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Whew, sorry! I could hardly type "Jimenez Arms" without laughing!

I had the displeasure of getting to shoot one of these gun-shaped thugs yesterday. It was a .380 that a buddy of mine brought into the range. He said that he had picked it up brand new for $89. How bad could it be? NEVER, EVER ask that question!

I filled the mag and popped it in, hearing a resounding click. Upon removing my palm from the bottom of the mag, it proceeded to follow my hand and fall to the floor, shattering into 5 distinct pieces, aside from the bullets going in all directions to complicate the scene further. Keep in mind, this gun has never been fired. I immediately looked at my buddy as if to ask him where he had stored his helmet and drool cup.

After gathering the pieces to the shattered mag, I proceeded to piece them back together in a feat of engineering prowess. Mac Shoots Jimenez .380...TAKE TWO:

This time I manage to get the mag to stay in place and aimed downrange. I prepared myself mentally for the blast as I pulled the trigger, having NO IDEA if this pineapple grenade of a pistol was going to stay in one piece. "CLICK". I tapped, tapped again, and re-racked, ejecting the bullet and replacing another in its place. Take THREE:

"CLICK".

Take FOUR:

"CLICK. CLICK. CLICK......BBBBBOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!"

On the fourth pull of the trigger, the skin on the top of my hand scorched in the blast, and fragments of something, what exactly...I don't know....scattering 360 degrees. There was no TAKE FIVE.

In the words of the man from whom he purchased the pistol at the Pasadena Gunshow, my friend put on a Deer Park drawl and quoted "This here gun is good for being the back up to the back up to your back up, and then and only then should you draw it, and at that point you should not be surprised if and when it fails to fire." With a sales pitch like that, WHERE DO I SIGN????

I would love to hear any "success" stories if anyone has one! Change my mind, here!

........You must have some pics......did the gun Ka Boom? What were the fragments flying thru the air?

Jimenez Arms
Bryco's former foreman, Paul Jimenez, bought the bankrupt Bryco Arms for $510,000 in August 2004, and renamed the company Jimenez Arms. The former Model 380 (the 380 ACP version of the Model 38) was renamed the JA-380, and production of the same semi-automatic pistol design was resumed.

The soon-to-be-named Jimenez Arms (JA) was purchased by Paul Jimenez and resumed operation in Costa Mesa, California and resumed manufacturing operations. The weapons were re-engineered to improve their safety. The JA-NINE, the former Bryco Arms Model 380 (renamed the JA-380), the former Jennings J-22 (renamed the JA-22 LR), and the Jennings J-25 (renamed the JA-25 Auto) quickly became the only firearms currently manufactured by the company.

The California Attorney General ordered Jimenez Arms to stop producing arms in Costa Mesa, California on August 22, 2006. As a result, the company has moved to Nevada. A business license was granted on August 30, 2006 for Jimenez Arms to commence operation in Henderson, Nevada, and production has resumed there. [1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryco_Arms

My favorite part is where it says "The weapons were reengineered to improve their safety"???

I just wonder what they were like before?

I didn't notice any typo's, so it looks like you still have all your fingers! It sounds like the fact that you did keep all your fingers is the ONLY good thing to come out of that range trip!

Hmmm.....

brand new Saturday night special....never been fired....self destructs before it's ever fired.....and your buddy talks you into firing it first, huh?

I'd say your buddy is a pretty smart fella!

don't be too quick to condemn "cheap" guns and use the phrase "Saturday Night Specials"


you may regret those words politically some day.


Personally, I do not own any of the "ring of fire" weapons, but I have done a bit of "touch up" on a few for one of my ffl buddies. Just a tiny bit of feed ramp polishing and other clean up before I had the nerve to range test them (.25 and .380), and they were amazingly accurate. Obviously, they are NOT range guns, but for some folks with extremely limited funds they may be their ONLY recourse for a self defense weapon at home. I thank God Almighty that I have the financial resources to own such names as Kimber, Sig, Ruger, S&W, and just a few others. I also know how blessed I am.

Don't forget the SNS mentality

Mac Truck, is this gun going to be availible for rental?

Ah, junk guns. Everybody should own at least one.

I've got a little Jennings (Bryco, etc) J-22. The thing is notoriously reliable in its jamming. Only CCI Stinger and a death-grip on the pistol will keep it from short-cycling or attempting to double-load. Extraction has more to do with the blowback design of the pistol allowing the spent cartridge to push itself backwards out of the chamber than it does with the extractor actually serving a purpose. And no 6-round magazine exists that will feed more than 4 or 5.

But once you get accustomed to the gritty trigger, spotty reliability, tremendous noise (oh, did I forget to mention that?), and useless sights, the gun is actually somewhat accurate. It's quite capable of putting 5 rounds rapid-fire into a two-inch circle at several paces (I don't remember the actual distance but it was at least 7 yards). While this isn't stellar by any means, it does demonstrate that the pistol can be effective, if used properly.

I never carry my junk gun, nor do I even shoot it anymore. I just keep it around as an example of the type (and also because I'd have to pay someone to take it off my hands ).

Thane wrote:Ah, junk guns. Everybody should own at least one.

I've got a little Jennings (Bryco, etc) J-22. The thing is notoriously reliable in its jamming. Only CCI Stinger and a death-grip on the pistol will keep it from short-cycling or attempting to double-load. Extraction has more to do with the blowback design of the pistol allowing the spent cartridge to push itself backwards out of the chamber than it does with the extractor actually serving a purpose. And no 6-round magazine exists that will feed more than 4 or 5.

But once you get accustomed to the gritty trigger, spotty reliability, tremendous noise (oh, did I forget to mention that?), and useless sights, the gun is actually somewhat accurate. It's quite capable of putting 5 rounds rapid-fire into a two-inch circle at several paces (I don't remember the actual distance but it was at least 7 yards). While this isn't stellar by any means, it does demonstrate that the pistol can be effective, if used properly.

I never carry my junk gun, nor do I even shoot it anymore. I just keep it around as an example of the type (and also because I'd have to pay someone to take it off my hands ).

Yeah, but I can throw rocks that accurately.

More reliably too.

Even though I had read all the threads about Jimenez Arms .380's, I couldn't resist thinking "How bad could they really be?" Well, I bought one several weeks ago at a gun show at Big Town in Dallas. I had to really work to come up with 400 rounds of range ammo. I bought 100 rounds from Ray's sporting goods and 300 rounds of reloads from a guy I met while at Ray's. Just looking at the gun, I was actually rather impressed with the workmanship. Anyway, I finally got to the range with 400 rounds of ammo this afternoon. The darn thing was flawless. I shot 50 rounds of "PMC" (Made in Korea) I got at Ray's and all of the reloads without a hint of a problem. It was actually pretty sweet. It does have some weight to it and, as a result, has a really mild recoil even considering that it is only a .380. I was talking to a guy at the range who seemed pretty knowledgeable. He was as surprised at my experience and reasoned that, just as sometimes one will get a high-end gun that has problems, occasionally someone gets a crap gun that functions well.

ninemm wrote: just as sometimes one will get a high-end gun that has problems, occasionally someone gets a crap gun that functions well.

Well, that sounds like quite the ringing endorsement there ninemm!!

I have seen these at the gun shows and was amazed at the cheapness of them. They looked like the
first round through them would blow them up. The OP pretty much confirmed that prediction.

If all anyone can afford is a self-destructing gun due to their budget, it might be best to just try to
wrestle the bad guy for HIS gun. He probably has something more reliable.

And how about Highpoints? To me they are another range accident waiting to happen.

*********************
By the way, the bad guy who was shot to death in the South Florida Burger King was using a Bryco .380.
Unfortunately the BG's gun worked OK and he put 3 rounds into the GG CHL, who was severely wounded but lived.
The GG CHL was able to kill the BG with multiple rounds from his Glock 9MM, model unknown.
This incident was covered in a forum thread elsewhere.

SIA

Absolutely hilarious

+1 on the need for pictures

ninemm wrote:Even though I had read all the threads about Jimenez Arms .380's, I couldn't resist thinking "How bad could they really be?" Well, I bought one several weeks ago at a gun show at Big Town in Dallas. I had to really work to come up with 400 rounds of range ammo. I bought 100 rounds from Ray's sporting goods and 300 rounds of reloads from a guy I met while at Ray's. Just looking at the gun, I was actually rather impressed with the workmanship. Anyway, I finally got to the range with 400 rounds of ammo this afternoon. The darn thing was flawless. I shot 50 rounds of "PMC" (Made in Korea) I got at Ray's and all of the reloads without a hint of a problem. It was actually pretty sweet. It does have some weight to it and, as a result, has a really mild recoil even considering that it is only a .380. I was talking to a guy at the range who seemed pretty knowledgeable. He was as surprised at my experience and reasoned that, just as sometimes one will get a high-end gun that has problems, occasionally someone gets a crap gun that functions well.

I've got to know whether you actually plan to rely on that piece of junk. If .380 was cheap and available, I might understand wasting some ammo through a Jimenez, just for fun. (Although I'd probably wear a kevlar glove)

But given the scarcity of .380, I can't believe someone would waste that much of it. A Jimenez is what you hope the other guy has.

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:And how about Highpoints? To me they are another range accident waiting to happen.

I won't own one, but I know people that do. They are ugly as sin and heavy as a brick or two, but they seem to work ok.

I really just bought it for grins. I looked it over pretty good and, like I said, the parts seems to be machined well and the fit seemed pretty decent. The magazine loaded easily and it chambered a round smoothly when I racked the slide. So I took it out on the patio and let 'er rip. The first trigger pull, it went BANG, just like it is supposed to. I was really watching the gun and just shooting into the ground but it's so fast, it just looks like any other semi-auto. So I wondered if it had chambered another round. I was tempted to pull the slide back and check but figured, what the heck, took aim at a particular bad area of turf and pulled the trigger. Again, it went BANG like it is supposed to. The little red turkey button popped out every time the slide was racked (either manually or upon firing) like it is supposed to. I emptied the 6 round magazine (it's a 6+1), collected the casings and went back inside. At first, I thought I noticed a little nick on the slide where the casing ejects but I believe it was machined that way to provide additional ejection clearance. It still seemed solid though. It is heavy. It would make a formidable throwing object if all else failed. I don't have another .380 so I really didn't worry about burning through the ammo. I might consider it for a bug but I would need two of them. Not because of reliability concerns but if I was going to wear it with an ankle holster, I'd want one on both ankles for balance (and exercise). I guess I could alternate on which ankle I carried it. It wouldn't be like I would have trouble remembering where it was. Is it's flawless operation a fluke? I don't know. There was a time when Datsun and Honda automobiles were a joke, too. Some of you younger guys may not know what a Datsun is. I can remember working at a Gibson's in the 60's and selling crap guns made by Taurus and a few others. The others fell by the wayside (or changed their name to escape a bad reputation). Heck, I can remember when Converse made the cheapest, crappiest sneaker made. Maybe JA has improved. Then again, maybe they got lucky one time. Computer controlled machines are amazing these days.

If the battery on my old Sony Mavica will take a charge, I'll get some pics. That is, if I can find the portable floppy drive I'll need to upload the pics. Then, I gotta remember how to use Flicker (is that what it is?).