I had a customer come in yesterday with a brand new s&w 380EZ. Bought it last week at Academy Sports. It still had shipping lube on it. I showed her how to break it down and cleaned and lubed it for her. We have two of those 380EZ guns in the range rental case. So, while I have no use for them, I am aware of how to operate and clean them and break them down and reassemble them properly.

Range rules are that an RO has to go in to the range with any customer who says they have never shot before, to "check them safe". So I went in with her. She loaded the gun and had a proper grip and stance. She fired one round into the 10 ring at 3 yards. Then she appeared to be struggling to fire a second shot. She put the gun down and said "Something is wrong."

I picked it up, dropped the mag and ejected the chambered round. No hit on the primer. I recharged the pistol and pointed it down range - BANG! Then went to fire a second shot - nothing. Dead trigger. It wouldn't reset. Eject the round - resets the trigger - no hit on the primer - pull the trigger - BANG! Then a dead trigger, again. I advise her to contact Academy. Who will probably send her to s&w.

This is the 2nd 380EZ this month with a dead trigger after the 1st shot. Our range rentals, made in 2020, seem to keep running fine. Anyone else seen or experienced this? The 9m EZ guns have been very problematic. We are on our 3rd example. s&w having replaced the previous two. But we had not seen any issues with the 380EZ till this month. Regards 18DAI

She needs a CS9,3913, etc.

Well.....YEAH!

Junk. I have one. Its a jammomatic. I was reading on one of the Smith forums that the .380 mag has a design defect, Smith knows about it, but they didn't care to fix it.

The EZ guns were thrown together with minimal quality control and design. Junk.

I agree, strongly! The current company posing as s&w hasn't made a gun worth buying in over two decades.

But A LOT of newbs have purchased this EZ crap. So, I am trying to find out if this is a widespread issue and any possible fixes - short of having the owners get in the long line of returns to s&w for warranty work. Regards 18DAI

While I'm not happy folks are having problems with their EZ pistols, the wife took a shine to those last year and we bought one, then she changed her mind later to a customized 3" model 64.

So we sold the EZ before even taking it to the range. Since all she was doing was dry-fire a few times, it was ok, but glad we didn't have to fuss with a lemon.

I guess I'll have to be "that guy" but I bought one when they first came out for my wife. She shoots it well & can run the slide easily. It has run flawlessly. Maybe we're just lucky.
IIRC, S&W had a recall on some of these not long ago. (can't remember why exactly) but mine didn't fall into the certain serial # range for the recall.

I bought my daughter a 380EZ when she turned 21 in November, 2020. I took her to my LGS and let her handle and choose her own handgun after she passed the state CCW course.

My initial assessment of the 380EZ was that it was crap. Everything about it screamed "cheap" and "fragile." She liked the safeties and the "lavender" colored frame. I tried to talk her into something else. No use. We've been to the range several times, and even with lubrication and good FMJ ammo, we've not had a range trip without malfunctions. Failures to feed (return to battery) were the most common. I think the magazine issue theory probably has some merit. Thankfully, we didn't have the dead trigger issue.

I've asked her to let me sell it, but she refuses, so I gave her my S&W 10-5 with 2 inch barrel in .38 so that she'll at least have something reliable in her apartment until we can sort out what we're going to do with the 380EZ (either sell it with disclosure or send it back to S&W). She is very competent with revolvers and likes them.

I can't recommend a 380EZ based on my experience.

I wish she would've wanted a Hellcat, P365, or even a Ruger LCR .38, but those were like finding Oak Island treasure in November, 2020.

That's not good. I was at a local gun shop yesterday and they had a used one in almost mint condition and I thought about seriously getting it. It feels and looks like a great little pistol.

Are the 9mm ones unreliable too?

I guess I have to be the second “that guy”. I picked one up a few weeks ago and have taken it out twice. It has been abso perfect with both magazines - shooting with .380 Blue Dot reloads. Mine was made in March of this year. Agree that it is not something you set up at night admiring, but for $350 it’s a pretty nice little pistol. Looks like they have re-designed the mag followers a couple of times.

That trigger thing sucks sorry to hear! I had one instance of the magazine popping out the last live round and it has gone away after a few hundred rounds. Smith said new springs in mags may help though I haven’t felt the need yet as it runs fine other than that one time.

Overall, though I got the EZ 380 for my mom to shoot, it’s a fun gun and handles well all around, making me want to shoot it more if not for the ammo shortages.

Thanks for the info gents! Much appreciated!

The customer called me today. She said Academy refused to do anything for her - as expected. So, she called the 1-800 number and s&w is Emailing her a return shipping label. She told me she would update me when the gun comes back. Until then she will use our range rentals.

Yes, in our experience at the range, the 9mm EZ is a POS. We had two previous examples sent back to s&w. One for a broken trigger pin, one for excessive FTF/FTE. Both times s&w replaced the guns with new ones. The 3rd example is still in the rental case. It doesn't go out very often - customers prefer the 380EZ.

We have also seen several customers complain about the accuracy and reliability of their 9mm EZs. I shot one of the "PC" EZ 9s. The best it would do, with 115 grain Federal ball, is a 4 inch pattern at 10 yards. Terrible trigger. The customer was an older guy who had REAL Performance Center guns in the past. He was pissed. He said - "So basically they slapped the famous roll mark on this and charged me a premium for it. And its just junk." I agreed with him.

Thanks again! If anyone hears any more about dead triggers on 380EZs, please advise. Regards 18DAI

I bought one fairly early on just to try it out, as I have some relatives with arthritis that can't manipulate most small semi-autos. I had lots of people shoot it, but probably not more than a couple hundred rounds, and we had no issues with it. I do think it is not a gun to run a bunch of rounds through. I'm not saying it shouldn't hold up to periodic practice, but when you design something with super light springs, I wouldn't expect it to hold up well as a range gun.

I bought one to help transition the Mrs into center fire guns. I took it to the range to function test and it had a broken firing pin straight out of the box. To Smith’s credit, they issued a shipping label and had it back within 2 weeks. I honestly had no confidence in it and sold it off without ever firing a shot.

This sounds like the second coming of the 380 Bodyguard when it first hit the market. A not very pretty episode from what I vividly recall.

We've sold a TON of the 380 EZs since its initial release. Yes there have certainly been issues. The thumb safety version's "unintended activation" during live fire. The later safety recall over cracking hammers of EZs (both 380 and 9) made during the much of the year in 2020. Funny that for all of the 380 EZs that we've sold, we've only had one negative report get back to us, and that involved a troublesome magazine (the other that came with that gun was described as "fine").

HOWEVER, last year was not a great year to find, let alone BUY, 380AUTO ammunition. Still sucks today; far worse than 9mm. I suspect that most of the 380 EZs that we sold during last year and into July of this year are still unfired or at least seriously underutilized to date, so who knows how many of those have latent functional issues that are so far undiscovered?

I've accounted it here multiple times; a cracked frame on a Shield, which caused a "dead trigger." I didn't discover the crack directly; I couldn't see it. I found accounts of it online, checked mine with a magnifying glass, and there it was: a crack from the mag release hole in the frame, extending to the trigger slot. It allowed the frame to flex. At the time, every person who reported it, that I could find, had an identical experience with S&W.

S&W had the owner send it in, then S&W sent it to their "met lab," where they determined that the problem was ammunition related. Accordingly, S&W wouldn't honor their warrranty, but offered a "replacement" pistol, each time at a higher cost than retail.

I experienced this problem. I called S&W (mine was a .40 Shield). I was told to send it in, which I did. They sent it to their "met lab," and subsequently said they could find no problem (other than the crack), deemed it ammunition related, and offered me a "replacement" at a higher cost than retail.

When I asked how they determined it was ammunition related, I was told that when they couldn't find a cause, standard practice was to blame ammunition.

You might check the 380 ez's for the same issue.

I'm glad I saw this thread. My wife is having hand strength issues now that she's older. I thought the .380EZ might be a solution, but it's off the list now.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
I've accounted it here multiple times...

I experienced this problem. I called S&W (mine was a .40 Shield). I was told to send it in, which I did. They sent it to their "met lab," and subsequently said they could find no problem (other than the crack), deemed it ammunition related, and offered me a "replacement" at a higher cost than retail.

I was recently at a LGS considering a Shield Plus. While deliberating, I remembered your experience and decided, nevermind - hard pass. I got a P365XL instead.

The P365XL is not w/o its problems. The X-ray3 sights are failing.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...0601935/m/2980005384

I haven't had any issues with the x-ray sights on my legions or P365s. I just don't like them much, because they're low visibility/low observable. Kind of the opposite of what a front sight needs to be.

I left them on my P365's because they're low profile and don't snag in a pocket holster.