.380 ACP horror stories?

[Pandaz3]

Sometime in the early 90's A friend of mine ...I'll call him Vern since that is his name. left work from the airport in Madera, California to go home for lunch. He typically went to the airport exit to get back on the 99 freeway south to his house. This day he spied a car with the hood up near the north on ramp. Always a guy yo lend a hand he went over with his pickup to see if he could help. The stranded guy then shot him three times with a 38 in the lower torso, yanked him out of the pickup and drove off leaving Vern for dead. Luckily he was spotted by friends also going to lunch and the 911 protocol followed. Vern was able to give a description and all that and they caught the guy near Weed. The Highway patrol actually drove Vern's pickup back. Unusual. He still has that worthless Chevy today. Vern then went through the Concealed Carry process and was quite the Concealed Carry Advocate when I met him in '97. He is the one that set me on the CC path. He was carrying a S&W J-frame for a long time , now it is a KelTec P-3AT.
I have not called him in a long time.... Now would be good.

 

[Alexx1401]

now this is the kind of horror stories I was talking about. Holllly bubblegum. Did your friend ever figure out the cause behind all of it? Or just an interrupted suicide attempt?

Stories like this abound and to me show me one "truth". There is no handgun that is "best" for stopping someone. Alas it is often hard to carry a long gun though. There is stuff like this that has to be written off more as dumb luck than anything else. You can find an example of a cop who was shot in the heart with a .45 ACP and lived. Bullet kind of plugged the hole it made long enough for surgeons to save her. Another Trooper was shot and killed with one round from a .22LR fired from a NAA mini .22. Trooper walks up to window, you see the flash, he steps back falls and dies.

 

[Captain O]

My lady uses a LCP in 380. Nice to carry. And I ,we do use the ball ammo for penetrating thicker clothing such as leather jackets. Better than nothing. I like my .45s as 1st choice. And she won't give it back anyway.

You might want to invest in (and carry) Underwood's "Extreme Penetrator" ammunition. It takes the .380 (and .32 ACP) to an entirely new level. It makes them perform at a respectable level and will probably save your life.

 

[Nick Burkhardt]

"Extreme Penetrator" or "Extreme Defender".

 

[1oldfogey]

The Extreme Penetrator OVERPENATRATES CONSISTENTLY!!! (I used to carry them) Lehigh Defense, which makes these bullets for themselves and for Underwood, in order to solve that issue, developed the Extreme Defender, which Underwood sells in a 65 grain round both in a Standard or a +P load. They are TERRIFIC and consistently meet the FBI standards for penetration (12"-18" penetration). My shooting buddy and I have tested them thoroughly with our chronometer and Clear Ballistics Gel using my brides Sig P238. We think they are both great! Personally the three of us opted for the +P round for EDC. Check them out on you tube and other reviews. If you try them, you will never go back to "whatever". BTW, the wound channel they make consistently outclasses the best hollow points.
Don't take my word for it, check them out yourself. ONLY disadvantage = pricey.

 

[Captain O]

The Extreme Penetrator OVERPENATRATES CONSISTENTLY!!! (I used to carry them) Lehigh Defense, which makes these bullets for themselves and for Underwood, in order to solve that issue, developed the Extreme Defender, which Underwood sells in a 65 grain round both in a Standard or a +P load. They are TERRIFIC and consistently meet the FBI standards for penetration (12"-18" penetration). My shooting buddy and I have tested them thoroughly with our chronometer and Clear Ballistics Gel using my brides Sig P238. We think they are both great! Personally the three of us opted for the +P round for EDC. Check them out on you tube and other reviews. If you try them, you will never go back to "whatever". BTW, the wound channel they make consistently outclasses the best hollow points.
Don't take my word for it, check them out yourself. ONLY disadvantage = pricey.

Expensive? Yes. You must answer one question. How much is your life worth?

Answer: Practice lightly and use sparingly.

I want to buy some of these for my Auto Ordnance .30 Carbine. Devastating!

 

[mike633]

now this is the kind of horror stories I was talking about. Holllly bubblegum. Did your friend ever figure out the cause behind all of it? Or just an interrupted suicide attempt?

They had both been laid off from UPRR. Jerry had gotten a job but his roommate was still unemployed. He had been drinking, that's about all I know.

 

[MooThulhu]

My only .380 horror story was more of a spooky story/story of disappointment.....

So a few years back I was cleaning up "The Black Hole" (A room that we had just full of random junk) and in one of the corners of the room behind a dresser I found a little Cobra C-380, now to the best of my recollection I had never had a Cobra C-380, I called around to all my friends and checked if they had left it there, asked my partner if she had friends over that may have left it there and no one had the foggiest Idea of where this gun came from.
Ok so thats a lil strange, I decided that one of three things happened. Either A: I had been visited by the gun fairy, B: Santa was real and I was on the naughty list, or C: My other guns got drunk one night and mated, but continued to drink throughout the pregnancy .

I mean I knew that these jennings/lorcin/bryco guns are bad but I didn't have ANY idea just how bad it would end up.
So fast forward a couple weeks and I've gotten a couple boxes of .380 and brought the thing out to the range. I load up a magazine and fire a shot, and something hits my face, I look down at the gun and see the extractor had shot off.
After a few minutes of crawling around on the ground looking for the pin that holds the extractor and the extractor (somehow the spring stayed in there) I get the thing back together and figure it must have worked it's way out and I just didn't notice.
Fire another round, jam, clear jam, fire two more rounds jam, fire another round and this time the extractor flies off towards a guy and his son at the spot next to us.
So I make the gun safe and turn to go retrieve the missing extractor and as I'm turning the gun gets knocked off the bench and falls to the ground.
At this point I've had enough of it and after finding the acrobatic parts of the gun I go to put the thing back together and notice that the maybe 3 foot drop to the ground was enough to Crack the slide of the gun.
Upon disassembly I find that not only was the slide cracked but the band that held the barrel in also had a crack in it allowing the barrel to wobble up and down. It looked like someone had tried to fix it with JB Weld or epoxy of some sort.
Now I know this isn't the fault of the 380 ACP cartridge but now even thinking of getting something else in 380 makes me recall that gun. If you want to know just How bad that Gun was think of Hillary Clinton. The two where nearly indistinguishable on paper: Ugly, Unreliable and all Broken inside.