11 or 13 rounds .380 = is that a game changer ?

[Riomouse911]

At least 7, the last few were as a supervisor but I was there during interviews.

Three were house-defense cases, three business (liquor stores, surprise!) and one was a street robbery where the suspect got shot in the lot of a nightclub.

I recall only two were with revolvers, with one the guy fired all six. The other one was 2-3 shots. One home defense was a shotgun. That guy died quickly. The rest were with autos.

The craziest involved meth heads who tripped out. One started kicking in the door of a guys house. The guy said he yelled for the meth head to stop, but he kept kicking. Once the door was breached the resident fired one shot with a .380 (A Bersa if I remember right.) It hit the suspects heart and he dropped and died about one foot inside the entryway.

Another was an off duty cop from another jurisdiction. That meth head broke a living room window and started climbing inside. The cops wife called 911 and he was yelling for the guy to leave but the guy climbed into the house. That crook took five shots before he dropped.

The most shots fired involved two clerks firing four or five each at some robbers with 9mms, both Glocks. One guy was hit, was dropped off at the hospital and lived, the other wasn’t hit and got away.

The five OIS I was involved with had three where suspects were hit and died. One was two suspects hit/ both lived, one was a no hit but the suspect dropped a gun.

The two-suspect one was crazy; some gangsters did a drive by on a house right as two officers were walking towards the same house responding to a call. One of my guys fired 8 shots, hitting the car a bunch of times and wounding the shooter. The second officer fired about five and wounded the other guy in the car. The driver (a female) drove them to the hospital where they were all arrested.

Now a very good friend of mine who worked for me exchanged shots with the two mopes on Dec 2nd, another good friend was driving the first police car shot at during the chase and a third was decorated by president trump for his actions. One deputy burned through all his ammo firing that encounter snd was pinned in his car. All of these guys said after that wild situation that they wanted more ammo.

Stay safe.

 

[JCooperfan1911]

Says the guy that has a KelTec P32, and called out by me who has a TCP732.

As I've brought up in another thread, the LCP Max is virtually the same size (thickness, too) as my Remington RM380. That slightly fatter and slightly heavier RM380 is easy to shoot well through a couple boxes of ammo* compared to a regular LCP in .380, in my experience. I can only imagine that the LCP Max should be similar in shootability of the RM with the bonus of an extra 4 to 6 cartridges on board.

*Frequent practice is usually a good thing.

The Kel-Tec P32 is my deep concealment pocket gun. I carry a Springfield Hellcat as my main.

 

[Shipwreck]

Good luck finding 380 ammo, and without selling a kidney

 

[Ignition Override]

OP: Don't 1911s normally hold 8 rounds?

If so, is that ever a concern for those who carry them? My impression is that 8 misses with a 1911 are still total misses.

 

[Ignition Override]

.380 ammo can be easy to find with a search engine.

LAX Ammunition Factory New 380 AUTO 100 GR 500 RDS W/FREE AMMO CAN | Lax Ammunition (laxammo.com)

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Please feel free to tell me I am wrong,in your not so humble opinions !

btw = I turn 74 in 2 months and I am as stubborn as you can get,BUT the ability to change and learn is obvious by my willingness to see this pistol as a game changer.

And btw,mine is enroute to my local FFL dealer as I penn this.

Why should I tell you that you are wrong?

First of all, ANY handgun is woefully underpowered compared to a rifle. Handguns are, in fact, a compromise in portability/availability/concealability with respect to power/range/effectiveness/accuracy in that aspect. It's a tradeoff made to achieve portability/availability/concealability.

Likewise, the choice a person makes in a handgun is a balance of many different factors available between handguns.

What factors?

Grip strength, body geometry, method of carry, concealability, physical handicaps, age, perceived needs with respect to the firearm's capacity/power, developments in firearms/ammunition, and yes...even personal esthetics.

One can arguably say, for instance, that the .380 of 1908 is most definitely NOT the .380 of 2021. There have been quite a few changes in both firearms and ammunition since it's first introduction 113 years ago. The .380 of today is quite an effective round available in many different firearms which are as reliable as any other.

One can also say that a person's physical abilities at 74 are a far cry from what they were half a century before.

The question that should be answered here is whether or not YOUR needs are met with such a pistol. That's a personal issue that each of us must decide for ourselves.

If you think it does, then get it.

Heck, get it anyway if you want. There's nothing which says that you can't have more than one handgun, and shooting's fun even if it's only on the target range and never carried as a self-defense weapon. Maybe you'll like it...maybe not.

And, of course, we'll all be awaiting your personal review if you do end up getting one!

 

[LeftyRed]

At least 7, the last few were as a supervisor but I was there during interviews.

Three were house-defense cases, three business (liquor stores, surprise!) and one was a street robbery where the suspect got shot in the lot of a nightclub.

I recall only two were with revolvers, with one the guy fired all six. The other one was 2-3 shots. One home defense was a shotgun. That guy died quickly. The rest were with autos.

The craziest involved meth heads who tripped out. One started kicking in the door of a guys house. The guy said he yelled for the meth head to stop, but he kept kicking. Once the door was breached the resident fired one shot with a .380 (A Bersa if I remember right.) It hit the suspects heart and he dropped and died about one foot inside the entryway.

Another was an off duty cop from another jurisdiction. That meth head broke a living room window and started climbing inside. The cops wife called 911 and he was yelling for the guy to leave but the guy climbed into the house. That crook took five shots before he dropped.

The most shots fired involved two clerks firing four or five each at some robbers with 9mms, both Glocks. One guy was hit, was dropped off at the hospital and lived, the other wasn’t hit and got away.

The five OIS I was involved with had three where suspects were hit and died. One was two suspects hit/ both lived, one was a no hit but the suspect dropped a gun.

The two-suspect one was crazy; some gangsters did a drive by on a house right as two officers were walking towards the same house responding to a call. One of my guys fired 8 shots, hitting the car a bunch of times and wounding the shooter. The second officer fired about five and wounded the other guy in the car. The driver (a female) drove them to the hospital where they were all arrested.

Now a very good friend of mine who worked for me exchanged shots with the two mopes on Dec 2nd, another good friend was driving the first police car shot at during the chase and a third was decorated by president trump for his actions. One deputy burned through all his ammo firing that encounter snd was pinned in his car. All of these guys said after that wild situation that they wanted more ammo.

Stay safe.

And bigger guns, and friends with bigger guns! LOL

Thank you for the response and be safe as well!

Lefty

 

[JDeere]

Thread drift is real []

Yep but I think it started as .380 more rounds is better discussion. Real life self defense situations are not gunfights as seen on TV. 8 rounds of 9mm in a micro will trump any .380 all day with very manageable recoil.

 

[mavracer]

The .380 Max is as wide, if not wider, than the P365/Hellcat sized guns and will offer no benefit for concealability purposes.

Other than it's shorter and a half pound lighter

 

[LeftyRed]

Other than it's shorter and a half pound lighter

And the weight, IMHO, is the best characteristic of the Max 380. I like to pocket carry, and the Max loaded is the weight of my G42 empty! Still not as light as my SW 351c, but will make for a nice pocketable weapon. Just giving it time and awaiting for Alabama Holster to get one and start offering their pocket holster for it.

Lefty

 

[murf]

the resident fired one shot with a .380 (A Bersa if I remember right.) It hit the suspects heart and he dropped and died about one foot inside the entryway.

that makes me feel much better about the efficacy of my lcp II.

thx,

murf

 

[mavracer]

And the weight, IMHO, is the best characteristic of the Max 380. I like to pocket carry, and the Max loaded is the weight of my G42 empty! Still not as light as my SW 351c, but will make for a nice pocketable weapon. Just giving it time and awaiting for Alabama Holster to get one and start offering their pocket holster for it.

Lefty

Right I pretty much live in gym shorts and if I'm doing something active for any length of time my Hellkitty beats the crud out of my kneecap.

 

[scaatylobo]

A .9mm is indeed quite small.

The .380 Max is as wide, if not wider, than the P365/Hellcat sized guns and will offer no benefit for concealability purposes.

It will recoil less than the 9mms and be a few ounces lighter. But .380 from a short barrel reallt struggles to both expand well and penetrate to the proper depth. Load selection is vital with a .380, as so few JHPs in that cal are worth anything. The 9mm doesn’t have that problem. The cartridge is energetic enough that most hollow points perform nicely even from compact barrel lengths.

I hear people saying the 9mm subcompacts are snappy and brutal to shoot. To me, this has not been the case at all. They are easily controllable and I am not a strong or large man.

The only place this new LCP Max has is for women, children, and those with health of grip strength issues. Any reasonably able male can easily handle the 9mm guns that are of identical size and barely any more weight. The 9mm has proven the world over as a very capable defensive cartridge. The .380 only has about half the power, and is marginal at best.

Just my opinion.

Glad you included the words " just my opinion " as that is how I am looking at your comments = all of them.

" The only place this new LCP Max has is for women, children, and those with health of grip strength issues " and this is another of your OPINION comments that are not worthy of us on here !.

ANY tool that punches holes in an attacker ,regardless of the sex and size of the defender is REALLY good to go for me.

And if you bothered to read my OP here, you might have read that I prefer it to be a BUG,or around the house [ inside ] gun ,when I am not really armed.

I already owned a KelTec .32 and a LCP in .380 [ sold them off ].

That was when I was 'on the job' and they were both a 3rd BUG.

At " danger close " CQB, I am betting my life that the perp / attacker will not find any difference between the holes in them ----- from either the .380 or whatever caliber it is !.

And on the subject of that great American Elmer Keith,he did an article that I cannot find about " pocket & mouse guns ".

In it my take away was to treat these guns as if they were dangerous game rifles.

Shoot ONLY ball / solid rounds that are going for penetration in THE most dangerous game.

Bless us all for never finding out if any of this is true.

 

[The Glockodile]

Glad you included the words " just my opinion " as that is how I am looking at your comments = all of them.

" The only place this new LCP Max has is for women, children, and those with health of grip strength issues " and this is another of your OPINION comments that are not worthy of us on here !.

Shhh!

We’re all 7’2” alpha male sheepdog warriors clothed in immense tacticalicity here!!!

 

[Kleanbore]

8 rounds of 9mm in a micro will trump any .380 all day with very manageable recoil.

A 9mm is more likely to effect a timely physical stop than a .380 if the rounds from each firearm strike the targets in the same location at the same angle and if the trajectories of those rounds take them fo vital body elements.
That's because of the greater penetration of the 9, which may or may not prove important in the event..

The italicized words explain why the term "manageable recoil" means something to a defender in a violent criminal attack from what it may mean on the range.

 

[Kleanbore]

8 rounds of 9mm in a micro will trump any .380 all day with very manageable recoil.

A 9mm is more likely to effect a timely physical stop than a .380 if the rounds from each firearm strike the targets in the same location at the same angle and if the trajectories of those rounds take them fo vital body elements.
That's because of the greater penetration of the 9, which may or may not prove important in the event..

The italicized words explain why the term "manageable recoil" means something to a defender in a violent criminal attack from what it may mean on the range.

 

[Casefull]

Right I pretty much live in gym shorts and if I'm doing something active for any length of time my Hellkitty beats the crud out of my kneecap.

Carry in your pocket not in your cargo pocket, that always beats up your knee or your leg because of the motion of your leg.

 

[Casefull]

Interesting how we’ve convinced ourselves that the 9 mm is as good as larger calibers. Now the 380 is good enough. Soon 22 Long rifle and then maybe a hopped up CO2 pistol. Talk about diminishing returns. Shot placement is almost never ideal and the larger the caliber the more forgiving of shot placement for the desired incapacitation of the two or four-legged critter.

 

[MedWheeler]

Interesting that a thread on capacity only can still turn into a caliber war. What caliber would it take to kill it in one shot?

 

[CapnMac]

It can (only can) be interesting to see how hung up, we in the "gun community" can get over two millimeters (0.079 inches). 9x17 versus 9x19; and getting hung up on the difference as if one were 8x17 or the other 10x20.

To our credit here, no one has brought up 9x18--if most likely as no one is making micro pocket pistols (much in that caliber.

I'm not suggesting our conversation here has gone off the rails or the like--gathering like minds to discuss things expands knowledge beyond our own circles and is a demonstrable good.

The trick of it is not getting caught up in how many angels can dance on the head of a pin--takes more room to Lindy or jitterbug than to boxstep . . .

 

[The Glockodile]

...gathering like minds to discuss things expands knowledge beyond our own circles...

Yeh!

Data! Evidence!

We done demonstrated how edumacated we shore are!

 

[LeftyRed]

Right I pretty much live in gym shorts and if I'm doing something active for any length of time my Hellkitty beats the crud out of my kneecap.

It’s belly band for me when the gym shorts come out!
Going to try out Crossbreed’s modular belly band as I want a tad more trigger area protection in my striker fired pistols.

 

[pairof44sp]

I have for too many decades espoused the belief that only at least a .9MM was as small as I would go for a S/D gun.

Even as a BUG goes too.

That was when all you had was maybe 7 or 8 rounds of ball ammo,at best.

Along came the Beretta / Browning BDA in .380 with 13 rounds.

Now it is not a pocket,BUG or small gun.

So I let that go .

NOW comes the Ruger LCP Maxx ,.380 with either 10 round magazines [ or allowed by state or status ,the 12 round magazine ].

As for me,and I am POSITIVE I will get arguments [ yes,I got money bet on it ! ].

I see this as a game changer,I see this as a GREAT BUG,or third gun [ yes ,many do that besides me ] and even as an "around the house,cause I am not armed gun"

Please feel free to tell me I am wrong,in your not so humble opinions !

btw = I turn 74 in 2 months and I am as stubborn as you can get,BUT the ability to change and learn is obvious by my willingness to see this pistol as a game changer.

And btw,mine is enroute to my local FFL dealer as I penn this.

I see it as a game changer, too. Just goes to show that tweaking a single spec can produce quantitative differences that make a qualitative difference.

The first company that FINALLY makes a j-frame size revolver with these specs will change the game:

frame and 8-round cylinder CUSTOM MADE for .32 Super. Milled for moonclips. Comes with a dozen polymer moon clips in the box.

32 Super has the power of 32 HR, but it is a much shorter case so it works better with moonclips. It is semi-rimmed and works fine in our new series of high cap Micropistols chambered in .32 Super.

 

[pairof44sp]

At least 7, the last few were as a supervisor but I was there during interviews.

Three were house-defense cases, three business (liquor stores, surprise!) and one was a street robbery where the suspect got shot in the lot of a nightclub.

I recall only two were with revolvers, with one the guy fired all six. The other one was 2-3 shots. One home defense was a shotgun. That guy died quickly. The rest were with autos.

The craziest involved meth heads who tripped out. One started kicking in the door of a guys house. The guy said he yelled for the meth head to stop, but he kept kicking. Once the door was breached the resident fired one shot with a .380 (A Bersa if I remember right.) It hit the suspects heart and he dropped and died about one foot inside the entryway.

Another was an off duty cop from another jurisdiction. That meth head broke a living room window and started climbing inside. The cops wife called 911 and he was yelling for the guy to leave but the guy climbed into the house. That crook took five shots before he dropped.

The most shots fired involved two clerks firing four or five each at some robbers with 9mms, both Glocks. One guy was hit, was dropped off at the hospital and lived, the other wasn’t hit and got away.

The five OIS I was involved with had three where suspects were hit and died. One was two suspects hit/ both lived, one was a no hit but the suspect dropped a gun.

The two-suspect one was crazy; some gangsters did a drive by on a house right as two officers were walking towards the same house responding to a call. One of my guys fired 8 shots, hitting the car a bunch of times and wounding the shooter. The second officer fired about five and wounded the other guy in the car. The driver (a female) drove them to the hospital where they were all arrested.

Now a very good friend of mine who worked for me exchanged shots with the two mopes on Dec 2nd, another good friend was driving the first police car shot at during the chase and a third was decorated by president trump for his actions. One deputy burned through all his ammo firing that encounter snd was pinned in his car. All of these guys said after that wild situation that they wanted more ammo.

Stay safe.

Great write-up.

“The two-suspect one was crazy; some gangsters did a drive by on a house right as two officers were walking towards the same house responding to a call. One of my guys fired 8 shots, hitting the car a bunch of times and wounding the shooter. The second officer fired about five and wounded the other guy in the car. The driver (a female) drove them to the hospital where they were all arrested.”

LAPD RHD?

 

[mavracer]

Carry in your pocket not in your cargo pocket, that always beats up your knee or your leg because of the motion of your leg.

I do carry in my pocket(haven't seen gym shorts with a cargo pocket) problem is I'm short and the Hellkitty is just heavy enough that if I move around a lot the end of the slide bangs against my kneecap.