I refused to do the "fluff & buff" thing on my P3AT when I got it in December of 2005 figuring that the gun ought to work as advertised without a bunch of consumer "fiddling-about." One shouldn't have to patch his brand new tires before they hold air for the first time and one shouldn't have to work on his brand new gun before it will function properly. I'd previously read all that fluff and buff business on the Kel Tec forum but intended to see if the one I bought would ever work properly without it. It took a long time for it to break in and function properly. If I hadn't made a "hobby" out compelling it to smooth up and function properly strictly from firing it would have gone away for I was unimpressed. It initially didn't like the Winchester "white box" flat point fmj ammo at all. It finally began feeding the UMC round nosed fmj load properly after about 400 rounds total had been fired through it. I obtained a quantity of the Spanish Santa Barbara surplus ammunition about that time and fired 100 rounds of that through it and it functioned fine though this ammo had a flat nose. It hiccuped badly again on a box of Winchester "white box" so went back to Remington round nosed ammunition and the Santa Barbara and by 600 rounds it was reliable. My brother-in-law gave me 400 rounds of his .380 handloads, a home cast round nosed lead bullet loaded over a mild charge of Unique. The P3AT ate these up like candy. More recently I tried another box of Winchester "white box" with the flat nose and it only choked once in 50 rounds of the stuff. After about 1200 rounds through it I'm confident that it will work dependably.
Lubrication is apparently very important to proper function with the P3AT. I don't like grease so mine gets machine oil like everything else around here does. Maybe use of machine oil contributed to a longer break in period but I'd have offloaded it rather than put up with nasty ol' grease. It runs great now with a dab of oil. I clean it and re-oil after each use no matter how few shots are fired. That's my habit with all my firearms. I did clean it, dry it, and test it with no oil fairly recently and it didn't like that treatment at all and choked up on me. Lubricant is critical so apply your favorite concoction.
I'd bought a couple of boxes of cheap Wolf fmj round nose ammo with the steel cases at the gun show when I bought the P3AT. These were obtained strictly for the purpose of breaking in the little automatic. These are a complete bust in my pistol. It would not feed them when it was new and I tried some more just the other day and it still will not have anything to do with them. It's a single-shot proposition to shoot the Wolf ammo. The overall length of the Wolf .380 ACP cartridge is a little shorter than other similarly configured ammo but the round nose design seems like it ought to work. It won't in my gun.
I avoid hollowpoints, preferring to go for reliable penetration in marginal rounds like .380 ACP. Here's what I'm using in the P3AT when I tote it.
The Santa Barbara stuff chronographed 1032 FPS from the short barreled P3AT and offers great penetration. It seems to be sorta "+P" in performance. The slightly concave blunt nosed bullet may offer a bit more "splat" when it hits.
