New to Site and P380

[toptog]

Just registered here and have gone through 300 rounds in my P380.

I had a few minor issues with shooting it during the first 150 rounds. 100 of them were WWB 95 FMJ. They had a flat nose and some rounds were shorter than the others and did not feed completely from magazine to chamber. The other 50 rounds were regular ball ammo reloads from the range that went through just fine. No other issues.

Next 150, was 50 more of the same WWB, 50 Remington FMJ, and 50 Federal FMJ, all from Walmart. Winchester had a 5 or 6 of the same feed issues. All of them on the first round from a new magazine. When it did hang up, 2 times it appeared the firing pin had hung up on the shell casing. The rest of the times it jammed from the magazine to the feed ramp. After that it went though the mag just fine.

With the Remington and Federal however, they loaded and fed just fine, but occasionally, the slide locked open, but it did not stay open with the slide lock. (?) I could push the rear of the slide and cause the next round to chamber without touching the slide release, nor would the release do anything.

I have read that P380's have a heavy recoil spring, but I have never had a problem racking it by hand. Could the failures to feed correctly and the slide locking issues be related to inadequate recoil springs? What about the instances where I saw the firing pin holding up the casing? Shoot it more? Change out recoill springs? Don't really want to send it back yet.

Could I hear some of your opinions? Thanks

So far I love the gun, but would love to have it shooting perfectly.

[jocko]

did you go to the kahr tech section and read up on two great stickys that willhelp that little P380
#1: Kahr lube chart it is super

#2 Propper prepping of your new kahr. It will tellyou things to look for when you have some of the issues your having.

[toptog]

did you go to the kahr tech section and read up on two great stickys that willhelp that little P380
#1: Kahr lube chart it is super

#2 Propper prepping of your new kahr. It will tellyou things to look for when you have some of the issues your having.


Yes I read and followed the cleaning, and lube chart. Hand cycled the gun a lot before I ever fired it.

[jocko]

welcome aboard, now just shoot it like u stole it. The P380 is the most accurate 380 I have ever shot. It will smooth out some of those little glitchs with more rounds down range.

[toptog]

Thanks Jocko.

What do you think about the slide locking back where the slide stop isn't holding it open? All I need to do is give a push with my thumb and then the slide moves forward. Could it be something with the recoil springs? Would a new, stronger set prevent this from happening? Like I said in my first post, I never had any difficulty racking the slide.

[jocko]

If I had to guess this doesn't happen often either, so proper lube on the slide rails and more rounds out of the gun should take care of that. Sometimes guns just have to be shot in as not all parts mate up smoothly like they should. Make sure your recoil spring is on correctly with the open end towards the front of the slide. There are no more powerful recoil springs for the P380. IMO I would shy away from the flat nose wwb rounds. Not that they should not work in ur P380 but right now they don't find some american mmade fmj ammo to get it running right. My P380 waqs finicky with 102 goldensabres, so I just found another good defense\ round that worked and sticked with it.

[merlin3]

We took my wifes brand new p380 out to the range yesterday. Put 70 rounds of cheap blazer target ammo through it. Shot perfectly every time but once I had to rerack the slide to chamber a round in the middle of the magazine but I was surprised it did that well on a brand new gun. Hopefully some more bullets through it it will be as reliable as my glock and I might have to pick up a p380 for myself.

[MikeyKahr]

Always good to see new faces around here, glad to have you here merlin3 and toptog. Have fun with those P380s.

[copterdrvr]

In my experience, the slight "nudging" you have to do occasionally is because the edge of the flatnosed bullet you are using is actually dragging on the face of the barrels feed ramp. There is just enough friction on that new (and unbroken in) feed ramp to slow the forward movement of the slide that's pushing the bullet into the chamber.

What Jocko said-keep shootin' it and it'll smooth out. You can help it along by polishing the feed ramp. The key word is POLISH, not grind!!! The ramp is nickel coated and you don't want to cut through that of course. On my pistols I used a Dremel tool with a soft polishing wheel and the polishing rouge that comes with the Dremel tool. Smoothed it up shiny like a mirror!!! My P380 shoots the flatnose Winchesters just fine---now! If you don't have a Dremel tool, buy some Flitz polish, put it on a Q-tip and have at it. It works really well and you can't screw it up!!!

[Mr.H]

Not trying to highjack, but I too had some similar experiences and would like some input if that is ok topdog,
I also just took my P380 out, yesterday, and was not particularly happy. I had two issues.
(I did all the prep except polish the feed ramp.)
The first issue I have is the magazine eject. It ejects ok with an empty mag, but with a loaded magazine I have to push up on the base to get it to come out.
Then comes the second issue, reliability.
First 50 rounds of Magtech FMJ feed perfect, I’m loving it!
Round number 58 the slide does not close all the way, between a 1/4 to 3/8 inch from fully closed, light press with thumb closes it.
Round 62 stove pipes, for the rest of that 50 round box I had four more times it did not close all the way and three more times that had a jam, either a stove pipe or the brass was straight. I switched to Winchester range/target (flat nose) and in those 50 rounds had two failures to close and three jams.
I am being very careful not to limp wrist the gun, and am enjoying the smooth trigger pull, and accuracy, while just shooting at 7 yards, I had tight groups that were centered about two inches to the right but even with the bullseye. I recorded no pattern as to which number round in the mag would jam or the slide not fully close, it was random.
I stop and do a thorough cleaning.
Go back to the Magtechs and in the next two boxes I had 7 jams and 5 times it does not fully close, not happy now…
Decide to burn through a mag of Corbon just to see if there is a difference, on round five the slide does not close all the way.
So,
With 256 rounds through it do I send it back or continue shooting and hope it stops the jamming and the mags start ejecting properly?

[toptog]

Thanks for the input everyone and no, I don't mind at all Mr. H.

So let's see, I fiddled around some more with the gun, polished the feedramp again. Went with 1000, 1500, and then 2000 grit wet dry, then used the Dremel and got it to a super shiny, smooth mirror finish. (only a few strokes of everything, didn't go crazy) Cleaned and oiled everything again, and the put it back together.

Next I took the wet dry and Dremel to the magazines and got the inside of the top as smooth as I could. This was something I had not done earlier. Ammo now slides out of the magazines much more smoothly.

Loaded up a mag and hand cycled through them and everything fed, and ejected very nicely. I locked the slide open after racking every round.

Got to get out to the range before I know if I did anything to help it. We shall see.

[Jinx]

Just a note here. I was having issue with my kahr at first, where i'd push the slide lock down and the slide would hit the round it was trying to push into the chamber, but just stop there. I believe that maybe the under side of the 'wings' on the magazine which hold the bullets down, might be a little rough. I suspect this becuase the ammo i was shooting was reloaded once and not clean new brass (it wasn't shiney like a new box) when using a new box that was shiney brass on the same range trip, the kahr fed it perfectly.

I think maybe the springs inside the mags are a little extra strong, and push the bullets up harder causing more friction between these wing peices (the top of the top of the magazine that curves inward). When i was loading my kahr magazine next to my buddies 'bodygaurd' magazine, i noticed his required FAR less downward pressure on the current round to put another round ontop of it and slide it back.

so short of cutting the spring in your mag or buying new springs my suspicion would be that a little tiny bit of polishing or light fine grit paper smoothing of the underside of these mags 'wings' would probably cause the bullets to slide out of the mag with less effort. As topdog has done.

Please let us know topdog, i would like to see if you have no issues now with a polished mag!

[toptog]

Polished mags may have helped. Put another 150 through it and out of it I only had one light strike. I am very pleased. So pleased that I got some Kydex from Ebay and made a holster for it. Time to test some sd ammo and start carrying it.

Hope my new PM9 will make me just as happy.

Bye Bye Taurus?