My Wife's Walther PK380
Introduction
My wife owns one of these guns. I own a Glock 19. I am relatively new to guns, but I have recently (link) shot more to get used to other guns, so now I have a point of reference. As such, and given the time we've spent with this gun, I will now review it once again.
Appearance
First, I own a Glock 19. I am also a
military member. I don't really care about how guns
look. I'd rather they be entirely black (hence, my Glock)
because that color should be easier to hide at night. All
I care about is how a gun shoots, because, to me, a gun is just
a tool. I appreciate beauty: I grew up around art and
music. But with guns, I hardly care. Does this gun
look cool? Sure, but to me it doesn't matter. My
wife's gun is entirely black, so I'm fine with that.
Now sure, I'd buy the best gun (since a gun
is a tool) regardless of appearance. I'd buy a pink gun,
if it was truly the best for its intended purpose, and then
spray-paint it black or have it coated. So to me,
appearance is a non-issue. This gun doesn't have anything
that's going to shine in the light, so I'm happy with its
"ugliness".
Compared to my Glock 19, this gun looks less
intimidating, but that doesn't matter.
Ammunition and Caliber
First, the caliber isn't a problem.
Far too many websites that are respected and have established
credibility want to ignore the .380 ACP as barely
inadequate. That's not so. With the proper choice of
ammunition, it gets the 12" penetration that the FBI once said
was enough to guarantee stopping power. Second, I read far
too many people using hardball (full metal jacket) ammunition
with their .380 ACP guns. FMJ is designed to go through a
target, and as with 9mm in FMJ, your stopping power is going to
be diminished by this. One should read Massad Ayoob and
use jacketed hollow point. JHP does far better as a
man-stopped (per caliber) and also has side benefits like
decreased tendency to ricochet, less energy left even if it does
go through a target, etc.
I can tell, when I shoot this gun, that .380
ACP, and this size and design of gun, are very easy on a new
shooter, and/or a female shooter. Recoil is very low ("Am
I shooting .22LR?"). If not for the price (see the next
paragraph), I'd shoot this gun all day. Even single handed
"Matrix style" unsupported single hand firing is ridiculously
easy.
However, .380 ACP ammunition is more
expensive than 9mm. At almost $0.50/shot, I'm not a fan of
its expense. This gun my wife's, and this was her choice,
but I don't like how expensive .380 ACP is, so I would never
have selected this caliber for myself.
Compared to my Glock 19 in 9mm, ammunition is
dirt cheap, especially when someone has a sale. I can Get
9mm per shot for $0.30 when not on sale, and at $0.20 when it
goes on sale, if I don't mind shooting Russian steel. I
plan to never buy Russian-made ammunition again (not because of
anything Tula Ammo did, but because I want to buy
American-made).
Controls
The grip on this gun feels great in the
hand. My wife loves the grip. It's contoured, and
with the magazine having the "pinky" part of the grip, it's very
easy on the hands. It's fun to shoot.
The safety and the magazine release, while
not the most comfortable, are truly ambidextrous, as several
websites have pointed out. The magazine release annoys my
wife, but I find it to be nice. I can disengage the safety
with my shooting hand, so it works, even if it's not the most
ergonomic.
The trigger is dual action and single action
like a 1911 style gun. I don't like having an exposed
hammer, but it's not being used as a carry gun, and it's not
mine anyways. I do not like the initial difficult pull on
this gun at all. The subsequent pulls are good, but the
initial pull is annoying to me. I'm used to the Glock 19
and its consistent pull, and my concern is if the initial pull
is more difficult than subsequent pulls, it will throw off my
accuracy. But it's not mine.
As for the controls, one control that I wish
it had is a slide lock-back lever. I'm used to the concept
of presenting a weapon with the slide locked back, so that the
recipient can verify visually that there is no round in the
chamber. The slide will lock back on this gun, but only
when the rack is cycled with an empty magazine. My Glock
19 does that but you can lock the slide back at any time with
the lever. To me, this is a huge flaw in the design of the
PK380. I know the pistol probably wasn't meant for the
military: it was probably meant for female shooters (not being
sexist, just a reflection of how the gun market works at
times). But I don't like it.
As for the loaded chamber indicator, I'm not
a fan. It requires you to have enough light to see down
into the chamber. On my Glock 19, you can feel the loaded
chamber indicator (it's tactile rather than visual). I
don't have to look while holding my Glock to know if it's loaded
or not. With the PK380, I must look. I do not like
this, as in a self-defense situation, it could potentially cause
problems. What if I had to look down to see if I even had
a bullet loaded? That would give a bad guy enough time to
attack me, if at close range.
Reliability
I think my wife has had two failures to
fire/eject with this gun. With a semi-automatic pistol,
clearing such a jam isn't hard: slap the magazine, rack the
slide, try again. But it's worth noting. However,
the gun has multiple problems, not the least of which is the
tendency of the gun to drop rounds, for lack of a better phrase
to explain. To test this, I would load one magazine with 8
rounds, rack the slide to chamber a round, and then eject the
magazine. Almost always, one round falls out of the gun as
I am pulling the magazine out, because the part of the gun that
strips a new round from the magazine is "over-zealous", and
half-strips another round from the gun. To me, this is
unacceptable, as this causes the magazine not to fall out when
the magazine release is pressed, and in fact sometimes make it
harder (half-stripped round) to yank the magazine out.
Compared To Glock 43
Now that I have a smaller gun, my second
gun, the Glock 43, I can safely say
that this gun is not worth it and has zero advantages to me in
terms of concealed carry, except that the PK380 has an external
safety. The Glock 43 has more firepower (9mm > .380
ACP), and though it carries fewer rounds per magazine, the Glock
43 is smaller, and much more reliable. And with +2 base
plates on the market, capacity (when you upgrade in firepower)
should have little to do with a comparison, as 9mm's power is
much higher than that of .380 ACP. Each bullet from 9mm
hits almost twice as hard as .380 ACP, so really, 6 of 9mm is
like 12 of .380 ACP.
For my wife, sure, she still loves her gun,
and I don't mind, nor do I blame her. But in my eyes, this
gun is garbage, and I'd rather have a Glock 42 or Glock 43, or
Glock anything, than this gun. From Walther owners I have
spoken with, the PK380 is during the S&W import time period,
during which it is claimed their quality fell below their normal
levels. Hence this gun is sort of a "ripple in time" for
Walther.
Bug Out / Zombie Considerations
Before I begin this section, I do not
believe in a zombie apocalypse. I doubt our scientific
minds nor our government are either smart enough or capable
enough of creating (intentionally or otherwise) zombies.
Zombies originate from Voodoo witchcraft stories. So I say
"zombie apocalypse" as a non-believer.
If society collapsed upon itself, my wife
would be using this gun for the sole reason that it's hers, and
that's all she/we own. I'd be using my Glock 19. If
I were choosing any gun for a dystopian scenario, it would be a
pistol in 9mm or .22LR (while I hate .22 LR, as it's a glorified
BB gun, I think it will probably be one of the most plentiful
rounds available). What am I looking for in a "dystopia
gun"? A round that works, is light weight, plentiful, and
cheap enough to buy in large quantities. Nine millimeter
is cheap, light weight (for a pistol round of decent size
caliber), and cheap. As for plentiful, 9mm is plentiful,
as probably 25% of police forces right now use this caliber, and
almost the entire US military uses this caliber right now.
The FBI recently announced (link) that it is switching back to
9mm, in fact, and with the way so many police departments
eagerly jumped on the FBI bandwagon when they went with .40
S&W, I expect use in this country to increase to probably
75% of police forces. So yes, 9mm is going to be insanely
plentiful. While .380 ACP is barely lighter than 9mm, it's
not cheap, and not plentiful. In an imaginary dystopian
future I expect .380 ACP to practically disappear in favor of
9mm and .22LR and .45 ACP for pistols, with .22LR practically
dominating everything due to its use in rifles. In an
imaginary dystopian future, once my wife's supply of .380 ACP
was depleted, she'd probably be using the other Walther gun of
the same size that is chambered in .22LR, or a 9mm pistol.
In a street type scenario in such a future,
my Glock 19 carries 15 rounds, and with 3 loaded magazines I
have 45 rounds. The Walther only holds 8. With three
magazines, that's only 24 rounds.
In a dystopian future, so long as I can clean
the gun, it will probably continue to work fine, as using
ammunition for sporting purposes is probably going to
cease. Less wear and tear, theoretically. But
finding parts might become difficult, and PK380s need certain
things such as the slide release tool. I am not a fan of
that tool or concept at all. My Glock already dominates in
terms of finding parts and repairing the gun, as 56% of police
forces carry Glock, and the gun is already very popular in the
United States. The PK380 is less popular. So in a
dystopia, the Glock would be ideal, as it can be taken apart
with a tool, but field stripped and cleaned without a tool,
whereas if we lose the slide release tool for the Walther, we're
going to have to use needle nose pliers, which we may or may not
have with us.
Conclusion
While the Walther PK380 is a decent gun, and
good for the price, ultimately it's not the best, and the Glock
family easily bests it in several categories. But this
isn't my gun, it's my wife's, and for her, it works great.
I don't hate the PK380, but I prefer my Glock.
Sold
My wife finally got sick of this gun and so
we sold it for $200. Good riddance.