[BubbaJon]

So my wife hated the 380 Derringer - the hammer pull was too much. So I dragged it to the gun show today hoping to swap it. Nobody was in a swapping mood. Luckily this old fella heard me telling about it and said he has a lot of. 380. We settled on a price and I went looking for a pocket pistol for my wife . Decided I liked the. S&W better than the other options plus it has a laser built in and the slide locks back.
Mama was pleased with it.
I also found some 100 gr RNFP boolits at a reasonable price. So I get home and do some gardening to stay on her good side and finally get turned loose to reload some using the new boolits. I surprised to find the brass was too big. I had to resize then all. Second the new boolit wouldn't cycle at normal lengths. The COAL fur 380 is around .985. I had to set these at. 960 to cycle reliably.
Also snagged a bottle of. Unique and Blue Dot at normal prices.
All in all a good day.

 

[BloodGroove4570]

Awesome! I Hope she likes it good and it works/fits her well....

BloodGroove4570

 

[BubbaJon]

Awesome! I Hope she likes it good and it works/fits her well....

BloodGroove4570

She's pretty happy with it - the long trigger doesn't bother her and when she does a dry run the laser twitches just a little meaning that she doesn't have any nasty trigger habits.
Nick (njcioffi) and I were talking at the show about a video that I'd watched where you improve your trigger technique by laying a quarter on top of your pistol and practicing until the coin moves the least amount. Didn't work with my Makarov because when the trigger breaks it comes down like Thor's hammer (it is an actual DA hammer fired pistol). It will knock that quarter off every time. Anyway - that little S&W barely disturbs the quarter. Impressive being as it isn't striker fired - it's also DA with a hammer!
I just watched way too many YouTube vids on ammo tests and finally settled on one where the guy seems like he knows what he's doing. The surprise was that all of the cartridges that met the FBI specs in 380 used Hornady XTP boolits. I was under the (mistaken) impression that these wouldn't open in 9mm much less 380. They performed excellent with over 12" of penetration and good expansion on both bare and denim + gel tests. So I feel comfortable this will be a capable pistol for her.

 

[Stu925]

So my wife hated the 380 Derringer - the hammer pull was too much. So I dragged it to the gun show today hoping to swap it. Nobody was in a swapping mood. Luckily this old fella heard me telling about it and said he has a lot of. 380. We settled on a price and I went looking for a pocket pistol for my wife . Decided I liked the. S&W better than the other options plus it has a laser built in and the slide locks back.
Mama was pleased with it.
I also found some 100 gr RNFP boolits at a reasonable price. So I get home and do some gardening to stay on her good side and finally get turned loose to reload some using the new boolits. I surprised to find the brass was too big. I had to resize then all. Second the new boolit wouldn't cycle at normal lengths. The COAL fur 380 is around .985. I had to set these at. 960 to cycle reliably.
Also snagged a bottle of. Unique and Blue Dot at normal prices.
All in all a good day.

View attachment 101352

Wish I could find some Unique around here, seems to be like the dodo bird around here.

Stu