Smith & Wesson .380 Bodyguard 2.0 Micro Pistol: Concealed Carry

Smith & Wesson's micro .380 pistol gets a major makeover, and the result is a much better carry gun.

April 08, 2025 By J. Scott Rupp

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Not long after I received a sample of the Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 2.0 last year, I was reading an article in a gun-industry trade publication discussing prevailing handgun sales trends. The piece was commenting on the flat sales many gun shops were experiencing, but it singled out a few pistols that were bucking the trend. One shop cited Smith & Wesson’s .380-chambered Bodyguard 2.0, and now that I’ve had a chance to shoot and carry this gun, I can see why.

The original Bodyguard has been with us for about a decade now, so a refresh was inevitable. But even Smith & Wesson didn’t expect the path it would take.

As Smith & Wesson’s Vince Perreault explained, in 2021 the company was doing an insight survey on its hardcore consumers. While the survey focused on duty guns, it unearthed the fact that this target audience all carried micro-compacts as well.

The revelation led the company to embark on a whole new study, and the resulting feedback from this particular group of shooters found the original Bodyguard lacking—to put it mildly: The trigger sucked; it didn’t hold enough rounds; the ergonomics were poor; it was no fun to shoot.

Customer Feedback

The 2.0 has a significant undercut behind the trigger guard and a more pronounced beavertail, both of which contribute to excellent control. The pistol is available with or without a manual safety. (Photo courtesy of J. Scott Rupp)

As this feedback was coming in, Smith & Wesson was only a couple months out from launching an upgraded Bodyguard—a gun that would not have addressed the aforementioned complaints. So planners scrapped the design, went back to the drawing board and spent two years developing what we now have as the Bodyguard 2.0.

With this background, you’re expecting some big changes, right? The 2.0 has them, starting with the fire-control system. The original was an internal hammer-fired gun; the 2.0 is striker-fired.

“The striker-fired design gives a shorter and more crisp trigger pull when compared to the original Bodyguard,” Perreault explained. “It also gives the consumer a level of familiarity if they’re coming from a striker-fired pistol as their main handgun. We wanted to try to come as close as possible on feel when transitioning to the small Bodyguard 2.0.”

The trigger is the current flat style, with a thin safety blade in the face. I went back and looked at our reviews of the original Bodyguard. That gun had a trigger pull approaching 10 pounds. On my 2.0 sample, the pull averaged three pounds, 11 ounces—a significant improvement. There’s a short take-up followed by a crisp, creep-free break. Reset is nice and short. It’s a bit on the faint side but easy enough to discern.

Ergonomics

close up of pistol serrations — The slide serrations extend across the transition bevel to the top of the slide for excellent purchase. The day/night front sight sports a big orange dot surrounding a tritium vial. (Photo courtesy of J. Scott Rupp)

Capacity takes a huge jump with the Bodyguard 2.0, from six rounds of .380 to 10 rounds with the flush-fit magazine and 12 with the extended mag. This is thanks to a double-to-single, bottleneck-style magazine instead of the old single-stack mag.

Okay, so far two concerns addressed. Ergonomics? I don’t have an original with which to compare the 2.0, but right off the bat I will tell you the new slide serrations on the 2.0’s Armornite-finished stainless steel slide are terrific.

They’re roughly oblong and slightly angled, and they’re nice and sharp. Just as importantly, the serrations continue across a bevel transition between the slide’s sides and its top. No matter how you grab the slide, you’re going to get a solid purchase for either racking or doing a press check.

The grip underwent major changes, too. The original Bodyguard had a 15-degree grip angle, but designers changed the 2.0’s angle to 18 degrees, the same as the company’s larger M&P pistols. There’s a healthy undercut behind the trigger guard for a high hold, and the 2.0 also boasts a much more generous beavertail at the back of the frame. Last, the old finger groove is gone.

Small Size Remains

The texturing is executed in a dual pattern. The sides next to your skin are lightly textured, while the frontstrap and backstrap are more aggressive. So-called indexing pads are commonplace today, and the Bodyguard 2.0 has two textured areas just above the front of the trigger guard to give the shooter a reference spot for the support-hand thumb and an indexed trigger finger.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the micro footprint, although the 2.0 is slightly longer than the original at 5.5 inches long, thanks to the larger beavertail. The barrel is still 2.75 inches long, and it’s Armornite-finished stainless steel.

Gun height is four inches. Width across the slide at the safeties is only 7/8 inch. The grip is just 0.9 inch wide; front to back at its widest point it’s 1.8 inches. Reach to the trigger is about 2.5 inches.

Unloaded weight is an ultralight 9.8 ounces. You’d be hard-pressed to find a centerfire semiauto that weighs less. Of the major makes, Ruger’s LCP and KelTec’s P-3AT—both .380s—come in at 9.6 and 8.3 ounces, respectively, and KelTec’s .32-chambered P32 weighs just seven ounces. Interestingly, even though the footprint is basically the same as its predecessor, the 2.0 is about 20 percent lighter. Perreault said designers achieved this by simplifying the design and also by drawing inspiration from the company’s Shield Plus micro 9mm.

Sights and Safeties

Even though the Bodyguard 2.0 is a small gun intended for use at close range, Smith & Wesson didn’t skimp on the sights. The rear is a broad, 0.19-inch U-notch, and it’s serrated on its rear face to defeat glare. It’s set in a dovetail. Smith calls its front sight the Bright Dot. It features an orange dot surrounding a tritium insert for day/night capability, and it, too, is set in a dovetail.

The Bodyguard 2.0 is available with or without a manual thumb safety, as the TS and NTS models, respectively. My sample was the TS. The safety is ambidextrous and while quite small has a texture that’s coarser than anything on the grip, which is a good thing. It clicks up for Safe, down for Fire, and the movement is positive and crisp. A notch in the barrel hood allows you to judge the condition of the chamber.

The slide stop is serrated, and on this new sample it was quite stiff. The magazine release is a textured oval. It’s not protected by any kind of molded fence save a small ridge behind it, and it actually protrudes above the side of the grip.

I think it’s great, and I’ll get into that more when I discuss the gun’s performance. The release is easily reversible for lefties, to go along with the ambidextrous safety.

Function and Performance

accuracy results chart — (Accuracy results provided by the author)

The Bodyguard 2.0 shot well from the bench at 15 yards, as you can see in the accompanying chart. It didn’t care for the Lehigh Defense XD load, either in accuracy or function. There were a couple failures to chamber with this ammo, both in initial loading and during cycling. This is most likely due to the Lehigh’s aggressive X-shape bullet nose not playing nicely with the 2.0’s small feed ramp.

Everything else functioned 100 percent. In addition to the ammo I shot from the bench, I ran drills with a discontinued Remington load along with the rest of the test ammunition, except the Lehigh.

At seven yards I did Failure to Stop, double Failure to Stop and X drills, as well as one-handed shooting with dominant and support hand only. I drew the gun from two different DeSantis inside-the-waistband holsters: Inside Heat and Slim-Tuk. The Bodyguard 2.0 came through with flying colors. It’s easy to achieve a good initial grip, even with the pistol tight against the body, and that promotes solid first-round hits.

The gun has a great balance between size and power, and it’s easy to control with a firm hold, even one-handed. It points really well for such a small pistol, thanks in no small part to that 18-degree grip angle. I’ve been shooting an M&P compact for years, so the Bodyguard 2.0 was familiar and comfortable to me. Further, even with the flush-fit 10-rounder I could get about three-quarters of my little finger on the gun, and that certainly contributed to the control.

Pros and Some Cons

rear sight u-notch of pistol shown — The U-notch rear sight has a serrated face, and it’s fairly wide—producing a sight picture that’s fast to acquire while still providing good accuracy. (Photo courtesy of J. Scott Rupp)

I particularly like the sights. The U-notch rear is fairly wide, and at least for me it provided just the right amount of space around the front sight. That was true whether I was breaking quick double-taps, transitioning between targets or bearing down to make a precise head shot. In dry-firing in reduced light I found the orange dot on the front sight fast to acquire as well.

Reloads were a mixed bag, and they pointed up one issue I have with the Bodyguard 2.0. I’d noticed from the bench that occasionally the slide would fail to lock back after the last shot with the extended magazine I used for the entire accuracy test. The same issue occurred with the 10-rounder used for the majority of the drills.

Turns out it wasn’t due to the magazines at all but to my thumb putting downward pressure on the slide-lock lever. This was easily proven by shooting support-hand only, where my thumb was on the opposite side of the lever. The slide locked back every time. This was a bit surprising because the lever was stiff, as I mentioned earlier. However, it has a slight shelf at the top, and my thumb was resting so firmly on this shelf that it was pushing the lever down and preventing the slide from locking back every time.

I realize Smith & Wesson’s designers had to walk a fine line between a control that won’t snag and one that’s still easy to operate. Bottom line, though, is the issue I experienced is a function of hand size, thumb length and shooting style, and it won’t be a problem for everyone.

The Brass Tax

The magazine release was fantastic. I didn’t even need to shift the gun in my hand to activate it. All the reloading exercises I did started with the 10-round magazine, recharging the gun with the 12-rounder out of my pocket. The 10-round mag dropped free and easy every time. One caution I’ll add here is that slamming an extended magazine into a gun with a short grip such as this one can pinch the living hell out of the meat of your palm. You’ll do that only once before figuring out that you need to be mindful of it.

Overall this is one of most shootable super-small guns I’ve ever worked with. Years ago I bought a SIG P365, the original micro-compact 9mm, because it carried well and was, at least for me, easy to shoot accurately. The Bodyguard 2.0 is even smaller and lighter, and I found it just as easy to hit with.

It’s also easy to operate. My wife sometimes struggles with semiauto slides, so I asked her to judge the 2.0. She had no issues racking the slide and said she found it easier to work than her current carry pistol, also a SIG P365. She only dry-fired the gun but commented on how much she liked the trigger, although she wondered how easy it would be to deactivate the safety under stress.

As you would imagine, the Bodyguard 2.0 conceals like a dream. I carried it in the aforementioned DeSantis holsters for several days (in the end I preferred the leather Inside Heat). The 2.0 is incredibly comfortable and so light you hardly notice it. All body types are different, and everyone has a favorite carry style, but for me it fit perfectly carried in the four o’clock position. I’d imagine those who prefer appendix carry will find this gun works for them really well.

Pocket Gun?

pistol in holster with spare magazine — The 2.0 carried great for Rupp in a DeSantis Inside Heat IWB holster (r.) and that company’s Super Fly pocket holster. The gun comes with a flush-fit 10-round magazine and an extended 12-rounder. (Photo courtesy of J. Scott Rupp)

Is it a pocket gun? You bet. Not to make this all about DeSantis, but I’ve long been a fan of its Nemesis pocket holster that I use with my S&W J-frame snubbie. After I was done testing the Bodyguard 2.0, I discovered that DeSantis had updated the Nemesis with the Super Fly. The 2.0 was one of the fitments, so I bought one.

I won’t go into detail other than to say the Nemesis has a removable outer flap to further disguise a gun’s outline. The Bodyguard 2.0/Super Fly was perfectly disguised carried in the front pocket of a pair of cargo-type pants, with and without the outer flap. The draw was smooth and easy. The outer flap was a little much for a jeans front pocket, but when I took it off, the Bodyguard 2.0 fit easily with just the holster itself. And, again, the draw was great.

I think Smith & Wesson has hit a home run with the new Bodyguard 2.0. Yes, the .380 is not the equal of the 9mm or larger calibers in terms of stopping a threat. But shot placement is more important than power, and I think many shooters will find, as I did, that the Bodyguard 2.0 is incredibly easy to shoot accurately at practical self-defense distances. And its dimensions and light weight mean you’ll love carrying this gun all day, every day.