The MIM meme...

So, here's a closeup of my Bodyguard 380, manufactured in August of 2012, all field-stripped. Notice anything (other than that I should have stopped down on the aperture for more DOF)?

Growing mold.

See the mold line atop the chamber? Unlike the multipiece barrel of the Walther PPX and its forged barrel housed in a MIM breechblock, this is a one-piece barrel, machined from a MIM blank. I never thought I'd see the like.

I didn't know such a thing was possible, as the internet has long informed me that powdered metallurgy is responsible for parts breakages, guns malfunctioning, rains of frogs, and the heartbreak of psoriasis. (This is, ironically, the very same internet that is practically wetting itself with excitement over the possibilities of "3D printed guns". Shhh. Don't tell them; it'd break their little hearts.)

.380 ACP maximum operating pressures are, of course, only ⅔ of standard 9x19mm and barely more than half those of 9x19mm +P. But they're about the same as .45 ACP. You'd think if there was a rash of BG380s going high-order in people's hands, we'd have heard about it by now, no? I've got a little over two hundred rounds through mine now without a malfunction, which isn't a lot by any measure, but probably more than most of them will ever shoot. Most will shoot a box of ammo, plus how ever many rounds it takes to pass a particular state's CCW licensing regime, and that's it.

In my book, these little pocket .380s like the BG380, P3AT, and LCP are largely disposable anyway, so complaints about their soulless qualities are pointless. Their primary virtues are light weight, compactness, and a price low enough "that every man (and woman) be armed." This is as volkspistole as it gets right now; in a perfect world, these things are sold in blister packs next to the disposable vacation cameras.