Walther PD380 Review

The Walther PD380. Let’s check it out.

It’s a small little 380 ACP that is really based on the PDP series as far as styling. This really was originally the PK380, but there were a lot of changes made. A lot cosmetic, but then some on the interior.

This is a very soft shooting 380 ACP. It’s not blowback, it’s a locked breach short action, which has just a little bit of a delay and it makes it very soft shooting. Easy rack slide, really nice thinner grip.

Nine plus one magazine capacity. And it gives you 380 ACP, which is just softer shooting than nine millimeter. We want to give a big thank you to Walther for sending the PD380.

Guys, I’m a big fan of the PPK, but this is really brought up to modern standards and makes an excellent concealed carry option. The Walther PD380. This is a 380 ACP pistol.

It’s honestly designed more for concealed carry or for those with less shooting experience, weaker hand strength, and smaller hand size. And it really makes a great concealed carry option for especially the ladies. And we’re going to look at some of the reasons why.

Now this was actually designed after the PK380, which was more like the P99. It had the older style grip, the older style slide configuration. This is based more on the PDP.

And I really like the improvements from the PDP. First off, let’s go ahead and make sure the gun’s unloaded. We have our ambidextrous mag release.

We have nine round mag capacity, and we’re going to check the chamber is empty. Now this is a single stack mag. And one of the pluses for that is it allows for the grip to remain really thin.

And because that is a big part of those with smaller hands is gripping the grip and being able to reach the trigger. Getting that pad on the trigger, a full pad, allows for better accuracy, better control over the trigger. If you have a larger gun, and it’s one of the reasons why a lot of times, especially female shooters, they have a hard time and they’re just barely getting that trigger.

And it really affects their accuracy. And so this gets a really short radius from the back strap to the trigger, and it just allows them to have more control. The performance duty grip, it has that really nice texturing, the same as your Walther PDP.

And I really like it because it’s kind of soft to the touch, even though it has a little bit of friction. But once you grip it, it grips into your hand. And so it gives you a very confident grip, and it’s very ergonomic.

Now, it does have palm swells on the side, and we do have it coming down to fit the meat of your hand right here. And then we have these cuts for your shooting finger and for your thumb to be able just to get a really solid high ride grip on this handgun. The front strap has some small little finger grooves right here, and they’re very muted and they’re smooth.

But because of those grooves, it allows you to get a good solid grip on it. Here we have the PDP-F, and this was actually designed more toward those with smaller hands, particularly females, to give them a better dimension between here and here, and to make the slide rack a little bit less. And you can see the gun’s unloaded.

But it has those subterranean serrations on top, and then it has that performance duty grip at the bottom, and a lot of other features that really mimic this. But this is a striker fire pistol, while the PD380 is a hammer fire double single action pistol. Also, this is not a blowback action.

It doesn’t have a fixed barrel. One of the things about blowback is that it can give you a little more recoil. So even though 380 is lesser pressure and a lesser recoiling round typically, because of blowback, it gives it more recoil.

So this has a locked breech short recoiling system, which just allows this to be more softer shooting. And 380 ACP is very appealing for those, again, who have little shooting experience. Now I love the subterranean slide serrations.

They’re large. They’re thick. Man, they are chunky.

But one thing about it is this slide is easy rack slide. So it’s really easy and simple to come back. And that’s probably one of the biggest issues with women shooters is pulling that slide back on a really heavy slide against a spring.

The spring has been lightened, so this makes it really easy to be able to rack back and forth. But these serrations are actually not cut into the slide, but there’s material left over to make this come really where the slide stops, and you have this extra texturing. And so it allows for a really great way to be able to pull this back and not just grab little tiny thin serrations.

Also, we have a safety. Now this is what they call a decocker, but it’s honestly a manual decocker. So here we have it on fire, and we’re going to look here at the firing pin.

And when you pull down on the safety, it’s actually a firing pin block, and you can see it just blocking the firing pin. So in this position, with it on safe, I can grab my hammer and then pull the trigger and ease it down. And it’s on a firing pin block, so you know it’s really safe to be able to drop it that way.

Now it doesn’t have a slide stop. So with the magazine inserted, once it’s finished and it comes back, there’s no way to drop the slide without releasing the magazine. And you can really just drop this a little bit and still be able to drop that slide.

But really most are not using the slide stop. When they load in a fresh magazine and they cock it, they just let the slide go home. And so that just keeps it just really thin.

And guys, it is really thin. In fact, it’s 0.97 inches in width. And so it’s a very thin, small handgun, and so it makes it a great option for concealed carry.

Now the barrel is 3.7 inches in length, and you know, so it makes it very compact. The frame itself is very well done. We have a squared off trigger guard, great for gloved hands.

We have a two-slot Picatinny rail for lights and lasers. You have three dot sights that are white and the rear sight is adjustable, but it is metal and it’s a no snag design, which this also has a cocking shelf to be able to perform one-handed reloads. And the safety is ambidextrous.

Now another look at the mag release. And again, it’s that paddle mag release. I really like this because I can take my finger, my shooting finger, and I can hit that mag release without having to change my grip.

But you can use the standard mag release on the other side if you want. But that just is something I personally like. A lot of people don’t.

A lot of people like that standard magazine release on the side, but this is just something that especially once I got used to it, I really like it. And the mag of course is stainless steel and it has this really nice, very smooth and contoured finger base on the bottom. Now one thing I really like about double single action is that typically if you have a round that is a dud round, let’s say it just doesn’t go off, you have second strike capability.

So I can just pull that trigger and I can fire it again and be able to fire that round. Most of the time it’ll fire after a second hit. The bore axis is fairly low and there’s a little bit of area right here, but really for that slide and that’s going to protect your hand from slide bite.

And really when that hammer comes back, I mean, it protects takes you from the hammer coming back. So even if you have fairly large hands, this does give you a good feel to it. No, it’s not one of the micro 380s, but it definitely is more friendly at the range and it gives you more confidence when you’re shooting.

If you have to pull this out, you’re going to have a better grip, you’re going to have less recoil. And if you need to manipulate the you can, and especially with the subterranean serrations, these things are just awesome. Now the PD380 is very similar to the P22.

It’s the latest iteration and it’s more toward the PPK. It has that really nice ergonomic grip. It is hammer fired, but it is a blowback action.

And so that’s one thing, especially with 22. So it has a fixed barrel, but it does have a slide release, but it does add a little bit coming off the end. And that’s one of the things I love about how thin the PD380 is.

I mean, it is just super thin. There’s not a lot of levers and things hanging off the edge and the safety doesn’t come all the way to the back. And so it makes it really thin, nice to carry.

And again, that grip is not too thick. This is again, just a great gun for female first-time shooters. And really while the PDP-F was designed for females, it was really designed as a home defense full-size handgun that can be carried, but it’s still a fairly large gun.

And so here we’re having something that’s coming in. It’s not one of the little micro 380s like the LCP or even the LCP Max. There is a little more recoil.

And so this gives you just a softer shooting gun, and yet it’s still small enough and compact to be able to carry. Now we’re gonna check the trigger pull action. On double action, and that’s with the hammer down, as we pull the trigger, it’s real smooth, but it stacks and gets really heavy right before the break.

And a lot of times with double action, it is really heavy. With single action with the hammer back, we have free play right here. Once we hit a wall, not bad.

Not super crisp. There’s a little bit of weight before you hit it, but not bad. Reset, right there.

Now let’s check the double action trigger pull with our Lyman trigger gauge. 9 pounds 5.9 ounces. 9 pounds 6.4 ounces.

Single action, 5 pounds 7.5 ounces. 5 pounds 7.1 ounces. Now the weight on the PD380, 20.8 ounces.

The weight on the PDP-F, 22.7 ounces. It’s about two ounces heavier, which is a little bit surprising. I thought that this would be even heavier.

But it’s definitely thicker, and it’s just a larger handgun. Now one of the things you’ll note is that on the PDP-F, we have optics ready. On the new PD380, it is not optics ready.

I don’t know if they’ll be offering that later. One of the issues could be because of the light slide rack, it could interfere, you know, with the functioning of the pistol. But the recoil spring, and we’ll take a look at it when we break it down, is small.

And so that may be one thing that’s going to interfere with it. Now during range time, I did refer to this as the PDP-380, but it is the PD380. I’ll give a big thank you to Fiocchi for sponsoring the ammunition.

All made in the USA. One of the biggest suppliers of ammunition in the country. And these little magazines are so easy to load.

PDP-380. Been waiting on this one for a while. I’m really glad to see the PDP line get a little smaller.

Makes it more concealable, makes it more appealing to female shooters or those that have little shooting experience. You do have your double action, so your hammer, and you do have a safety on the slide. So it gives you a couple of extra safety features.

And some people are just not comfortable with striker fire. I really like those serrations though. I mean, they are aggressive.

And then with the grip, a very nice textured grip. Even has some slight palm swells, but it’s still thin enough to fit your hand for smaller size hands. Very easy to rack the slide, which makes it, you know, even better for those with weaker hand strength.

Nice shooting gun. I love the paddle mag release. I just always have.

I know that a lot of people do not like it, but it makes it so easy for me to take my weak hand without changing my grip and to be able to disengage and release my magazine. Big plus. Overall, this is just a great gun.

It is Walther quality, which makes it really nice. And, you know, it shoots really well. I mean, we haven’t had any malfunctions, which I didn’t expect to.

But Walther just is putting out a really great little small option, especially for female shooters. Very concealable. But I like the full-size PDP and the PDP-F.

This is just another option. Now to disassemble the firearm, we’re going to drop our magazine, check to make sure that the gun is unloaded. First thing we want to do is to just pull down on our takedown levers and just push the slide.

Just like that. And it comes right off. And then we have our recoil spring and guide rod.

Now this is really small. It’s thin. It is polymer, which I did notice.

And then we have our barrel. Now this again is a locked breach system. And so it’s not a fixed barrel like a lot of the different 380s are.

Again, which just affect the recoil. But you’ll notice these little lugs and right here we have a bar. And this just rides down into the frame and then it disengages only that much.

So it’s not the tilt barrel design, but it definitely gives it just enough to where it allows for the pressures to be relieved. Just gives you that delay. And which allows for really soft shooting.

Slide rails a little bit more than what most of your polymer frame striker fire pistols have, which just gives you a little bit better slide to frame fit. And then you can see the workings on the inside. With the double single action, it definitely changes things from your polymer striker fire.

Here with the slide, you can see that there’s a lot of relief cuts, a lot of machining. Here we have our firing pin block. And then of course we have the actual pin block here.

And you can see as we bring the safety down, that is the safety. And then we pull it up for fire. But that’s all you need to do to fill strip.

And honestly, it’s pretty easy. Okay, we’re going to bring in our barrel, recoil spring, and guide rod. Now when you bring the slide over the rails, you want to drop your hammer.

And because once you apply your slide, it will drop. So we’re going to go ahead and bring it into place like this. And once we get it right here, we’re going to stop and pull down on our takedown tabs.

And that’s it. And it doesn’t have to come that far back. And our magazine, check to make sure that we’re functioning and we’re good to go.

Now it comes in a nice case with the Walther logo. Then we open it up. You have your gun, your extra magazine, chamber flag.

Also we have our standard owner’s manual, your lock. One thing though you do have is this small little tool. And this will just allow you to change out your sight.

But otherwise, it’s pretty just straightforward. And to be honest, this is not a bad little box to keep guns in. Now the retail price of the Walther PD380 is $449.

Of course, market price is going to be less. Let’s talk about some pros and cons. Pros, you’ve got that PDP design, great slide serrations.

I love the ergonomic grip and that performance duty texturing. The light rack slide, I love it. I mean, it’s just so easy to bring back.

And you know, it has that double single action, which you know, takes a little bit more to learn, but it adds some safety features, especially people that are new shooters are more comfortable with. I love the short distance between the trigger and the back strap. Of course, you have your accessory rail.

And with the lock breach action, the short recoiling action, it’s just going to be a softer shooting than your fixed barrel design or your blowback. The ease of disassembly is simple. And one thing about the original PK380 is you had to have a tool to be able to disassemble it.

And I was not a big fan of that. What are some cons? Well, there’s no optics ready plate. I mean, that could be a con if you want to carry an optic on here.

Also, the magazines, you know, I mean, they could have been double stack, I think, and added a few more rounds. But with nine plus one, I mean, it gives you 10 rounds. And that’s a pretty good amount.

But you know, a lot of these guns now with this similar size can have up to, you know, 12 to 15 rounds. ambidextrous features like your safety and also your paddle mag release. Now that may be a con for some and a pro for others.

For me, it’s a pro. I like it. But a lot of people would rather have the other.

So overall, I think it makes a great option, especially for, again, first time shooters, women, elderly, those with weaker hand strength for concealed carry, and it brings down the size to a very manageable level. Yet when you take it to the range, it’s just a lot more fun to shoot. And that really lends to confidence with those when they’re learning to shoot.

So guys, a really ergonomic, very practical handgun. It shoots like a full size gun at the range. And yet it is compact to where it could be great for concealed carry or just self defense.

And again, with so many women that are looking for a good concealed carry option, this makes a great choice. Let’s face it, guys, Walther knows a thing or two about 380 ACP. And again, a big thank you to Walther for sending the PD 380 for this review.

Be strong, be of good courage. God bless America. Long live the Republic.

 

-Don