S&W Bodyguard .380
Does any have any reviews on this gun? I'm thinking about getting it.
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Everybody I talk to around here say's 2 months before they get one 0 -
there are at least 6 for sale on the auction side right now
just checked there are now 16 for sale there0 -
New design gun?. . .I suggest waiting a year or two before buying to give Smith a chance to work all the bugs out.
Why pay Smith to be their beta-tester?
EDIT:
The original Kel-Tec 3AT, which was the gun that started the teensy-polymer .380 boom, had its ejector redesigned after a few years because of inconsistent ejection.
Then Ruger, which put out a gun that is for all intents and purposes a direct clone of the Kel-Tec, *STILL* had to recall these LCP guns after introduction for some problem. Ruger also had to recall its SR-9 striker-fired service pistol after introduction a few years ago.
Note that Ruger and Kel-Tec aren't exactly bit players here. Both have considerable corporate experience bringing new-design guns into the marketplace, and both had to redesign or recall new-issue guns because of safety or reliability concerns.
It goes back about 20 years now, but Smith and Wesson cloned the Glock with its Sigma pistol, and somehow managed to create a gun that was both unreliable and had an absolutely terrible trigger pull. Eventually Smith fixed most of this in subsequent iterations of the gun, but historically, its not been immune to flops either.
As another interesting consideration, this relatively recent review of most of the current crop of small .380 guns from the NRA's American Rifleman, authored by noted gun writer Wiley Clapp is worth a look:
http://www.americanrifleman.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=2074&cid=19
Clapp tested just about all of the small 380s available on the market last year, and found that with the single exception of the $1150 (ouch!) Rohrbaugh, *ALL* of them experienced varying degrees of failures to feed or eject out of the box. He concluded that they all need extensive break-in to be reliable (though he didn't actually proceed to break them in to prove that they would become reliable).
The point is, that just because Smith is late to the party with its own new micro-380 design, that doesn't necessarily mean its entry into this market segment is any better than the others.
Sure, this one looks good with nice sights, slide lock, nitride-finish, integral laser, etc, but I'm still going to give it two years. If these guns are still around, I can always buy one then, and if not, no loss.0 -
not alot of tests out there yet. "gun tests" has a comparison coming up with thesmith , taurus and diamondback 380's next month.
they did the walther, cz and sigs in june.
over at the smith forum is a review done by a member. very well written.
i prefer the 1911 platform, so the sig p238 (colt mustang) was my only choice. very happy with it btw.
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quote:Originally posted by beantownshootah
New design gun?. . .I suggest waiting a year or two before buying to give Smith a chance to work all the bugs out.
Why pay Smith to be their beta-tester?
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This is always a good policy with any new design.0 -
My distribs have had a few in but not many .. Im waiting for two for a couple customers.. Hope its better than the Sigma 380 they had.. 0 -
There have been several "reviews" run in the mainstream gun mags, as well as the others listed above. The most recent that I have come across is the Sept. 2010 issue of "GUNS & AMMO". This article, written by Patrick Sweeney, also highlights the S&W Bodyguard .38 SPL.
Although, we all realize that most of these gun mag articles are somewhat slanted towards the "advertising money", this does provide the basic information concerning both of these pieces, which represent the most recent issues - both have integral laser sighting sytems.0
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