Detailed disassembly and maintenance of an inexpensive .380 pistol.

by Mark R. Hollensen

I recently had a customer bring me in a small baggie containing the parts for a Hi-Point CF-380 semi-automatic pistol that had been completely disassembled. His goal had been to replace the trigger and firing pin with new ones. However, once the gun had been taken apart, he could not get it back together again. As with any firearm brought to me disassembled and in a bag or box, I asked at least three times, “Are all of the parts accounted for?” I was quickly told, “Yes, I made sure they were all in there.” For me, missing parts in these types of circumstances is more the norm rather than the exception.

Before I move on, the Hi-Point CF-380 is a .380 ACP with a barrel length of 3.5” and an overall length of 6.75” and weight of 25 ounces. The finish is a black powder coat with chrome slide, the sights are a three-dot type with adjustable rear, and the magazine holds eight rounds with a last round hold open feature.

Once at the bench, I immediately inventoried and placed all parts on a mat and photographed them prior to methodically reassembling the gun. I quickly found that it was missing one critical part (as is the norm) and had a broken magazine catch spring. Once I had ordered and received the missing and broken parts directly from Hi-Point, the gun was ready for the reassembly process. I didn’t find much information about this particular gun concerning disassembly and reassembly and decided a detailed account of this process was warranted.

Since the gun was already disassembled, I decided to reassemble it first and then go through the entire disassembly and reassembly operation to best describe it here.

Read more in the August 2017 issue.

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