Buffalo Bore and the .380 Auto

It seems to me that folks who own a .380 caliber pistol do so for pretty much one reason, concealed carry for self defense.

I mean seriously. The little .380's aren't the most fun to shoot out at the range and are not going to impress anyone with their 25 yard accuracy. The only thing they are good for is that last ditch, up close and personal, effort to defend yourself and your family. Some would argue that they are only marginally effective at that even.

With this in mind, it is nice to see an ammunition manufacturer directly address this issue right from the get-g0.

The folks over at Buffalo Bore are never ones to mince words:

The 380 auto inhabits a valuable and useful place in our society, mostly because of the easily concealable, tiny pistols chambered for it. HOWEVER, because of the very limited size of the cartridge, it is plagued with limited power and therefore most of the existing ammo in 380 auto suffers from not being reliable as a man-stopper. We've studied and played with nearly all of the existing available 380 ammo and find it wanting as a reliable means of self defense, especially against a large, insane, drugged up/pain free, determined attacker.

Here's the problem. The current 380 auto frangible ammo delivers a large amount of surface trauma, but lacks serious penetration. For example, if you shot me or another sane man in the face with modern frangible 380 ammo, it would blow off a big portion of my cheek and send a few teeth down my throat, I would undoubtedly fall to the ground in shock and pain, but I would be very much alive and functional if I could get past the shock and pain as that frangible bullet would have stopped some where inside my face, never making it to my brain. However, if you shot a drugged up maniac in the face with that same frangible 380 ammo and blew half his cheek off, he would keep right on coming because he is insane and is not thinking like you or I. Plus, he is likely pain free and fear free and wont know that half his cheek is missing and if he did know, he would not care. So whatever 380 ammo you shoot him in the face with, had better go through his face and blow his brain stem out the back of his head, because only a CNS (central nervous system) hit with a 380 is going to stop him. Likewise, a torso hit to the sternum needs to penetrate deep enough to blow all the way through his spine in order to shut him down spontaneously. If you fail to shut him down instantly, you and your loved ones are going to have to find a way to survive while you wait for him to bleed out and pass out. The best chance of survival for you and your family is to shut down the attacker instantly. So, we've designed a few 380 auto +P loads to keep you and your loved ones alive under the worst of scenarios...

I like the Buffalo Bore .45-70 cartridges and carry the Low Recoil, Low Flash .357 Magnum ammunition in my SP-101. So who knows, if I were to pick up a new Micro Desert Eagle this week, it might be worth my while to grab a few boxes of the Buffalo Bore .380 Auto +P ammunition to shake it out with.