. In the past, my CW380 routinely had a misfeed jam on the ramp as the bullet veered off to the right where support is lacking in the Kahr feed ramp design. So would the new barrel make a difference?
Well, using the technique I described before, alternating Xtreme Defender ammo with cheap Freedom Munitions ammo in the mag, I set off to my home range to find out. Short answer is, the Xtreme Defender cycled each time perfectly well. By ejecting the unfired Xtreme Defender rounds each time they were chambered, I was able to redo the test several times without wasting the preciously expensive XD rounds. It cycled from top to bottom in the magazine. I didn't do enough to verify it will always be reliable, but it certainly was a different finding than my previous attempt with the stock CW-380.
I like the Lehigh XD rounds as they make a 380 about as effective as a 9mm hollow point, which makes the gun a very handy concealed weapon. The CW 380 was very accurate today with dings on the steels almost touching one another in many cases, at 20-30 feet.
Will need to follow up with more testing, but I'm feeling better about the gun, and may carry it more this winter than I had planned (originally was only going to use a G26 or a Para P10.45, both of which are stupendous carry options, but even so are 2-3 times the weight and size of the CW380).
Does this mean you should go out and buy a P380 barrel? I don't think so. I only took the chance because I got the barrel for basically $30 plus shipping, about the cost of a box of XD ammo. Take this as simply one more data point in the CW380 story.
The other thing I noticed was that the feed ramp seemed just ever so much wider than the CW380 barrel. I tried some calipers, and it seemed to suggest they were very close in width, so maybe it was an optical illusion, not sure.
So what I was hoping, being the obsessive gun owner that I've become, was that maybe my gun might cycle the Xtreme Defender bullets as it does for some other folks with these guns, a number of them being P380 owners. I always wondered why one would cycle it and another wouldn't. In the past, my CW380 routinely had a misfeed jam on the ramp as the bullet veered off to the right where support is lacking in the Kahr feed ramp design. So would the new barrel make a difference?
Well, using the technique I described before, alternating Xtreme Defender ammo with cheap Freedom Munitions ammo in the mag, I set off to my home range to find out. Short answer is, the Xtreme Defender cycled each time perfectly well. By ejecting the unfired Xtreme Defender rounds each time they were chambered, I was able to redo the test several times without wasting the preciously expensive XD rounds. It cycled from top to bottom in the magazine. I didn't do enough to verify it will always be reliable, but it certainly was a different finding than my previous attempt with the stock CW-380.
I like the Lehigh XD rounds as they make a 380 about as effective as a 9mm hollow point, which makes the gun a very handy concealed weapon. The CW 380 was very accurate today with dings on the steels almost touching one another in many cases, at 20-30 feet.
Will need to follow up with more testing, but I'm feeling better about the gun, and may carry it more this winter than I had planned (originally was only going to use a G26 or a Para P10.45, both of which are stupendous carry options, but even so are 2-3 times the weight and size of the CW380).
Does this mean you should go out and buy a P380 barrel? I don't think so. I only took the chance because I got the barrel for basically $30 plus shipping, about the cost of a box of XD ammo. Take this as simply one more data point in the CW380 story.