By Dave Workman, Gun Digest

When an earlier story on carry calibers wrongly omitted the .380, readers sounded off. We heard you loud and clear.

Perhaps one of the best scenes in the classic “Casablanca” was right near the end, when Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine squared off with Conrad Veidt’s sinister German Major Heinrich Strasser.

The goose-stepping villain was armed with a Luger, but Bogey’s gun was a Colt Model 1908, a flat, hammerless, semiautomatic pistol chambered for the .380 ACP cartridge. Leave it to the movies to show that a snarling Nazi schweinehund (pig-dog) was no match for a sarcastic Yank armed with one of the finest pocket pistols on the planet.

No guessing is necessary. Hitler’s tin soldier took a lead siesta as the local coppers rounded up the usual suspects, and the audience probably cheered all the way to the refreshment stand. It was 1942 after all, and nobody on American soil liked the Third Reich unless they were raving lunatics.

Proof positive that tough guys and .380-caliber pistols have an unfair advantage, especially when they’re letting Ingrid Bergman fly off to safety with another man.

But let’s get past the nostalgia and note for the record that a while back, when I discussed in these pages the top choices for personal protection, several readers were miffed that I had inadvertently left out the .380 ACP.

Well, I admit, it’s certainly not my first choice for defensive work, but when the chips are down and you need something to go “BANG!” with positive results, you could do a lot worse than the .355-caliber round that has also been called the 9mm Kurz or 9mm Corto.

The ammo has seen use in such classics as the Walther PPK, Beretta Model 1934, the aforementioned Colt and similarly-sized Browning Model 1910 pistol made by FN, the Colt Mustang, Sig Sauer P238, Ruger LCP, KelTec P-3AT, Kahr and so many other compact handguns it’s impossible to identify them all.

General George Patton may have carried a Colt .380 in his waistband as a hideout gun. And who can forget the scene in the film biography, “Patton,” starring George C. Scott, when he jumped off a balcony, onto a truck, and then down to a street in some desert town to fire that little pistol at a strafing German aircraft?

.380 Pistols and a Likable Round

Workman at the range with a Colt Mustang Pocketlite in .380 ACP. That target was set at 15 yards from the firing line.

Few people say they hate the little round, especially after it was written about in the Nosler Reloading Guide No. 7 (Page 620).

Over the years, I’ve run across people who even handload the .380, a task for which I probably wouldn’t have the patience. When it comes to small cartridges, I’m pretty much all thumbs at the loading bench.

Back in the day, when this cartridge was first introduced, it was available only with a 95-grain FMJ bullet. At close range, that round could ruin somebody’s day, but leap ahead four generations—the cartridge was introduced in 1908—and the crafty ammunition developers at Federal, Winchester, Remington, Speer and other companies have cooked up some remarkably effective loads in that caliber.

Chalk the better loads up to new bullet designs and the development of better propellants.

CorBon produces a 90-grain hollowpoint +P load with an advertised muzzle velocity of 1,050 feet per second (fps), while JHP loads from Federal, Winchester, Hornady and CCI/Speer can warp out of a barrel at 1,000 fps.

Federal’s load features a 90-grain Hydra Shok and Hornady’s is topped with a 90-grain XTP. The CCI load has an 88-grain JHP, and Winchester loads an 85-grain Silvertip. You do not want to be on the receiving end of any of these rounds.

That’s probably why the .380 ACP (which stands for Automatic Colt Pistol) just refuses to die. Truth be told, I’ve shopped around for a decent Model 1908 for some time now, and haven’t been able to find one that is affordable.

I’ve run across some beaters—guns that have most of the bluing worn away or with visible pitting from corrosive years of neglect—which the owners must have thought were new in the box for the prices they were asking. I’ve seen a few really decent specimens as well, but would have had to refinance my house to pay for them.

In Pursuit of a PPK

Sig Sauer’s P238 is a single-action .380 ACP that author tested a while back and found to be totally reliable. It is shown with a CRKT folder.

I also pursued a decent PPK for a while, and admit to having had quick, emotional affairs with the Sig, Ruger and Colt Mustang models. Depending upon the individual pistol model, I’ve gotten some remarkable ballistics from the .380 ACP over the years in different gun tests.

Nobody could seriously compare the .380 ACP with the .40 S&W, .45 ACP or .357 Magnum as a fight stopper, but if it’s all you have when you need a gun, you’ve got a lot more than you might think.

For one thing, I’ve discovered on repeated occasions that in subdued light this round produces a muzzle flash and muzzle blast out of a short barrel that is rather impressive. Another thing I’ve discovered is that out to 50 yards and maybe a bit beyond, this is a fairly flat-shooting round.

Some years ago, I built an inside-the-waistband (IWB) rig for my pal David Gross, a Minnesota attorney and gun rights activist, who has carried his Model 1910 Browning frequently because he needed a flat, reliable pistol that could vanish under a casual jacket.

I knocked together a belt holster for another pal’s vintage Llama pistol that was about the same size as the Colt Mustang.

Perhaps that is the real advantage of this cartridge. The guns for which it is designed are all rather compact little numbers that can be carried in a pocket or ankle holster, a small IWB or shoulder holster, and nobody is any the wiser.

There is still a lot of life in the .380 ACP, and don’t be surprised if 2014 sees one or two more new pistols chambered for the cartridge.

With more than eight million people licensed to carry across the United States by some estimates, there is a lot of demand for quality, concealed handguns. It may not stop a grizzly, but it can stop a fight or an assault, and that’s really the bottom line.

This article appeared in the December 2, 2013 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine. Be sure to take advantage of Gun Digest’s free downloads to learn all about Gun Values, AR-15 Optics, Glock Accessories and Concealed Carry Holsters.