Remington Enters Pocket Pistol Market with the RM380

On November 2, Remington Arms Company entered the pocket pistol marketplace with the release of the RM380.

As the name suggests, the RM380 is chambered in .380 auto. It is a double action only (DAO) semi-automatic pistol that weighs in about 12.2 ounces unloaded–12.7 ounce with a Crimson Trace laser affixed. The pistol holds six rounds in the magazine and a seventh round in the chamber.

Breitbart News has had an RM380 for about four weeks for the purposes of testing, shooting, and carrying the pistol concealed to get a feel for it. After a few hundred rounds and daily carry almost nonstop since receiving the gun, we found the gun accurate, ultra-reliable, and so light that carrying it in the front pocket of a pair of cargo shorts is comfortable to the point that you do not even notice you are carrying a gun.

The RM380 has no external safety. Instead, the long trigger pull associated with a DAO pistol fills that role. In fact, for people used to shooting guns like those from Glock or the Smith & Wesson M&P line, the trigger pull on the RM380 will feel noticeably long at first. But as you shoot the pistol you soon figure out how far back you can quickly pull the trigger before slowing and completing the action to release the hammer and fire a round.

Once you are acquainted with the gun to that degree two things happen: 1.You begin to see how strikingly accurate a DAO pocket pistol can be. 2. The long trigger pull actually becomes a reassurance that the RM380 would be a difficult gun for a concealed carry permit holder to accidentally fire.

The RM380 comes with two magazines–one which fits flush and one with a finger extension. Breitbart News shot a variety of rounds through the pistol using both magazines without a single misfire or malfunction. Those rounds included FMJ target ammo, flat nose ammo, and +P self-defense hollow point ammunition. The RM380 ate it all up.

The only aspect of the RM380 that temporarily caught our attention in a negative way was the slide stop–commonly referred to as a slide release on many other handguns. We found the stop difficult to release during the first couple of boxes of ammunition but by the time we had fired approximately 150 rounds through the gun the slide stop would release with the touch of the thumb.

When you consider the RM380’s light weight, stubborn reliability, and striking accuracy, it does not take long to figure out this pocket pistol could open the doors to a whole new world for Remington. We will continue to test our RM380–exposing it extreme conditions and putting as many rounds through it as possible–and will do more reviews to reveal what we learn. As of now, with one month and hundreds of rounds behind us, we can say the RM380 is a great pocket pistol for daily carry.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.