In another thread, a fellow was extolling the virtues of a small 25 as a defensive weapon, casually condemning the pocket 380's as too hard to shoot well. I decided to test this. I have a Baby Browning and my "Purple People eater" 380 LCP is the Smallest gun I routinely carry, so I elected to use them as representatives of their respective tribes. The scenario I set up was designed to represent a worse case of an event that happened to me a couple weeks ago at a gas station when a disreputable pan handler approached me in a some what threatening manner. Starting with my gun in a pocket holster and my hand on the gun in the pocket , at 5 yards, I drew and fired as many shots as I could in 3 seconds at the head of the simulated attacker. At 5 yards, an attacker can be on you in a second, but realistically, we cannot draw down on every one who approaches us, so I designed the test with this in mind. Let's look at the target and review how I did.
The white spacers are the 380's, the black are the 25's. Also, one of the 25's does not count--it was just past the beep. Note that 3 of the 4 380's went low, but still would have been wounding shots, the 2 in the neck would have been particularly so. The 4 shots of the 25 resulted in 3 outright misses owing to the small size of the gun--I could only get one finger on it and I had some difficulty getting it out and snapping off the safety. The non-existent sights made it all but impossible to aim the gun, while the dinky, one-finger grip resulted in my pulling the trigger tending to jerk the shots left.
Given the marginal efficacy of the 25, I doubt I could keep an attacker from reaching me were that all I had to prevent it. In the only 2 shootings I know of using a 25, one involved an unarmed subject who remained ambulatory after being shot multiple times and the other involved a suspected drug thief who was executed for her presumed crimes with 2 shots to the back of the head. (and then soaked in gasoline and set afire.) edit. I have since recalled a third incident wherein a gangbanger caught a round in the forehead that failed to penetrate into the brain.. I did not witness this personally but was told of it by an ER nurse of my acquaintance.
Now, to be fair, I have a Beretta 21 in 25 that I can shoot better, but it is larger and weighs more than the LCP! Quite simply, the 25 is a weak reed to lean on. Unless that is all you have, choose something better.