riff, Karl Rohrbaugh was quoted as saying " our first gun was a .380...we were learning. but when i saw the seecamp .380, i knew ours had to be a 9. ". Now when I asked Karl this his response was that the .380 was a "totaly differant design, striker fired", but admitted that the day he recieved approval for the last of patents, in the mail with it was a well known gun publication that featured the new .380 Seecamp. According to Karl, He promptly $hitcanned the .380 and went to work on the 9mm we all know and love today, after calling Mr. Seecamp himself and saying, " Thanks alot Larry!"
Now, Anyone can reaserch patents and in doing so learn who applied for them, when and if they were issued, and more importantly who LICENSED said patents to others.
With that in mind, It seems two things are evident. Either the 9mm design was developed VERY quickly and brought to auto cad files, or the .380 design was MODIFIED to accept a 9mm.
Only the bros R and Larry Seecamp will ever know for sure what exactly IF ANYTHING was said and or agreed upon between the two, and only Rohrbaugh can confirm or deny the theory that the .380 was modified into a 9mm.
That being said its a theory I happen to agree with, and would explain why thier have been "issues" with the PUPS.
Some have said quote: "Its great to sell a micro pistol for $1000.00 m.s.r. but ya gotta have an angle! Karls was a .380 built like a Seecamp, the size of a Kel-Tec, with the Kel-Tec idea of a locked breach. Then Larry trumps it with his own .380 an thier gos that idea so the gun is made into 9mm. Its designed around 33000 c.u.p.s max so standard American made ammo should work, if some pressures bled off with an elongated free-bore" end quote. This would explain the no +P rule, and absence of .40 S&W or .357 Sig cal offerings).
Now Let me say this before im flamed: I LOVE my pup NOW that its been modified to work reliably. I had a .380 Seecamp that was fine, but it was just to small to grip for me and that magazine safety along with the joy of takedown just wasnt up to par with the pup and its ergonomic feel and 9mm calibre but these guns have issues. The older Farmingdale models seem to be more reliable with thier increased freebore but now with talk of ammo specificaly tailored to the pups that SHOULD bring the rest of them up to snuff. The pups recoil is at the very limits of what a human can suppress and provide a steady platform for, and normally suited to those with large boney hand structure. When slide momentum density is increased this often results in misdiagnosis of limpwristing. One way to combat this is by using ultra light bullets. I have been unable to locate Aguila ammo so I use a modified pup.
Im sure the .380 version will be much more reliable.