The Smith & Wesson Bodyguard .380, v2.0.
S&W’s Bodyguard 2.0 .380 Pistol – One Tiny Lifesaver!
The new S&W Bodyguard has earned its “2.0” status. To put it bluntly… the original 6-shot Bodyguard .380 left much to be desired. The new 2.0 version fixes what was wrong with its predecessor.
Now as it happens, I own a pre-24 (ie, v1.0) Bodyguard pocket rocket myself (this here one, with built-in Crimson Trace red-dot laser), and that “left much to be desired” remark ain’t no bull—specifically, the flimsy, way oversprung, absurdly long-throw plastic trigger, which rendered the little popgun damned near useless unless you were gonna throw it at an assailant’s head or something.
Happily though, thanks to the fine folks at Shepherd Tactical Supply, the fix for that design flaw was cheap and easy-peasy to avail myself of: an under $30 aluminum, adjustable trigger anodized in red (if I remember right, they had ‘em in plain black and silver-grey also, but once I saw the red I was hooked), which tightened everything up nicely, looks great, and made the cute li’l booger a delight to shoot.
I’d never attempted a trigger swap before, which Big Country cautioned me can be a tricky project if you don’t know what you’re doing. Was there a man dismayed? HA! Forward the Light Brigade!
In the event, the job took me no more than about twenty minutes to complete successfully with ordinary hand tools I had lying around just begging to be useful; it was a snap, no lie. Since the trigger swap, then dialing the Crimson Trace in so’s it no longer pointed up into the sky and off to the left, I’ve run a cpl-three boxes of Hornady Critical Defense through the little beastie out in the backyard—no problems, no issues, no hassles, no complaints.
The STS trigger took the Bodyguard from feeling like a cheap, shoddy kid’s toy to something a lot more like a real pistol should be. Thanks to the trigger upgrade, what had once been a dust-covered, neglected nightstand adornment has become my EDC piece. Nowadays, I never leave home without it.
The Bodyguard kit included a bottom-shelf S&W gun rug and two (2) 6-round magazines: one with the all-important pinkie extension piece on the butt plate, and one without. Take my word for it, the pinkie-rest mag is the way to go; assuming I ever do get my hands on a spare nickel again, I really need to hit Nichols Store not far from my house (FANTASTIC gun/ammo/accessories shop, one of the very best I’ve ever been in) and see about getting another one of ‘em. Then I can toss that shorty, flat-butt PoS into the sock drawer and forget it ever even existed.
Hey, a man can dream, can’t he?
- Entries
I’m glad to see a Real Man come out and admit he shoots .380. I get fed up with people who insist that only a .45 or better is any good. Truth is, unless it’s “the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off”, it’s just a handgun, and handguns don’t have stopping power. Any attacker who will wade through X rounds of .380 is about 82% likely to keep coming after X rounds of .45. There’s a difference, but it’s not the world.
A smaller gun is easier to carry than a bigger gun.
A smaller gun is easier to keep on target than a bigger gun..
A smaller gun will kill a malefactor 100% as dead as a bigger gun.
A smaller gun doesn’t raise issues that you might be “compensating”.
The only weapon you can’t get by without, is the one you carry between your ears.
“I get fed up with people who insist that only a .45 or better is any good.”
Me too. Anyone worth spit knows the S&W 40 is the only round for a pistol.
Aw jeez, Barry, I’m not talking about you. I get fed up with other people.
I’m not going to tell anyone, “you’re doing it wrong”. Carry whatever you want, it’s your choice. Is the .380 “better”? Depends on what you mean by better. The pistols are very small, and that’s nice in a way.
People who say the .380 is underpowered are never willing to stand downrange and prove it, for some reason.
Sorry Tom, I was just making a joke about it. Guess I need to add a /S tag 🙂
380 is way better than nothing which is what many people have.
Pistols are just to buy time to get away or time to get to the real gear IMO. When all you have is the pistol, you use it. And I can kill a man dead with a 22.
It’s cool bro. I was kinda kidding too.
“A smaller gun is easier to carry than a bigger gun.”
Usually true.
“A smaller gun is easier to keep on target than a bigger gun..”
I find this to be false. The higher mass of my full size is much easier to keep on the target than the smaller mass pistol shooting the same caliber.
“A smaller gun will kill a malefactor 100% as dead as a bigger gun.”
With same ammo, same placement sure. But there is more to it than smaller Vs bigger.
A smaller gun doesn’t raise issues that you might be “compensating”.
I’m not sure what that is supposed to mean? Are you suggesting that when one carries a big gun, they are accused of having a small dic? That kind of “compensating”? Or compensating as in how you handle a pistol?
You guys crack me up. Yes, the best caliber is what’s in your hand not what’s in the safe at home. Have a great week and as Don Wallace use to say, good luck and good hunting.
🙂