Taming the Jimenez JA-380: Smoothing Slide Operation and Curing Slide-Bite

Smooth slide operation is crucial to any handgun, but especially to a small straight-blow-back gun like this one, and it is easy to accomplish. Also, and more important to some users of the JA-380 is slide-bite, and it too is easily cured.

In the two pictures above of the right and left sides, the areas pointed to with red I trimmed and rounded. There was some flaring there that I trimmed off. I used fine emery cloth and my hard-bladed pocket knife for this job. The areas that are marked with blue and light-green, I lightly sanded smooth. I lightly smoothed the barrel by sanding over its entire surface. I took special care when sanding the barrel, and made sure not to remove any more material then is absolutely necessary, as removing too much would make the slide fit looser around the barrel and will effect accuracy.

In the two pictures above, I had to trim and round the edges of the trigger-interrupter notch on the underside of the slide. I mostly just used my knife for this. There was some flaring there, and I simply trimmed it off and rounded the edges. This will need to be checked from time to time, and any further flaring of the metal should be corrected until it settles-in.

The slide comes from the factory with razor-sharp edges on the rear of the slide. Since these are very small handguns, individuals with larger hands and those not used to firing semi-autos, frequently complain of lacerations to the top of the hand in the web area. In the images of the rear of the slide above, I have marked in red the areas that I trimmed and rounded. I took care and made this area nice and smooth. No more slide-bite.

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