The gun was great! Love my P3AT! But I don't love this ammo in .380. 1st off I didn't buy them for jhp or as a carry round but was already at Academy and they were there for about the same price as I usually pay for .380 fmj. Also I'd used and had good luck with Monarch Brass in 9mm and .38 spl many many times. As I said I bought these for range fodder, but for someone looking for a possible carry round thats inexpensive enough to practice with... this ISN'T THE ANSWER. I'm not sure of the round count on my P3AT because I lost count after 600 but would guess I'm around 800+ now. Except for 1st 2 mags at initial break-in I've only had 1 malfunction thus far (and extraction failure caused by a defective cartridge). Today I only fired 50 rounds because the purpose of the range visit was to finish the break-in of my PF-9. As always, my P3AT fed and extracted without issue, and every round was struck with authority, center of primer. However, 3 rounds out of the box of 50 failed to ignite. I examined the rounds carefully and the dent in the primers would have caused any other round to fire. Definitely the ammo. All in all, great day at the range! What a dependable pocket rocket! BTW, for those that don't like the recoil of the P3AT, fire 50-100 rounds from the PF-9 1st and the P3AT will feel like a BB gun. Have to add... the Monarch was extremely accurate. Fired 1 round to test for accuracy before practicing point and shoot with the rest of the box. Without using a rest, it shot to the point of aim perfectly.
Didn't know this until today but there's also a video on youtube showing they don't expand when fired into open water. I thought every round that doesn't shed its jacket will expand in water. I thought wrong.
The HP in that round looks very very shallow and not very big in diameter. If it doesn't expand out of a bersa with the longer barrel no way it will expand out of the p3at. If it feeds well and is accurate then at least it is decent range fodder.
Try checking my WWW thing at page bottom for test results on many brands of .380. Last tests showed Speer GoldDot best for "penetration" and never sheds it's jacket. og
I actually bought a box of the Monarch .380 a few months back. I didn't even realize it was JHP at the time. The Academy I occasionally visit, which is a little over an hour drive from our house, keeps handgun ammo behind the counter so I didn't notice the smaller print declaring it to be JHP. I bought it because the box (in larger letters) declared the cases to be brass and the price was in line with (actually, a couple of bucks better than) the price of UMC or WWB at Walmart. It wasn't until I got home that I realized it was JHP and thought, "Hmmm...bonus!" I haven't gotten around to trying it out, yet as I have been mostly carrying my S&W 642 when I need a small primary. I had hopes for the .380 JHP, though, as the Monarch 9mm Makarov stuff I have used for range fodder has been very accurate and reliable. I guess I need to make sure to shoot this box and see how things go and if I want to buy any more before the next visit to Academy.
