I still remember as a kid staring at the Colt catalog for hours and hours. I loved the blued steel looks of the classic Government Model, the Combat Commander and the Gold Cup. What seemed really neat to me as well was the brand new Colt .380 Government Model, a little single-action .380 that looked almost identical to its big-bore brothers.
However, by the time I was old enough to actually buy a handgun I couldn’t be bothered with something as puny as a .380. I was a man, and men didn’t carry .380s; those were girls’ guns. Sigh. A couple of decades later I came to the shocking realization that small guns actually did have their uses. I have had such bad luck buying used guns, however, that I never gave a thought to the Colt Mustang, as Colt wasn’t making them anymore. Well, they’re back.
Before they were discontinued, Colt offered a number of .380s: the original .380 Government, with a seven-round magazine and 3.25-inch barrel, and the smaller Mustang, with a 2.75-inch barrel and a shorter grip allowing for a 6+1 capacity. The company also offered Pocketlite versions of both models, with aluminum frames. While Colt has plans to introduce a whole modern family of .380s, it has started with the smallest and lightest: the Mustang Pocketlite.
The new Colt Mustang Pocketlite is a small gun, the smallest pistol chambered in .380 I’ve ever shot. It has the original’s 6+1 capacity. With the beavertail it is only about 5.5 inches long, four inches tall and empty weighs a mere 13 ounces according to my scale.
The plastic grips are the fattest part of the pistol at 1.075 inches, and the slide runs .757-inch wide according to my calipers. Its size makes me hearken back to the “vest pocket” guns of ye olde days. Just holding it in my hand makes me feel like I should be gambling on a riverboat somewhere, remembering not to count my money when I’m sitting at the table.
This is a single-action-only pistol, much like Colt’s famous 1911, with a Commander-style hammer and manual thumb safety. The grip angle is similar to the 1911, but unlike the design of the 1911 the safety of the Mustang does not block the slide’s movement.
Due to the size of the gun, the manual safety is, of course, rather small. The action on my safety was a bit stiff, and while I could sweep it off with the side of my thumb from a firing grip with no problem, I couldn’t engage it (push it up) unless I turned the pistol sideways in my hand and used the end of my thumb.
The Pocketlite has no grip safety, and it can be fired with the magazine removed. I was glad to see the pistol comes with two stainless magazines. One of my biggest complaints is pistols sold with only one magazine. The main advantage of pistols over revolvers is their ability to be quickly reloaded, but that point is moot if they come with only one magazine.
Most of my memories of the “.380 Government Model” are of polished blue guns, but bluing does not handle sweat very well at all. While I prefer the looks of blued guns, I think the engineers at Colt did a smart thing by choosing to put out this “marine edition” of the Mustang Pocketlite.
It has a stainless steel slide over an aluminum alloy frame with an electroless nickel finish. Both the frame and the slide have a business-like matte texture that actually aids in gripping, and the flats of the slide have been brushed to a high gloss. The Colt medallions in the black plastic grips are silver as well, and I have to admit this is one sharp-looking gun.
When it comes to the frame of the Pocketlite, yes, it is small. I can get only two fingers on it, and I have skinny fingers. But the grip is the right width for its length, and it just feels right in my hand. The unpolished texture of the aluminum alloy frame actually provides a nice gripping surface front and back. It’s obviously not nearly as secure as checkering, but much better than a polished surface.
The rear sight is a simple blued notch dovetailed into the slide, and the front sight is one piece with the slide. It is a simple, non-serrated ramp, and the two together are similar to the “hump and a bump” sights seen on the original 1911.
I wish the front sight was bigger or serrated, or both, but I do realize this is a small gun designed to be used at spitting distances and will most likely be pointed rather than aimed. That said, with these sights it still can be aimed, and a single-action trigger always increases your hit probability.
The original Colt .380s had a big fan base, but they were not without their problems. Durability was the main complaint, and the engineers at Colt wanted to address that. The cast frame and slide of the original design were replaced in this new iteration with slides and frames CNC machined from solid bar stock. The barrel is CNC machined as well. The plastic trigger of the 1980s version has been replaced with a solid aluminum trigger, which is serrated and anodized.
A feature I was surprised to see on the Colt was the small C clip on the right side of the frame locking the thumb safety in place. A quick check of my history revealed that the original Pocketlites had this clip as well, but I figured that with modern manufacturing Colt should have been able to do away with this oddity, so I called Colt for clarification.
I spoke with Greg Rozum, the director of product engineering. He explained that they deliberately did not change this aspect of the design. Not only did they want the new Mustang Pocketlite to have the same appearance as the retired model, they wanted the new parts to fit on all the legacy (existing) guns. Their plan is to eliminate the C clip from the design in the future and offer a whole family of .380 guns.
While the external appearance of the pistol is the same as the original Mustang Pocketlite, Rozum was quick to point out the improvements to me, such as the slide and trigger changes mentioned above. But that wasn’t all.
“We wanted to re-target all of the nominal dimensions on the design,” he explained. “Our goal was to reduce existing tolerances while improving durability, reliability and accuracy.” Rozum said their breakage goal—rounds fired before something breaks—for the Mustang Pocketlite was 10,000 rounds, with the only maintenance being replacement of the springs every 2,500 rounds because they tend to take a set.