AMT .380 disassembly?

G

GMAN

New member
I have a AMT .380 9MM Kurz Backup, made in Covina, before it was bought by Galeana. I sent them email, and they have none of the old lititure on this gun. I can't figure out how to disassemble it, I have pushed, pulled, and twisted everything on it to no avail. Any help would be great. This gun is in A-1 shape. TIA Jerry:confused:
 
My mother had one of those. What a piece of crap, but I digress...

I seem to recall that there is a pin under the barrel that you have to push out.

I also seem to recall that you had to partially prop the slide open with something to allow the pin to pop free.

Sorry, that's all I can remember.
 
Gman,

Are there any pins in the upper slide or the frame that look as if they go the whole way through, but aren't connected to the trigger?

I seem to recall punching a pin and then having to drive a wedge or block out of the slide...

I'm sorry if I'm being so vague.

It's just been so long...

Hey, is there any way that you could post pictures of the gun, side views? Or e-mail them to me?

That may jog my memory...
 
I've heard tell that all you have to do to disassemble the AMT is shoot it! :D

Seriously, I'm pretty sure there's a pin you have to drive out to field-strip the AMT 380.
 
So my roomate brought one of these guys to me tonight and asked me to help him figure out how to diassemble it.

We could not figure it out. Has anybody else?

Cheers,

MengerFan
 
Hey Menger,

Same thing.

If you can post photos, or e-mail photos to me, it may trigger my memory on how to disassemble these things.
 
Are We a Vague Bunch, or What?

I'll toss in MY partial recollection, here.

Seems you have to take an empty .380 case and simulate a stove pipe condition--Block the slide open with the base of the case between the slide breech face and the rear of the barrel. Then drive out a transverse pin from the slide. This frees the breech block from the slide, so that when you draw back the slide, the breech block will drop free. I THINK this will allow you to run the slide forward off the frame.

This is NOT one of the world's finest firearms designs. Too bad, too--in spite of the reputation, this was a solidly-built little piece, with a convenient safety, and adequate accuracy. I've fired two which were quite reliable. One was owned by the love of my life, and she was really deadly with the thing. Main problems with the design were spotty quality control, and weight. For a pretty compact piece, it weighed a short ton. Also, there was something about the backstrap design that caused the percieved recoil to be very strong. Kind of like the 1934 Beretta. Lots of 9x19 mm pistols, lighter in weight, have less felt recoil.

Best regards,
Johnny
 
Thanks all, for the info, I finally got it apart. This gun is quite amall, shoots really accurate, only drawback is, it ejects spent casings straight back in your face. Thank again
 
"straight back in your face"

HEY! You must have purchased the Crapup that my mother used to own! :) Hers did the same thing.

Actually, I know you didn't, because Mom's is encased in a block of lucite and sitting on the counter at Scott McDougal Gunsmithing.
 
This is an old thread but if anyone is still interested... I have one of these and the advice given to me by a gunsmith was to NEVER disassemble it! Apparently there's some horrible design fault that makes them very difficult to get back together.
Mine is the SA one and I'm not sure if this applies to the more common double action model. At any rate, I just prop the slide open with a spent brass and hose it out with carb cleaner once in a while. Seems to work fine.
Mine is 100% reliable with Federal Hydra-Shoks and Federal ball ammo. Less so with other brands.
I think it's a dandy little gun, built like a small tank and accurate enough for its purpose. It DOES sting a bit when you shoot it though!
 
Keith,

I never had any problems getting it back together from what I recall.

The REAL fatal design flaw, at least in the early guns, appears to have been the safety lever.

The gun would go from safe to fire mode after the lever had been moved through less than 20% of its arc.

My mother's did this. The safety appeared to be more on safe than no, yet it would fire.

Apparently later versions had a change in the design of the safety to prevent this.
 
380 DA AMT backup is not junk

The .380 DA AMT backup is not junk. I carried one for years and it never jammed. If it gets really dirty and dry (sweat can also cause some minor rusting) it might require a second pull to get the cartridge to fire, especially with steel cased russian. Their primers are harder. It feed hollow point just fine.

The take down is a pain and I have only done it twice. Usually you can spray and other wise remove from crud from it.

I never actually fired it in anger, except perhaps to kill a couple of snakes. I carry a keltec these days since it is lighter and marginally smaller.

I had the single action back AMT in .22 and its functioning was marginal and it worked best with hypervelocity ammo.
 
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