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This is a brand-new offering from American Tactical Imports, a Turkish company that has gained a good rep for its affordable copies of well-regarded rifles. Their 1911s have also established a strong position in a crowded market, but this double-stack .380 ACP represents a new direction for them: its a near-exact copy of the Beretta 84 Cheetah, even accepting the same magazines.
The aluminum alloy-framed MS380 accepts 12+1 rounds of .380 and launches them from a locked breech through a 3.9 barrel. Its mass empty is 660g. or almost 24 oz. - This is no lightweight pocket gun, but its no steel-framed 1911 either.
Including a total of three mags, shipping, and the NICS check, my brand-new MS380 cost $378 OTD from Little Bear Guns in Hillsboro OR. For those of you who never talked to Richard Wilson of Little Bear, I highly recommend him and his home-based company without reservation.
Please, save your .380-vs.-9mm debating skills for another one of the hundred threads on the subject. Personally, I keep .380 for a BUG or for a deep concealment, and because the wife shoots it so darned well. Nine is fine, but it aint mine.
Heres a link to a YouTube vid I posted about the gun, including field-stripping it and subsequently busting its cherry at Salmonberry Road.
American Tactical Imports ATI MS380 pistol review - YouTube
This is the only hi-cap .380 that I own, so it fills a niche in the same way that my Glock 21SF complements my Glock 36 CCW.
Besides, its just plain fun to break in a new gun, especially one thats so easy and forgiving to shoot as this long-barreled, heavy-metal popgun. The long barrel of the MS380 squeezes the most velocity possible out of the .380 cartridge, and 13 rounds of anything ought to get your attention.
I started the fun with a load of the most radical hollowpoints I have: some ancient Winchester Silvertips that were famed for their expansion, but suffered from poor penetration. Sure enough, a whole mag dump through the virgin gun went off without a hitch. Nothing else I shoot is as likely to FTF as Silvertips, and you know its great way to get rid of old ammo that isnt trustworthy on anything bigger than a coon.
Then came the FMJ range ammo, including four full mags of corroded Sako that was old enough to be President. Once again, they all fed, fired on the first strike, and ejected cleanly, even the ones that had nasty green spots all over the cases. In contrast, the Bersa Thunder took two strikes on some of them, and once it took three - but they all fired eventually. This lousy Sako ammo turned out to be a good way to separate the sheep from the goats, as it were. None of the other, newer ammo took multiple strikes to fire.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: This is a DA/SA gun with a frame-mounted ambi thumb safety, not a decocker, so you can carry cocked & locked if thats your thing. The safety can be engaged when the gun is not cocked too, preventing the trigger from working, the hammer from cocking, and the slide from moving. The DA/SA mechanism also has the advantage of giving you a second try at striking any round that fails to fire just by pulling the trigger again.
Stripping it after about 75 rounds showed no significant wear to the black oxide finish at any of the internal contact points, but some of the corners inside the slide were starting to get shined up. After a mop and a brush, its insides were immaculate again and good to go. All in all, there was nothing particularly dramatic to report about the function of the ATI MS380 or any of its three mags - the POI lined up a little high, but it worked without a hiccup and was easy to keep on target during rapid fire. Rock on!
Notes added in proof:
After the first run, its apparent that there a few rough spots on this gun. First, the front sight is not removable, although the back one is, so you can forget about installing tritium sights. Second, for some inexplicable reason the rear sight of this two-dot (dotted -i) system isnt centered in the notch; the white spot is clearly off to the right of the dovetail center. And finally, one of the mags has an untrimmed mold sprue on the pinky-rest base plate which needs sanding before it can be used comfortably.
Other than those flaws, the MS380 has great ergonomics and functions flawlessly. With some dismay I admit that the Beretta-like look of this gun makes my Glocks seem downright homely by comparison. This ATI is sleek, its a heckuva lot easier to shoot accurately than my Glock 36, and it operates at 100%, right out of the box.
The aluminum alloy-framed MS380 accepts 12+1 rounds of .380 and launches them from a locked breech through a 3.9 barrel. Its mass empty is 660g. or almost 24 oz. - This is no lightweight pocket gun, but its no steel-framed 1911 either.
Including a total of three mags, shipping, and the NICS check, my brand-new MS380 cost $378 OTD from Little Bear Guns in Hillsboro OR. For those of you who never talked to Richard Wilson of Little Bear, I highly recommend him and his home-based company without reservation.
Please, save your .380-vs.-9mm debating skills for another one of the hundred threads on the subject. Personally, I keep .380 for a BUG or for a deep concealment, and because the wife shoots it so darned well. Nine is fine, but it aint mine.
Heres a link to a YouTube vid I posted about the gun, including field-stripping it and subsequently busting its cherry at Salmonberry Road.
American Tactical Imports ATI MS380 pistol review - YouTube
This is the only hi-cap .380 that I own, so it fills a niche in the same way that my Glock 21SF complements my Glock 36 CCW.
Besides, its just plain fun to break in a new gun, especially one thats so easy and forgiving to shoot as this long-barreled, heavy-metal popgun. The long barrel of the MS380 squeezes the most velocity possible out of the .380 cartridge, and 13 rounds of anything ought to get your attention.
I started the fun with a load of the most radical hollowpoints I have: some ancient Winchester Silvertips that were famed for their expansion, but suffered from poor penetration. Sure enough, a whole mag dump through the virgin gun went off without a hitch. Nothing else I shoot is as likely to FTF as Silvertips, and you know its great way to get rid of old ammo that isnt trustworthy on anything bigger than a coon.
Then came the FMJ range ammo, including four full mags of corroded Sako that was old enough to be President. Once again, they all fed, fired on the first strike, and ejected cleanly, even the ones that had nasty green spots all over the cases. In contrast, the Bersa Thunder took two strikes on some of them, and once it took three - but they all fired eventually. This lousy Sako ammo turned out to be a good way to separate the sheep from the goats, as it were. None of the other, newer ammo took multiple strikes to fire.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: This is a DA/SA gun with a frame-mounted ambi thumb safety, not a decocker, so you can carry cocked & locked if thats your thing. The safety can be engaged when the gun is not cocked too, preventing the trigger from working, the hammer from cocking, and the slide from moving. The DA/SA mechanism also has the advantage of giving you a second try at striking any round that fails to fire just by pulling the trigger again.
Stripping it after about 75 rounds showed no significant wear to the black oxide finish at any of the internal contact points, but some of the corners inside the slide were starting to get shined up. After a mop and a brush, its insides were immaculate again and good to go. All in all, there was nothing particularly dramatic to report about the function of the ATI MS380 or any of its three mags - the POI lined up a little high, but it worked without a hiccup and was easy to keep on target during rapid fire. Rock on!
Notes added in proof:
After the first run, its apparent that there a few rough spots on this gun. First, the front sight is not removable, although the back one is, so you can forget about installing tritium sights. Second, for some inexplicable reason the rear sight of this two-dot (dotted -i) system isnt centered in the notch; the white spot is clearly off to the right of the dovetail center. And finally, one of the mags has an untrimmed mold sprue on the pinky-rest base plate which needs sanding before it can be used comfortably.
Other than those flaws, the MS380 has great ergonomics and functions flawlessly. With some dismay I admit that the Beretta-like look of this gun makes my Glocks seem downright homely by comparison. This ATI is sleek, its a heckuva lot easier to shoot accurately than my Glock 36, and it operates at 100%, right out of the box.