I was so excited to get a "real" pocket pistol to seriously carry and this just took it all out of me.
I received my bodyguard carry comp 2.0 last week and immediately cleaned it up and lubed it and spent hours upon hours racking the (incredibly gritty feeling) slide every single day to loosen it up, flicking the safety on and off so many times to "break it in", and i finally took it to the range today, alongside my other cheapo 380 pistols and a bunch of different ammo types since i know 380 pistols are sometimes picky.
Nothing but issues. failure to go into battery, constant failure to eject/stovepipes, frequent light primer strikes no matter the ammo, (Remington round nose UMC (which ALL my other 380 pistols will eat consistently, its my go to for testing out a 380), Winchester white box, federal punch, federal hydro shok, and Hornady critical defense.).
the mags are genuinely impossible to load, and now i know why, because it seems to use the mag as help with the ejector, because if the gun didn't have a mag in it, it would never eject the casing, like not a single time i tested it, it would stovepipe each time, in a super weird angle like it wasn't even pulling it to the side. i put maybe 300 rounds through it and it never once got better.
the slide is insanely painful to rack. i normally run 365 xmacro, glock 19, usp compact, etc. im no pansy with grip strength but the slide is not only insanely difficult to rack, the serrations make it feel like its cutting into you, in a bad way. i don't feed that it provides "grip". i feel that if they weren't there at all or were very much less aggressive, it would be so much easier to rack.
To compare, i have some "garbage" 380 pocket pistols, taurus curve, taurus spectrum, and an old used and beat up Ruger lcp (not max), and to compare them, the slides are all easier to rack, the mags easier to load, and most importantly, (and unbelievably in the case of the curve), work reliably. no issues with light strikes, no issues with ejection with or without the mag, no issues getting into battery etc. and even if they did have a failiure the slides are so much easier to rack that i wouldn't be worried about tap rack banging out the failiure.
all that just to say, i am incredibly disappointed that i could never trust my life to this gun. it is insanely unreliable and i wont be playing roulette on whether ill get a light primer strike and have to wrestle with the incredibly hard slide to clear it, or whether ill get a stovepipe and again have to wrestle with the impossible slide under pressure with possibly sweaty hands.
I dont want to spend an extra like 200$ on more rounds of 380 ammo just for the chance that it'll "wear in" and get more reliable over time. Despite what the general consensus says, i have never had an experience with a modern production big brand gun being unreliable out of the box and magically becoming actually reliable after an undefined number of rounds through it.
I'm not looking forward to sending it in to S&W to service, since my previous experiences with S&W CS has been nothing short of atrocious with return times ranging from 6 to 10 months, (despite them swearing it'll take 4 weeks tops) and they rarely end up fixing whatever issue is causing malfunctions anyways.
i think im done with S&W for good. Ive had issues with their revolvers out of the box (cylinder binding on a brand new TRR8 out of the box), issues with their full size semi auto pistols (issues with ejection mostly) , and now issues with their pocket pistol. I'm done giving them chances because this is just too much. I'm in awe at how a damn taurus of all things is more reliable for me than a big name brand like Smith and Wesson.