Walther Arms is one of those gun makers that designs their firearms on a compass pointed toward customer demand, rather than letting design define demand. Autoloaders used to be dangerous to carry with a round chambered until Walther came up with the PP and PPK pistols. Want a Glock-like pistol with a better trigger and a grip that actually fits the human hand? Walther has you covered with the PPQ and now, the PDP.
In 2023, Walther launched the PD380, a compact single-stack pistol in .380 ACP. Unlike other guns in Walther’s lineup, the PD380 is a retread of the existing PK380. The PK380 kicked off the current trend of modern full-sized .380 pistols some 15 years ago. As a fan of the PK380, I had to get my hands on the new PD380 to see what has changed, what has stayed the same, and whether or not you should spend your hard-earned money on it.
The PK380 and Big .380s in the 2020s
The .380 ACP cartridge was not particularly popular until shall-issue concealed carry became a legal reality for more Americans in the late 1990s and 2000s. These laws also arrived at a time when polymer-framed handguns were becoming a known quantity on the market and it was possible to develop ever-lighter handguns in larger calibers to fit the demand that was emerging.
The 2000s was the age of single-stack .380s like the Keltec P3AT and the Ruger LCP .380 was as big of a round as you can get in a gun you could fit into your pocket. But it is less powerful than 9mm and .380 became a lower recoil option for new shooters. The problem is that it was not. The .380 when paired with such small handguns is obnoxious to shoot.
In 2009, Walther introduced the PK380. It was a larger polymer-framed locked-breech design that could best mitigate the recoil of the .380. The PK380 had its quirks but I liked it enough to own one for a time. But it remained one of the few larger .380s on the market until the 2020s.
Now we have guns like the redesigned Beretta 80x, the Sig P365 .380, the Glock 25, and the S&W Shield EZ. These guns have longer barrels for better ballistic performance, a longer form-fitting grip, and more weight to dampen the recoil compared to the single-stack pocket guns. Seemingly in response to these challenges, Walther has revamped the PK380 to become the PD380.
The PD380: Quirks and Features
Picking up the PD380 felt like shaking hands with an old friend. Mechanically, the PD380 is mostly identical to the old PK380. It is a double-action/single-action hammer-fired pistol that can be carried ready to fire with the hammer down. It has the same 3.7-inch barrel that locks into the ejection port of the stainless-steel slide. The ambidextrous lever is slide mounted, where one would expect a decocker safety to be on a double-action pistol. To my surprise, it was still a hammer-block safety only.
Like its predecessor, the PD380 has a polymer frame with an integral section of Picatinny rail for mounting a weapon light. It also has the same ambidextrous paddle-style magazine release at the rear of the trigger guard. But that is where the similarities finally end.
The PD380 incorporates aesthetic design cues from the Walther PDP. The black tenifer-treated slide has similar Superterrain serrations at the rear and the front of the slide. The slide is also cut for Glock 19 sights, although it wears a pair of Walther’s three-dot sights: an adjustable rear notch and a pinned front post.
The PD is also upgraded in capacity. It holds 9+1 instead of eight and it ships with two magazines and a handy black plastic case.
Quick Specs:
- Caliber: .380 ACP/9mm Short
- Barrel Length: 3.7 inches
- Overall Length: 6.5 inches
- Width: 1.15 inch; 0.95 inch slide
- Height: 5.2 inches
- Weight: 1 lb. 8 oz. loaded.
On the Range
On the whole, the Walther PD380 comes across as a real improvement over the original. It is also contesting a growing field of dimensionally larger pistols that can truly take advantage of the .380 ACP cartridge in ways neither pocket pistols nor the shooter that carry them can. To that end, I spent a long weekend burning through three hundred rounds of ammunition through the PD to see how it performs. I also brought along an archetypical pocket .380 in the form of my used-and-abused Ruger LCP so that I could keep things in perspective.
First Shots
My Ruger LCP is one of the handguns in my carry rotation and a recurring character of GMW’s .380 ACP ballistic test articles. It has a long, double-action-like trigger pull for every shot, has a short and narrow grip, very small sights, and weighs in at 14 ounces loaded with an extended seven-round magazine. I started my morning by giving myself a much-needed warm-up with the LCP on a steel silhouette at 10 yards. Lobbing my first seven rounds at the target, I fired as quickly as I could acquire the sights.
I switched to the Walther PD380 and did the same drill, fully loaded with nine-round magazines. Unlike the LCP, recoil and muzzle rise were inconsequential, even when I fired several brands of personal defense hollow points and +P ammunition. The only discomfort to my hands came from pulling the serrated trigger repeatedly over the course of those hundreds of rounds.
Stopping Power
Over the years, some experts have opined that available .380 ACP ammunition is much more potent and effective today than in decades past. Now the .380 is considered an acceptable self-defense cartridge divorced from other smaller calibers. To be frank, that judgment is likely due to the sheer availability of .380 loads out there on the market now. In small pistols, most .380 loads underperform due to a lack of velocity. A larger .380 is the ticket for controllability as well as ballistics, at least in theory.
Since I had my LCP, the PD380, and my Caldwell Chronograph already on hand, I did a quick velocity test using Remington UMC 95 grain FMJ. From ten feet away, I fired five rounds from each pistol. The 2.75-inch barreled LCP gave us an average velocity of 852 feet per second. The Walther, with its 3.7-inch barrel, hurled the same round at 923 feet per second. 70 feet per second more may not seem like much, but at velocities this low, it can make the difference with FMJ let alone hollow points.
Loading and Shooting Impressions
The PD380 is miles ahead in shooting comfort compared to a typical pocket .380, but it was roughly half as intense to shoot as my similarly-sized Walther PDP Compact in 9mm. But shooting comfort should not be the sole criterion for selecting a personal defense handgun. You have to be able to operate it without any hesitation.
The PD380, like the PK, is marketed as a pistol that is easy to shoot as well as easy to manipulate. Some shooters struggle to load magazines or lack the finger strength to rack the slide. Although it would have been possible to up the PK’s capacity even more, the single-stack nine-round magazines are buttery to load those first rounds. A little more thumb was needed to get that ninth round into these new magazines. The PD is just as charming to chamber. With the magazine inserted, racking the slide took as little as my thumb and index finger. The Superterrain serrations give plenty of purchase if you need it.
Safety Operation
The safety gives you the option to carry the PD380 with the hammer cocked, but the safety only blocks the firing pin. It does not deactivate the trigger. By far the best way to carry the pistol is with the hammer down, but the PD380 can be a challenge to shoot since it is double-action/single-action. A long pull of the trigger can fire the pistol and the slide automatically recocks the pistol for lighter, subsequent trigger pulls. The PD380’s double-action pull is a smooth and safe eight pounds and in single-action, the trigger snaps at four-and-a-half pounds with a quarter-inch of rearward travel.
Accuracy and Reliability
In terms of accuracy, I could reliably put five rounds into a four-inch cluster at ten yards offhand. Most of the shooting was done with Sellier & Bellot and Remington FMJ. I also fired defensive ammo ranging from Federal Punch 85-grain to Remington Golden Saber 102-grain jacketed hollow-points. I even fired a few boxes of some Underwood 90-grain XTP +P ammo. All ammunition cycled perfectly but I could not get any to break that four-inch glass ceiling.
One problem I did run into during my time with the PD380 was that I had the magazine become unseated while firing the pistol. I quickly realized that my meaty hands were crowding the magazine release lever, causing me to depress the release when the pistol recoiled. It happened twice during my first outing but did not reoccur.
A Swing and a Very Near Miss
The Walther PD380 is a hand-filling pistol that is easy to load, easy to rack, and easy to shoot. Aside from my bobbling the magazine release at times, it delivered an excellent performance. If you have looked into the PK380 recently, chances are that you will like the PD380 even better. It is easier to handle than a compact 9mm and it enjoys a handling and power advantage a typical pocket .380 can’t match.
As I shot the PD380, I could immediately tell it was a better gun compared to those options; options that I had become accustomed to. But as the ammo ran dry, I realized that, as ahead of the curve as Walther was with the PK380, the market has since caught up and a modest redesign will not satisfy all shooters.
The PD380, and the PK380 before it, echo what the S&W EZ would become. It is an easy-to-load and rack option. It is also a single-stack pistol that does not have an external hammer and comes with or without a manual safety, but compromises by giving us a grip safety. Given that a pistol of this size and caliber is so friendly to newer shooters, I didn’t cotton to the idea of having a hammer block safety and needing to pull the trigger on a live round to decock the PD380.
