It’s easy to take for granted the small nature of modern handguns. But if you look at something like the Seecamp, you realize it took a long time to get handguns that small and reliable enough to trust. Guns like the Bodyguard .380, the LCP, and the TCP have made .380 pocket pistols mainstream firearms. Before all of the plastic fantastic and pocket pistols, the market was fairly bare, and that’s where the AMT Backup came in.
AMT, or Arcadia Machine and Tool, was a California-based company famous for making 1911s, specifically stainless 1911s. They are likely most known for the AMT Hardballer, which became more famous for its use in the Hitman series of video games than any other merit. It’s also the famous gun with the laser sight used by Terminator in the first “Terminator.” The AMT Backup was originally intended to be used by police officers. As the name implies, it was a backup to their main firearm.
Keep in mind the gun was released in 1978, and shall issue concealed carry just wasn’t a thing. The AMT backup offered a .380 ACP firearm in a profile smaller than most. It was certainly smaller than a Walther or similar pistol of the era. Plus, it was likely much cheaper than a Walther.
How Small?
The AMT Backup sports a 2.5-inch barrel and is five inches longer overall. The weapon is 4.1 inches tall and weighs 18 ounces. The all-metal design didn’t help with weight savings but polymer frame guns weren’t exactly mainstream in ’78. For reference, the Ruger LCP 2 weighs 10.6 ounces, nearly half a pound less than the Backup.
Before SIG had the SAS models, the AMT Backup went ahead and trimmed corners and melted slides to provide an automatic with a fairly rounded profile. The gun is snag-free and easy to draw from deep concealment. Your sights aren’t much. It’s a trench in the rear with just a tiny nub up front.
The gun has a very 1911ish-like profile, but it’s no 1911. It’s a blowback-operated gun with a fixed barrel. The gun is also striker fired rather than hammer-fired. The magazine is a heel-style release which was acceptable. If you are reloading your Backup in a hurry, things have gotten really bad.
The safety sits where a mag release would traditionally go and pivots upwards or downwards to swap the gun from safe to fire. What is 1911 like is the grip safety.
The little fella holds six rounds of .380 ACP in a simple single-stack magazine. This example came with one mag with a finger extension. There do seem to be models with flush-fitting mags for maximum concealment out there somewhere.
At the Range With the AMT Backup
Oh, boy, I hate pocket .380s. They make my arthritis flare up. They also make me feel bad about my shooting skills and just generally aren’t for me. The AMT backup isn’t much different. Even 18 ounces of metal can’t stand the straight blowback hand-smacking nature of these guns. A short recoil system would have worked wonders with this gun. It’s controllable mostly and admittedly doesn’t seem like it’s trying to fight its way out of your hand. It just slaps like the bass in “By The Ton” by Meshuggah.
The AMT Backup does have a nice striker-fired trigger. It’s partially cocked, and the trigger does have a slight takeup before a stiff and clean wall. It’s predictable, and the trigger can be staged. The AMT Backup’s trigger is better than a lot of the first gen pocket .380s like the original LCP or S&W Bodyguard.
The trench-ish style sight isn’t great for fast or accurate shooting. Can I put some rounds into the chest of a man-sized threat at 10 yards with it? Yep, I sure can. It’s acceptable but would never be mistaken for an impressively accurate gun. The recoil also makes it tough to fire multiple rounds quickly on target with decent accuracy. Try as I might, I couldn’t shoot an all-black modified 10-10-10 drill.
Does it Run?
In the reliability department, I had a pretty mixed experience. The gun fired FMjs fairly fine. I had a pair of failures to eject in 100 rounds. With JHPs, I got a few failures to feed, almost one per mag. It’s clearly a gun designed to feed FMJs. It’s a tiny gun that was made 40 years ago, so it’s tough to judge if these guns were reliable when first produced. Maybe this one has just lived a hard life.
Plenty of old guns still work fine and could be viable choices for self-defense. With that said, this ain’t it, chief. Even when it ran well, it had a 2% failure rate in a world where guns like the LCP 2 and the LCP Max exist. The AMT Backup is just outdated. Those guns are lighter, do not use a blowback design, and are more reliable. The LCP Max holds 10 rounds of .380 ACP.
The Other AMT Backups
It’s worth mentioning that AMT produced an entire series of Backup pistols. This .380 ACP variant represents the original lineup. The AMT Backup was made in various incarnations in calibers that include 22LR, 9mm, .357 SIG, 40 S&W, 45 ACp, and even oddballs like .400 Corbon and .38 Super.
The Backup series eventually went to double action designs and ditched the grip and manual safety devices. That does sound more appealing than a grip safety to me. The larger caliber models also used a short recoil system which would seemingly be absolutely necessary. They were a bit more advanced and modern, but AMT had a spotty reputation.
Maybe if they were released in 2005 rather than 1978, they could have been more successful. AMT often gets a rough reputation. Admittedly some of their quality control was suspect, but they did take chances and did innovate here and there. These were the folks that made the Automag and Lightning pistols. They were unfairly maligned as a company that produced junk-grade Saturday Night Specials, simply due to their geographic location.
They were innovative and did things differently. Sadly that doesn’t always help keep a company afloat. Even Agent 47 and his famed Hardballers couldn’t help.
