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I've been wondering about this one. What kind of negative results would you get for firing a .380 out of a 9mm chambered pistol. Other than the obvious of not cycling the pistol well.

empty pockets at the price of .380

Let's take that a step further - What about shooting them in a revolver chambered for .357 and/or .38 Special?

particle wrote:Let's take that a step further - What about shooting them in a revolver chambered for .357 and/or .38 Special?

It won't work. A .38/.357 cartridge has a rim that extends beyond the diameter of the casing, which catches on the back of the cylinder.

.380 ammo has a rim, but it is the same diameter as the casing. If you try to put it in a .38/.357 it will fall down in the cylinder and the firing pin would not be able to strike it.

7075-T7 wrote:I've been wondering about this one. What kind of negative results would you get for firing a .380 out of a 9mm chambered pistol. Other than the obvious of not cycling the pistol well.

I've never done it with .380, but someone gave me some .45 GAP rounds and I didn't catch it until I was picking up the brass!
My series 80 Colt chambered and fired and cycled for a whole magazine. Apparently the extractor was catching and holding the shorter .45 GAP cartridge tight enough for the firing pin to fire them.

7075-T7 wrote:I've been wondering about this one. What kind of negative results would you get for firing a .380 out of a 9mm chambered pistol. Other than the obvious of not cycling the pistol well.

what would be the purpose of that? other than the obvious curiosity.
The bullet diameter is the same at .355 but the case is 2mm shorter and slightly narrower (not sure exactly how much right off hand) and the rim is smaller on a 380. so it probably wouldnt seal in the barrel and you would get alot of the flash coming back at you plus it probably wouldn't eject right. this is all assuming you are using you are using a SA pistol and is purely speculation on my part other than the case and bullet size. when I relaod, there is about 1 grain difference between the two so if you loaded the 380 a little on the hot side or used +p ammo then it would probably have enough power to cycle the slide (provided it would get a good enough seal on the barrel) once again pure speculation on my part.

I accidently loaded 380 into a magazine on my Glock. It fired but would not cycle the slide all the way so a second round would not be fed. The round fired would however eject the spent casing. It was a head scratcher for sure at first. Took about four or five rounds before I pulled the magazine out and noticed the rounds seemed short and realized what I had done.

My brother in law went out to the range one day and couldn't figure out why he was shooting poorly. Even went to a gunsmith to talk about adjusting the sights. Then he realized he just shot off 50 rounds of 9mm in his .40 cal.

Just FYI since nobody has mentioned it yet.
Years ago .380 used to be called "9mm short".