As much as I just don't want to get into another caliber, when I'm taking my boys to the park on hot summer days I need something smaller and lighter than my beloved Shield. Not a fan of the Kahr PM, plus with the 9mm loads it gets heavy too. (For this purpose)

So anyone hear of any MIM barrel failures or any other problems with recent guns?

...

Me, my wife, my mom, and my aunt all have the bodyguard. Love them. They all shoot them great too.

I was next to a guy at the range who had one, he was letting this girl that was with him shoot it since she had never shot a gun before.  She aimed it and pulled the trigger...there was a very strange bang and she starts crying.  I immediately thought, oh crap the gun just grenaded, but apparently it didn't explode but it did come apart in her hand.  Scared that poor girl to death! The guy then says "it's ok, it does that all the time" ...I almost dropped my own gun.  He said it's done that since he bought it and sure enough it happened a few more times while he was shooting it, talk about a dumbass.  Anywho, I swore after that I wouldn't even shoot next to someone who was shooting one of those.

Now, if they were all that bad they still wouldn't be on the market so that may have been the only one like it.  Still, my confidence is too shaken in that gun to own or shoot one but I'm weird like that.  S&W is a great manufacturer so I'm sure the Bodyguard, despite my misgivings, is a good gun.  I don't care for Kahr and some of the others so when my sister decided she needed something smaller and lighter than her G30 or her Kimber Ultra Crimson Carry II.

We went on a journey to the ends of the universe to find the smallest, lightest, and best overall mini gun in production regardless of price.  We went to every gun store and gun show in the area and we picked up, handled, fondled and inspected every single "conceal" class gun with the exception of the Shield which we could not find one at the time.  Without exaggerating almost every single one flunked the "feel" test, in other words, most  were very uncomfortable to hold and most had all kinds of sharp spots.  Finally we had tried everything except a S&W Shield and a Kimber Solo (both were considered the best of the best at the time and understandably hard to find).

Then, we finally found a Kimber Solo (which had just sold so we were fondling this mans gun - which we apologized for and he said "no problem fondle away lol).  She was the first to pick it up and I knew she liked it because she immediately smiled so that was something since everything we'd handled up until then was uncomfortable.  She handed it to me and I was instantly in love with how it felt,  more like a small, thin 1911 than anything else.

So, after the exhaustive research, both online and in person, and not having a Shield to test, she and I both agreed the Solo was the winner by a landslide.  Finding one to buy turned out to be equally difficult (compounded by the fact she had to have the Solo CDP 'Crimson Trace Laser version') and it took two years to finally get one.  The whole time we had people saying "don't buy a Solo, they won't run, they malfunction constantly" to which I would ask "have you ever owned a Solo?" and to which the reply every single time was "no, but that's what I heard" ...uh huh...

Well, we took it to the range to start the necessary break in period for the Solo (it is finicky about ammo but only because it's designed to be a precision gun) and it would fire a round and hang up...over and over.  She was beyond pissed off so I asked her to shoot while I watched.  As soon as she shot I saw the problem and I asked her if she had disassembled it before we came to the range and she said yes.  I told her the gun was fine, she just had reassembled it wrong and she immediately knew what she did wrong.  She took it apart right there, put it back together the right way and holy cow....that gun shot beautifully.  It was unbelievably accurate and ran like a sewing machine, so much for all the Solo negativity, the gun was and is still today awesome.  The only thing I regret is not buying a second one for myself.

So...long story short, my absolute favorite super conceal gun is the Kimber Solo...don't buy all that negative crap from people who are just repeating what they heard or read somewhere.  Her Kimber shoots more accurately than any gun even near it's size and in addition it's lighter, flatter and as small as any other.  If you have a chance try one out and you'll be impressed.

No problems with my BG380 with over 1,000 rounds through it.

To the poster above, what exactly happened when you say it came apart?

The early version's had a take down pin issue. S&W came up with a fix for it.

That same story has been all over the net for a long time.

A friend bought a replacement barrel for a BG 380 because he thought the barrel had a crack.  After ordering the barrel and getting the old barrel out it appears there is no crack but just a minor casting flaw along a line in the chamber area on the outside cast piece.  The barrel appears to be swaged into a cast barrel support for mounting in the frame and the cast support looks like it could have been a crack.  In this case I think it is just a casting flaw but we went ahead and used the new barrel.

I think the system is workable and definitely a cheaper manufacturing process than machining a  compete barrel and all the intricate machining used in the past.  I think Companies are doing this type of manufacture  to keep the purchase price low and competitive.