New .380 (Diamondback)

[Embalmo]

adam71176,

The quote about the bad LCP from from RPG and I was agreeing with him that he should ditch an unreliable LCP. Don't misunderstand me, I have no loyalty to any brand, shape, color, or caliber of gun. The moment my LCP becomes unreliable I will trade it. My bottom line is that no one should accept that a good gun, specifically a good .380 should jam and misfire constantly. Why is that sentiment so controversial?

Embalmo

[adam71176]

Actually nothing! If anything were in complete agreement. I just want to be clear that I have never called or implied that the DB, at least not mine for sure is a good gun. If anything the opposite. I do think it has some very nice features, and imo shoots much nicer than its current competition, when it shoots that is. I also think that it could, in the long term have the "possibility" of being a better gun due to its apparent design. This thread has simply gone in to many directions in my opinion, but like I said I'll be happy to keep everyone updated. Again we are in total agreement. If it doesn't go BANG every time it is NOT a self defense weapon, and I clearly communicated that with Diamondback.

As a side note and just to be clear, I'm not a fan of revolvers but Autos Vs. Revolvers might be a worthy topic of discussion stemming from all of this reliability talk.

[RPB]

Mentioning "out of Spec" ... it happens to even the "old-timer" companies, even with pistols "twice the price"
http://www.sigsauer.com/CustomerService ... lerts.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
SIG SAUER, Inc. has initiated a Mandatory Safety Upgrade pertaining to our new Model P238™ pistols. We have determined that a small number of P238 pistols may have safety levers that are not manufactured to factory specifications

[adam71176]

I received a brand new DB380 from Diamondback yesterday. I was told that several items were out of spec on my model so they just sent me a brand new one. Took it to the range with quite a bit of well earned skepticism, however I was able to put 250 totally flawless rounds through it. Not one single failure of any kind.

I'm still not totally sure about this gun due to the issues with my 1st one, but that's a whole lot better than my 1st one ever did. For now I'm still going to rely upon the Kahr P380 I purchased. If I do decide to sell it, at least I feel good about it's reliability for the next owner.

[CompVest]

Great ending to a long story! It is good to hear of a company taking care of its customer so well.

[RPB]

Great ending to a long story! It is good to hear of a company taking care of its customer so well.

TRUE. Hobie learned that in the Kayak business, by taking better care of customers than they even "had to"
Hopefully, Diamondback will keep that customer care model and continue to grow and prosper too. .... I just wish some other businesses learned to take care of customers.

[adam71176]

Great ending to a long story! It is good to hear of a company taking care of its customer so well.

TRUE. Hobie learned that in the Kayak business, by taking better care of customers than they even "had to"
Hopefully, Diamondback will keep that customer care model and continue to grow and prosper too. .... I just wish some other businesses learned to take care of customers.

Supposedly Kel-Tec used to have such good service when they were new, but now a days I think they have so many defective products they have become to overwhelmed to provide good customer care. (This is my personal opinion and that of others I've spoken to).

[RPB]

Great ending to a long story! It is good to hear of a company taking care of its customer so well.

TRUE. Hobie learned that in the Kayak business, by taking better care of customers than they even "had to"
Hopefully, Diamondback will keep that customer care model and continue to grow and prosper too. .... I just wish some other businesses learned to take care of customers.

Supposedly Kel-Tec used to have such good service when they were new, but now a days I think they have so many defective products they have become to overwhelmed to provide good customer care. (This is my personal opinion and that of others I've spoken to).

WordPerfect "used to" have FREE, UNLIMITED technical support, so WordStar (and several others) disappeared. When WordPerfect was sold and began charging for Tech support (regardless of the fact tht you can now go to their site and use the knowledge base, the damage was already done before) ... enough said ;)

Kudos to Diamondback.

[WildBill]

I think any manufacturer may have a manufacturing problem or two in the beginning, but I'll stick with what I consider a superior design of my DB380

Snapping the trigger bar every couple of hundred rounds does indeed sound like a major problem and without an explanation that reveals a sensible defect in the particular pistol and assurance that it is properly fixed, I would be quite skeptical of the repaired gun. But overall if they can work out the design in that form-factor, I think the DB looks like a really solid contender.

The problem of a trigger bar that is prone to snapping could easily be due to "bad design." Part of the design process is understanding the forces that various assemblies and components will experience during normal use and then selecting proper materials and processes for their manufacture.

It is quite possible that the design engineers did not fully understand or properly address the stresses put on this part and did not design it to be robust enough. For such a seemingly "trivial" part I would guess that they really didn't pay much attention to it. Hopefully they will go back and look at this issue and find a quick solution before they have a major recall situation.

P.S. to RPB - Please don't even remind me about WordPerfect. It makes me want to cry.

[havoc]

Adam71176, I am glad you received a new gun from Diamondback and even gladder still that you have had no issues with your new gun. I wonder if maybe they have made some minor changes to the newer guns to correct an inherent problem or if yours really was just a lemon. These guns look pretty interesting to me, but I would like to dodge the issues you had with your first gun. Can you give me a range of the serial number of your new gun? I thought if I saw one at a gun show in the next week or 2 and it was a later number then it might have some of the earlier issues fixed. Thanks Adam and I hope you have continued good luck with your Diamondback.

[RPB]

My local range is still closed until after hunting season, but here's some info I collected:



Per Diamondback:
They have been getting good reports back from customers that the Buffalo Bore, DPX and other higher than standard pressure .380's work very well. Winchester white box and other lower pressure plinking rounds don't always perform as well.

Tips/Info from other new owners on other sites/reviews:

Shoots Low compared to a Glock, about right compared to Taurus.
The grip was awesome and the gun was much more controllable than the LCP.

The good Ammo:
The pistol worked great with three of the four brands of ammo that were brought. Buffalo Bore Self Defense ammo worked FANTASTIC! PMC and some 10 year old Winchester all fired no problems. Two stovepipes in the first 50 rounds using the PMC ammo, the problem seemed to go away after about 30 rounds.


The Bad Ammo:
MFS Browning Short's from Hungary. This ammo was totally unreliable! EVERY round took 2-3 primer strikes to ignite. Could just be military grade primers, which are harder to prevent slam-fires on semi-automatic rifles. Maybe hard primers, maybe deep seated primers

[GreezyG]

why would anyone use a .380 as a self defense round....too small, get a bigger bullet....

...shoot twice...

[RPB]

My ammo update:

Update on Ammo

Since I sleep on a hard floor wearing the DB380, I can't attest to this for everyone's magazine, but it's true for mine.


OLD white box CorBon 90 grain +P JHP feeds well

but
Avoid NEW DPX 80 grain +P JHP seems to be a hair longer than it's supposed to be and my magazine likes it less, hangs in the mag... I won't carry it normally now
Just tried the NEW DPX 80 grain +P JHP in my NAA Gaurdian .380 too .... seems to be a hair longer and my NAA Gaurdian .380 magazines like it less, hangs in the magazine of the NAA Gaurdian .380 too
I'll try it in a doublestack gun like Taurus PT-58, but I won't be buying any more DPX .380

BUT
I prefer a heavier bullet than 80 grain anyway for better penetration, and the

MagTech Guardian Gold 85 grain +P JHP works in the mag just right.

Also

Buffalo Bore 90 grain +P JHP feeds real well too (the 100 grain Flat Nose +P does too so far)

(Sounds like the 3 bears story?, but 4 beds were fine out of 5, and all 4 were heavier +P, so that's excellent.)

So, right now I'm loaded with a chambered Magtech Guardian Gold 85 grain +P and a magazine full of 90 grain Buffalo Bore +P ... only because the first round out is pretty ... Ok, I gave you all my money, you want my Gold too?

(I have Hydroshoks 90 grain and Gold Dots 90 grain too, didn't even try them yet, but staying with these heavier +P rounds for carry. The others can go in another brand .380 I keep in the house, and not carrying DPX in this gun at all.... they are too long or something.)

So, so far Buffalo Bore and MagTech Guardian Gold look the most reliable out of that bunch for mine, as well as being the heaviest +P, so should be the better pentrating and deliver more foot-ponds of energy too.

[capo82]

All,

I recently purchased one of the new Diamondback .380's and did so because of its build, my hate for KT's and the love a good light weight simple designed carry gun. A little back ground I own two Kahr 9mm's. The CW9 and the PM9- I love them equally as well but they are heavier than my DB so I have been looking for something extremely light to wear while in summer clothes. As a professional soldier and CHL holder for 9 years now concealed carry means lots of different things. First I believe that you can carry only what you can hide. In the winter I have no issues concealing a G23, a Sig p228, a commander sized 1911, all of which I own and have carried. In the summer with a loose fitting shirt you can get awy with that as well. But I dont wear button up hawian shirts very often so its usually a CW9 or the PM9. I bought the DB because when I picked it up it was very light when I took it apart it was very much like a glock and that made me happy to see. I dont see the .380 as a serious contender with alot of other rounds but I firmly believe that when you start punching holes into people they dont stop to consider the caliber. They start leaking and either die or look to get away from what is making them leak. Ok onto my main point.

Test Firing the DB- This will be just a fair and unbiased analysis of what I did you take it for what its worth. All of this firing was done on Friday 29JAN2010 without a cleaning in between.

As per instructions on "break in" I fired 100 rounds of ball ammo (PMC 90gr FMJ, and MAG TECH 95gr FMJ)
I had 1 failure to reset the trigger - by this I mean a round and fired and ejected, a new round was seated in battery and the trigger didnt reset alowing for the round in the chamber to go bang.

In the second 100 rounds I fired (I never believe the instructions I had to be double sure) I had several more problems
3 x Trigger reset failures (easy to fix you just pull your slide back about half an inch and it re-cocks)
1 x Stove pipe (I blame myself it usually is the the shooter at fault for that)
1 x Failure to extract/eject (the extractor litterally failed to grab out the spent casing) This problem causes alot of ass pain with this gun. With no slide catch you cant lock back the slide to drop the mag and fish out the rounds or spent casings. This is a time consuming process.

From there I went on to SD ammo. I used Gold Dot 90gr JHP, Aguila 90gr JHP, Federal HydroShock 90gr JHP, and Corbon 90gr JHP. I fired two mags of each.

The gold dot cycled really well with no issues (this gun likes this ammo)
Aguila - 2 Failures to feed due to failure to extract and eject the last round fired, 1 squib ( light strike I thought but then I tried the same round 3 more times and still no joy)
Federal Hydroshock - Fired very well no problems and I guess this gun likes this ammo as well.
Corbon - really dissapointing 2 squibs (again I tried three times to make them shoot, so I call into question the strength of the striker trigger system) and lots of feeding issues.

Not leaving good enough alone I went back to the gold dot and federal and had no problems with either of those bullets. It makes sense because a little SD gun is geared to shoot higher pressure SD ammo.. It just works better which is why the Corbon problems hurt my feelings so bad.

To merry up test results with another gun I fired 200 rounds out of the Kahr 9mm just to take a poll on how many hang ups it had. 6 is all, much faster to clear than the DB.

Ok so to my count with traditional ammo FMJ I had 6 issues with the DB making the gun 97% reliable - not to shabby - take most any gun to the range and shoot 200 rounds in a row out of it and I can almost promise at least a few malfunctions even if it is just the ammo you run out of it.

So you have this data feel free to use it as you see fit. I will tell you that I am keeping the gun. I can see a use for it.

[Embalmo]

I have never heard of a gun fail that many times from this many different owners.