The .380 isn't dead — it's just obsolete, and that's fine

@counter_rat20d agoSee in graph →

Look, I sell both. I've got LCPs and Sig P365s moving out the door every week, and the .380 crowd still exists — they're just smaller and quieter about it now. Which tells you something.

Here's what actually happened: the micro-compact 9mm solved a problem that the .380 never really did. You could always carry a P365 just as easily as a Bodyguard .380, same pocket size, same holster footprint. Except the 9mm shoots flatter, has better capacity, and modern defensive ammo for 9mm is genuinely effective. The .380 was always a compromise — a gun you carried because you couldn't or wouldn't carry something larger, period.

I'm not going to pretend the .380 is some underdog victim here. It had a run. People liked the simplicity, the light recoil, the fact that literally anyone could run one without flinching. That's real, and for some folks — arthritis, small hands, people who genuinely just want boring reliability and know they'll train with what they have — it still works. But the reason it's fading is because the compromise it represented got smaller and cheaper and better, and there's no way around that.

The manufacturers know it too. You're seeing less .380 coming in than you did five years ago, margins are tighter, and the used market is flooded with old LCPs and Rugers because people who bought them for "just in case" are trading up. The guns aren't bad. The category just got made redundant.

What kills me is when someone comes in asking for a .380 because their buddy told them 9mm is "too powerful" for concealed carry or they're worried about over-penetration, and we have to have the conversation about modern ammo performance all over again. That's YouTube research talking, not reality. But yeah — if you like .380s, you'd better like your gun, because the industry isn't going to make it easy to feed them forever. And if you're starting from scratch? You know what the answer is.

Is the .380 dead? No. Is it niche now? Absolutely.

EDC (Everyday Carry)Sig P365 9mm (9x19)

4 replies

@southpaw_0912d ago
Honest take: I'd push back on one thing, and I'm curious what you're seeing on your counter.
The micro-9 wins on ballistics and capacity, yeah. But pocket carry without a holster — and I mean genuine pocket carry, not "gun shaped lump in my jacket" — the .380 still has real advantages. I run both, and the P365 is snappier to draw from a front pocket in real-world clothes. Smaller footprint, less printing, less jarring when you move. A good .380 is genuinely easier to carry that way, which matters for the person who won't use a holster no matter what you tell them.
You're right that the 9mm solved the capacity problem. But you mention the Bodyguard .380 — have you noticed whether the people trading those are moving to P365s *with* holsters, or whether some are just ditching pocket carry entirely? Because I suspect there's a pocket-carry crowd that doesn't show up in your "trades up" metrics. They're not in the forums. They're not doing the research. They just want something that sits flat in a khakis pocket and they never think about it.
Modern .380 ammo is solid enough for that use case, honestly. Not equal to 9mm ballistics — I'm not arguing that. But adequate for close work if you train to the gun's limitation.
What's your read on the pocket-carry-without-holster segment? Am I seeing a pattern that doesn't actually exist, or is that just invisible to the store counter?
@holster_notes7d ago
Pocket carry without a holster is where the .380 still has actual advantages, and southpaw_09 is right about that. But here's what I'm seeing that complicates the picture: the kydex gap.
For .380s—especially the LCP and Bodyguard line—you've got a handful of solid pocket holsters. Desantis, Blackhawk, and a few custom makers. They work. They're proven.
For the P365 in pocket carry, the ecosystem is *worse* right now, not better. Most P365 owners I talk to who pocket carry are using either oversized .380-focused holsters (poor fit, printing) or running it naked (which defeats the whole carry premise). The P365's footprint advantage evaporates the second you try to find a kydex pocket rig that doesn't feel like you're carrying a wedge.
Where the 9mm wins: you *can* run it from a proper AIWB or appendix rig with better retention and faster presentation—but that requires accepting you're now wearing a belt and holster, which pocket-carry people explicitly won't do.
The real question isn't ballistics or capacity. It's whether the P365 has pocket holster options yet that match what exists for .380s. Until it does, southpaw_09's observation holds up. For the person who genuinely won't use a belt, a .380 in a decent pocket holster (Desantis Superfly) still solves the carry problem more elegantly than forcing a 9mm into a compromise rig.
That said—if they'll accept *any* holster, the math changes fast.
@kept.simple4d ago
Both of you are solving for carry comfort, which is fair, but let me push on the actual reason someone picks .380 for pocket carry without a holster: they think the ballistics gap doesn't matter.
It does. Modern .380 defensive ammo—Federal HST, Speer Gold Dot—will penetrate 12–15 inches of ballistic gelatin. That's adequate. But a 9mm in the same test goes 14–18 inches with significantly better expansion. Close-range pocket-work scenario? You're probably 5–10 feet. The 9mm delivers more consistent performance if the shot isn't perfect, and in a real encounter, shots aren't perfect.
The pocket holster gap holster_notes mentioned is real and solvable—Vedder LightTuck, Crossbreed SuperTuck, even cheap Sticky work fine with the P365. Takes five minutes to order one. The "I won't wear a holster" person isn't actually a design problem; they're a training problem. And I'm not going to optimize terminal ballistics around someone's refusal to use basic retention.
The .380 still wins on *comfort* for pocket carry. That's legitimate. But if we're being honest about why people stay .380: it's usually because they already own one, or someone told them 9mm "overkills" in an apartment. The upgrade path is ballistics first, then figure out the carry rig. Pocket without holster is the compromise you make *after* you've accepted lower performance.
@counter_rat2d ago
Yeah, I've got numbers on this. Transfer volume tells a story that the forum arguments kind of dance around.
Last year I moved roughly 40 .380s to 180 micro-9s. Year before that, closer to 60 .380s to 160 nines. The ratio's consistent—people are buying nines at a 4:1 clip now, and it's not because they found better pocket holsters. It's inertia meeting reality.
Here's what actually walks in: guy comes in, says his buddy carries a P365, asks what I'd recommend. I show him both. Ninety percent of the time, he leaves with the 9mm because I can hand him a Vedder or even a $40 Uncle Mike's and tell him it'll work Tuesday. The .380 pocket carry without holster thing? That's the person who *already owns* a .380. The new buyer isn't optimizing for that constraint—he's just not thinking about it hard enough to care.
The kept.simple point about training problem versus design problem is where this lands for me. The pocket-holster ecosystem gap for the P365 is real, yeah. But it's also temporary. Holster makers follow volume. Give it another year or two of P365 transfers and that gap closes. Meanwhile, .380 holster makers are getting fewer new guns coming through the door to justify R&D.
So the pocket-carry-without-holster crowd? They're the people staying because they already made the .380 decision years ago. Not the people making it now. The transfer data says the market's voting with its feet.