[DanF]

Have had the opportunity over the past several months to carry (off-duty) my new PD380. After carrying this firearm and getting acquainted with it, I find it has its great pros and unfortunately cons. Let me start with the pros: 1) The hand grip on the PD 380 is extremely comfortable and pronounced. I have a large palm so comfort and adaptability while shooting has NEVER been an issue! Excellent design for this size of firearm. 2) The slide rail is extremely easy to manipulate. Women and/or individuals that do not customarily possess upper hand or grip strength will find the PD 380 amazing. 3) The single stack magazines are extremely easy to load and feed onto the magazine ramp without receiving the occasional thumb/finger striations that a strong spring and/or double stack magazines can often provide. Now for the cons: The PD380 does NOT have a slide stop on the frame. It will only go to slide lock back once you've fired your last shot and/or the magazine is in battery. Secondly, the PD380 does NOT have the usual magazine ejection button, but uses an ambidextrous "paddle release" affixed to the trigger guard. As a 30+ year firearms instructor for law enforcement, these two features are not well received. IF the PD 380 had the traditional slide stop release feature and the traditional ambidextrous magazine release button, it would be the most ideal perfect firearm in the .380 line. I have moved to the new Beretta Cheetah 80X .380. Granted, the Beretta Cheetah 80X has its faults as well, but not where re-training of using a paddle to release a magazine and no slide stop that could be released with one quick thumb motion/action. In all fairness to Walther, I will seriously take a second look at the CCP M2 .380 with manual safety.

I've been enjoying and carrying the PD380 for four months now. As the owner of a P99 and a PPS M1, I have no trouble with the paddle release, and actually prefer it (Yes, I have other guns with traditional mag releases, like a P320 and a 1911). I like the PD380 for all the reasons you state. On the "Con" side, I would add that the factory sights are not good. The front sight is cheap plastic - one of my holsters wore it down to the while plastic that's underneath the black exterior on the top surface. The rear sight picture is too narrow. I replaced the sights with Trijicon Tough and Bright sights and went with the "Small Glock Frame" option (Glock 42 size). The rear sight is a little narrower than the slide, but it's definitely not going to snag on anything, and the sight picture is much better. If anybody does this, just remember to keep the front sight screw. The standard Glock hex screw will not fit into the recess inside the PD380 slide. The Walther screw is ridiculously long as well, you will have to file it down to make it work with any real sight. Nevertheless, not that big a deal. My two biggest "cons" are that: First, the trigger is just okay. I have a few thousand rounds through mine, and it only improved a little over time. I like the heavy DA pull, but the SA pull is too heavy for satisfying range shooting; second, I consistently get some reliability issues at the range after about 250 rounds. I don't reload, and I've used Blazer, Federal, Remington, and Hornady ammo. It eats anything, including hollow points, just fine, but it seems to gunk up after about 250 rounds and sometimes won't go completely into battery. It's perfect again after cleaning. Zero FTF or FTE. I shouldn't complain, the tolerances are tight, and it's not really a range gun. I love everything else about it.