YeahGo

I used a very light application of the diamond paste. There's numerous vendors, the product I ordered was named "Tech diamond tools polishing compound" I believe. I'd already tried firing some rounds and had worked the slide manually, so it wasn't difficult to see some of the wear points already starting however faint. The grit I was using was fine enough to create no difference I could detect in slide to frame fit although I wouldn't want to overdo it with 600 grit, even though that's still a very fine grit, but 1,000, 1,200 or 1,500 or smaller probably better if you're going to work the action very much. I began with 600 as a limited STARTING place, similar to removing chatter marks on the inside of a defective manufactured barrel by hand lapping (or fire lapping with lead bullets and very fine lapping compound using a kit like Neco's - sorry, getting off topic). I only did basic disassembly as outlined in the manual, and used a swab and toothpick to apply paste in hard t reach areas. Although I have factory ammo that I've listed above, I plan to load self defense rounds myself using RP cases (for limited use, practice rounds will be more like 3.0 - 3.2 grains), mag primers, W231 powder and Sierra Sport Master 90 gr JHP bullets. I shouldn't list load data because there can be liability concerns, but if a person works up their loads gradually and start with much lower beginning powder charges, I found I was able to chronograph about 1,060 fps and about 225 ft lbs energy using 4.1 grains of W231. The Smith EZ is a locked breech design that can influence both felt recoil and the concerns around the strength of the slide spring. These were chrono'd in 75 degree weather. You can't use primer observation considering the much lower pressure levels the 380 was intended to operate with, so I had to inspect the cases and use the chronograph to help gauge. 380 load data can be all over the page, most loads with that bullet weight and powder recommend a max of 3.2 to 3.6 grains, but the various Speer manuals often show 4.0 grs W231 with their 90 grain Gold Dot bullet, but again, I hope no one intends to start there. The Ballistics101 site does a pretty good job of listing the performance specs that they claim (testing often shows less) for a lot of the commercial ammo, and some of the hotter ammo claims to exceed the specs I listed above considerably, many in the alleged "+P" range. I use undersize dies (about .003 under standard, Lee sells them for the 380) and the Lee bulge buster to help ensure no failure to load considering the lightweight slide spring, although some folks would probably consider that overkill, I do so to help assure the cases are something very close to new factory case specs, and a light crimp on the bullet seated to standard COL. I mostly use RCBS small base dies (undersize) for the semi-auto rifle cartridges I load but I already had the Lee 380 4 die kit that had the factory crimp die that mates up with the bulge buster as the required die.

I suppose this thread may be a bit old by now. Bought a Smith 380 EZ Sept 2020. I tried 4 different factory loads. Rem UMC, Wolf Gold, Hornady Critical Defense, CCI Blazer, most bullets 90 - 95 grain. Except for a few Hornady Critical Defense rounds, all failed to eject, so after about 50 rounds total, I quit testing. I took the gun apart, applied 600 grit diamond paste to the rails, hammer, trigger sear, anything that has contact (you can find diamond paste on Amazon and other places) reassembled, and cycled the action manually about 400 times, taking the gun apart every 200 cycles to reapply paste. Take the gun apart, clean, apply 1,000 grit paste, work the actually manually again about 600 times, taking the gun apart and reapplying paste every couple hundred rounds. The gun is amazingly easy to disassemble, takes about 15 seconds. This might sound like it took a lot of time, but it went pretty quick, you can cycle the action hundreds of times in a matter of a few minutes. I also removed the barrel assembly (flip the slide upside down, falls out in your hand) and scrubbed the barrel and firing chamber out with gun solvent, and used a rotary cloth buffer that I put some tape around as a marker to make sure it didn't go too far into the chamber and touch the rifling, and then used 1,000 grit paste to polish the firing chamber with a drill for about 2 minutes, and also lightly polished the feed ramp by hand. Examine the magazines, and push the follower down to the base of the mag, looking for any point where the follower in the mag "catches" and keep cycling the mag follower at any point where it felt "rough" until it smoothed out. I then loaded 7 dummy rounds (no primer or powder) and kept stuffing them into the magazine and cycling the action manually again, ejecting every round until magazine empty, reload, do it again. I did that about 500 times. Clean everything thoroughly one last time, apply gun oil, retest firing the commercial ammo mentioned above. This might seem like a lot of work, but with the ammo shortage and current prices, it seemed a lot faster and cheaper way to "break in" the action on the gun. Everything ejected as it was supposed to. 300 rounds later, not a single malfunction, and with no intermittent cleaning/oiling. Except the Wolf Gold JHPs, those chronographed at a pretty slow velocity and appears it still doesn't enough energy to action the slide, about half the Wolf rounds still failed to eject. At this point, I'm happy with the gun and consider it very reliable. I plan on handloading self-defense loads to about 240 - 250 ft lbs energy with the 90 grain HP (in my case, Sierra Sportsmasters), there are some reloading manuals that show optimal velocity powders that are low/moderate flash powders that can reach that level without appearing to go into "+P" range.