The newest Springfield Armory concealed carry handgun packs everything is righteous and wholesome about their previous 9mm Hellcat into an even more compact .380 ACP package. The Hellcat Micro-Compact OSP .380 ACP retains the stuff that made the original 9mm Hellcat awesome while being even easier to carry and conceal. Despite being not much larger than a teacup saucer, the new Hellcat .380 still manages to carry 14 rounds onboard.
The Springfield Hellcat .380 Brief
Capacity: The Hellcat .380 comes with one 11+1-round flush-fitting magazine and an extended magazine with a small finger rest and a 13+1-round capacity. That's a lot of ammo for such a small firearm.
New Dimensions: The .380 version of the Hellcat sports a slimmer slide architecture than the 9mm version and weights just 16 ounces. It also boasts much tamer recoil and a slide that's easier to rack.
Other Features: The pistol also comes with a pre-cut slide that's ready for a red-dot optic and a small Picatinny accessory rail.
Springfield Hellcat Origin Story
Springfield Armory introduced the Hellcat micro-compact defensive pistol to the American market in 2019. Purpose-designed for the concealed carry mission, the Hellcat strikes a lovely balance between portability and effectiveness.
Since then, Springfield Armory has offered the gun in several different configurations, multiple hues, and a variety of magazine capacities. However, they’ve all been chambered in 9mm Parabellum.
Concealed carry isn’t really a one-size-fits-all undertaking. Americans come in all shapes and sizes, and it is at least theoretically possible to carry a concealed weapon legally in all fifty states. That means there is a real market for guns suited for smaller-statured shooters.
In fact, the argument can be made that smaller folk should be the primary consumers. Nobody in their right mind is going to try to mug some muscular tattooed ex-Navy SEAL who looks like he could bench press a Kia.
True Confessions About Small 9mm Pistols
Hello, my name is Will, and I have a confession to make. I’m a professional gun writer, and I don’t really like shooting powerful lightweight guns. I can do it, of course, and have done so countless times.
However, if given the choice between an extensive review of some ultra-lightweight 12-gauge or a rimfire plinking gun, the plinker gets my vote every time.
I’m 6 feet tall, and I weigh 170 pounds. I am basically a pretty typical American guy; 9mm pistols and 5.56mm rifles are positively recreational for me. A small-frame 12-bore or featherweight magnum wheelgun, not so much. However, there are those among us for whom even that full-figured 9mm can be a handful.
Legendary Austrian firearms designer Georg Luger introduced the 9mm Parabellum cartridge in 1901. It strikes a splendid balance between packability and downrange thump.
More than a century later, this is the most popular handgun load on Planet Earth. We consume literally billions of rounds per annum. In a full-size service pistol, the 9mm is perfect. However, some of the newest tiny micro carry guns can still seem a bit spunky in this chambering. It's not quite like shooting a .357 Magnum J-frame revolver, but if the recoil is too much for someone, it's too much.
Not only is 9mm recoil vigorous in a small, light pistol, but it can also take a little effort just to rack the slide. That's because, tiny micro-compact guns often require more robust recoil springs to tame the round.
That means folks with small hands or arthritis can be at a disadvantage simply making a small 9mm ready for use. Springfield Armory now has a solution.
Springfield Hellcat .380 Details
The new Springfield Armory Hellcat micro-compact OSP .380 ACP concealed carry handgun is the end result of six years of frenetic mechanical evolution. The gun comes standard with Springfield Armory’s superb U-dot tritium night sights. Think of this like a grinning cyclops. Nothing is faster, especially in dim light.
The .380 ACP Hellcat OSP comes with two magazines, one that's flush-fitting and packs 11+1 rounds; the other sporting a modest finger rest and a 13+1-round capacity.
The slide architecture is slimmer than the standard 9mm gun, and the overall weight is only 16 ounces. OSP stands for Optical Sight Pistol: As such, the slide is factory cut to accept most standard micro red dot optical sights.
We outfitted our test gun with the new Shield OMSsc red-dot sight. OMSsc stands for Open Mini Sight Sub Compact, and the sight is both legit tiny and un-killable. It also features a unique, rugged translucent glass chassis that maximizes situational awareness while remaining just cool as can be.
Springfield Armory knows how to make a combat pistol. The slide is billet machined and Melonite-finished. The 3-inch barrel is rifled 1:10" and also sports the Melonite treatment. Melonite is the trade name for a salt bath nitriding process also known as ferritic nitrocarburizing. This process chemically alters the outer layer of steel.
The Melonite process involves dipping steel parts into molten salt baths containing nitrogen and carbon. This treatment forms a compound layer that increases hardness, enhances wear properties, and improves corrosion resistance.
Melonite is also widely used on such stuff as automotive parts and drill bits due to its durability and capacity to withstand high temperatures and abuse.
Dual captive recoil springs wrapped around a full-length guide rod help manage the chaos. This gun is only 6 inches long and 1 inch wide; it feels absolutely tiny up close.
The black polymer frame incorporates the standard Springfield Armory Adaptive Grip Texture that has been field-proven to enhance control, particularly when sweaty, rushed, or terrified.
There is a short bit of Picatinny rail up front for accessories, and the gun incorporates all of the standard Springfield Armory automatic safety systems to include the obligatory trigger blade.
The magazine release is reversible, while the slide lock is left-side-only and flush-mounted so as not to interfere with the draw. There are also nifty little parking pads up front to give you a spot to keep your trigger finger when not actively engaging the threat and to give your support-hand thumb a little extra purchase.
The Hellcat .380: Practical Tactical
I had a standard 9mm Hellcat handy to use for comparison purposes on the range. As expected, the .380 version is lighter and easier to carry. It also does not require quite the same effort to rack the slide. All of the controls are otherwise indistinguishable from the superlative parent gun.
The pistol’s personality is quite refreshing. Typically it takes a little intentionality to run a 9mm pocket gun well. This .380ACP version is much more forgiving.
The smaller, lighter chambering just makes everything more pleasant. However, the real proof was to be found with a female shooting buddy. She is considerably smaller than am I and had previously packed a .22 when out and about on her own. She found this .380 ACP Hellcat to be completely manageable.
As with all Springfield Armory products, do your part and the gun shoots like a laser. It was no great chore keeping my rounds in a juice can lid at typical defensive ranges. Meeting this standard was indeed markedly easier than the same assignment with the 9mm gun.
A Word on Caliber Selection
It has been said that any proper defensive pistol chambering needs to begin with “4.” That may be true if you are a 6-foot 6-inch MMA fighter, or if you lived in the days before top-quality hollowpoint defensive bullets existed.
Nowadays, however, Springfield Armory offers us a pistol that really will carry comfortably in the front pocket of a pair of khakis while still packing 14 rounds onboard. Make those 14 rounds some quality self-defense cartridges, and you can remain quite prickly, thank you very much.
Big honking bullets don’t do you much good if you don’t connect with the threat. The Hellcat OSP .380 ACP is indeed pleasant to run. This provides an incentive to practice, and practice makes you a better shooter, and a more confident shooter.
The gun’s placid comportment also makes it easier to shoot both accurately and well from the start. Hitting with a .380 is infinitely preferable to missing with a .44 Magnum.
I’m a physician. I’ve seen a lot of folks shot. They all seemed fairly miserable. I daresay I have never met anybody bad or hard enough to take a dozen .380 hollowpoints and continue the fight. I do this for a living, and I am completely comfortable packing this gun while out and about where the wild things roam.
When the dust settled on this project, I cleaned this gun up nicely, packed it back in its original box, wrapped the box in paper harvested from old gun magazines, and gave it to my wife as a present.
I have access to most anything that shoots, and I think this is the one for her. It’s not necessarily the most romantic gift she has ever received from me, but I suspect she will get plenty of use out of it. I honestly have no higher accolade.
Performance
| Ammo | Group Size (inches) | Velocity (fps) |
|---|---|---|
| Browning 95gr FMJ | 1.25 | 932 |
| Winchester Kinetic 85gr JHP | 0.8 | 977 |
| G2 Research RIP 63gr Copper | 0.75 | 1274 |
Group Size is best four of five rounds measured center-to-center fired off of a sandbag rest at 10 meters. Velocity is the average of five rounds measured by a Garmin Xero C1 chronograph.
Hellcat Micro-Compact OSP .380 ACP Specs
Caliber: .380 ACP
Action: Semiautomatic Browning Recoil-Operated Cam-and-Locking Block System
Barrel: 3 inches
OA Length: 6 inches
Weight: 16.1 ounces (empty)
Grips: Polymer Frame
Sights: Tritium/Luminescent Front, Tactical Rack U-Notch Rear
Finish: Melonite
Capacity: 11+1 or 13+1 rounds
MSRP: $653
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