380 Pressures and lower allow for straight blowback guns - anything more you must have a locked breech...

Pinnacle, Sorry to pick a nit,

But there have been several straight blowback 9mms made, notably the HK VP70, P7 and the Steyr GB.
THE VP has a massive slide which uses inertia to remain closed and safe, the P7 and Steyr both use a gas retardation system.
Both of these methods allow for safe function and make for an interesting product.

YOU Are right.... BUT all of the systems use a VERY heavy Slide (VP70 is Roller Locked isnt it?) and the P7 does have a gas system to buffer that power... I dont know anything about the Steyer GB - but I can find out.

Ok I should have said - FOR THE MOST PART - YOU HAVE TO HAVE A LOCKED BREECH GUN FOR 9MM OR SOME SORT OF GAS SYSTEM OR A REALLY REALLY HEAVY SLIDE AND SPRING...)

Ok

Pinnacle,

VP70 is straight blowback, including the Slide, trigger and firing pin it has 5 moving parts, but no rollers, they're in the SL series rifles.
The GB vents gas into the slide into a special shroud and creates a gas buffer, very clever, but a pain to clean. The P7 has an expansion chamber under the barrel and uses a slide mounted piston to slow the slide. All three use polygonal rifling and those that I owned would and will shoot better than 8" groups off a rest at 100M.

Cool

All of the Hi-Point pistols have straight blowback actions .. even the 45 ACP

Well we see how high that quality is....

OK Again - MOST cals over 9mm use tilting locking bbl's

Hi-points...what more can you say, people carrying them...why, because

They are heavy enough they are a dual purpose weapon.

Once you run out of ammo you can throw it at the attacker.

Or when it jams after the first round.

What I SHOULD have said (I do not consider straight blowback pot metal guns real tools) is any reasonable quality pistol chambered for a major caliber has some sort of delay or link built into it - whether it be gas retardation - or a tilting link or some sort of locked breech.

Straight blowback guns in major calinbers - over 9mm - are not normally of high quality and I would not own one on a dare.

Every one should own a hi-point if for no other reason than to show during class. Nobody says you have to shoot it or carry it!

Picked up some brass at the range for comparison.

Right to left:
5.7 x 28 --------------------- .17hmr ---------------- .223 ---------------- .22mag

The GB is the pistol I really wanted back when I was in college. It was the most ergonomically correct handgun I'd ever picked up. For nostalgia's sake I still want one, but not quite enough to pay the collector's price they are now asking.

I had one, but sadly due to a combination of the cleaning problem, it was superceeded by a P7 and I was finally offered enough money to be overtaken by greed.
I've sold a few guns (the wife says, too few), all of which I have regretted after the fact.

there are a lot of good guns out there in 380 - I see a couiple of advantages in it -

it is just shy of 9mm performance with similar weight bullets - we are talking the light ones. It recoils like a cupcake... A bigger gun like a beretta 85 or similar would make a formidable weapon in 380 in capable hands - low recoil - fires fast - holds 13 rounds - hits similar to a 9mm - hey nothing at all wrong with a 380