Colt 1908

[Fantasma]

I would only use ball ammo and the one that is most reliable in whichever one you pickup. Its not gonna be a man stopper, you just want to put as many holes as possible into the bad guy...

[Mac Attack]

I sold a Colt Mustang Plus II for $550 and a Colt Mustang Pocketlite for $600 about 6 months ago....in Georgia. Mustangs are great little pistols in the 1911 platform that were easy to carry. I just didn't shoot .380 much and needed the money for other toys so I sold the one's I had left in my safe.

I really like the Colt 1908 for it's simplistic approach to a carry gun. The only safeties are the grip safety and the thumb safety. The 08 is easy to point shoot, thin as a deck of cards, feels great in the hand and is a really nice looking pistol.

If you are looking for something easy to carry I would suggest a keltec P32 over a P3AT. I had a P3AT and thought the recoil was too punishing so I tried it off. I still have my P32 and don't feel undergunned with it. I can dump an entire magazine into my target and then run like hell if I had too.

[tankerman]

Buy the Colt 1908. I've had one for years and love it, very solid and it's a Colt.

[Rudolf the Red]

.25 ACP can be hampered by stout clothing. Weak round. Does anyone even use that anymore?

For that kind of deep concealment, the Beretta sounds good. I had one of those tiny Beretta's in .22 and I loved it. Modern .32 defensive ammo ain't no old *** hardball no more.

Still, .25 is better than nothing, and the design of that Colt is proven.

It all comes down to safety and feel.

[BigRich]

My opinion: the 25 acp is nearly useless as a defense round. It is very low in power and you will need to make a brain shot in order to have a fast effect on the fight. They have a tendency to go under the scalp rather than through the skull. Not good in a fight against a determined aggressor. If you need to go that small, get a Seecamp 32 acp or a Beretta 21A and practice doing mag dumps at very close range, With the Beretta in 22lr you will be unlikely to get any bullet expansion and you might not even want that with the little power you have available. It might be more effective to just use solids, the heaviest you can get to cycle 100% in the gun and practice like crazy with cheap ammo. This will give you the most penetration possible given the low energy package available. A 21A in 22lr is actually pretty effective if you use it like an icepick and let the gas ball from the muzzle blast enter the body cavity. This requires having the muzzle in hard contact with the body of your opponent when firing. Pretty grim stuff. A Colt Pocketlite in 380 will have even more effect. If you can swing it in terms of budget and size look at a Kahr KPM9. Now you are getting into the range where it will leave a mark. The Kahr can be pretty accurate and pretty effective. The Colt 1908 is cute but should be left as a range toy. YMMV.

[tankerman]

My opinion: the 25 acp is nearly useless as a defense round. It is very low in power and you will need to make a brain shot in order to have a fast effect on the fight. They have a tendency to go under the scalp rather than through the skull. Not good in a fight against a determined aggressor. If you need to go that small, get a Seecamp 32 acp or a Beretta 21A and practice doing mag dumps at very close range, with the Berreta. A 21A in 22lr is actually pretty effective if you use it like a knife and let the gas ball from the muzzle blast enter the body cavity. This requires having the muzzle in hard contact with the body of your opponent when firing. Pretty grim stuff. A Colt Pocketlite in 380 will have even more effect. If you can swing it in terms of budget and size look at a Kahr KPM9. Now you are getting into the range where it will leave a mark. The Kahr can be pretty accurate and pretty effective. The Colt 1908 is cute but should be left as a range toy. YMMV.

So you are saying the 22lr will work as a contact wound weapon but the 25acp won't? That does not make any sense.

25 acp - 35-grain Hornady XTP hollowpoint at 1,200 fps from the 2" barrel, compare this to what you get from a 22lr in a pistol, you won't get that velocity from a 22lr unless it's in a rifle.
You can also load the 25acp down to make it subsonic.

[BigRich]

It will probably be just as effective. The difference is that the 22lr is cheaper to practice with. Given the marginal power available shot placement will be critical so practice is important.

[tankerman]

It will probably be just as effective. The difference is that the 22lr is cheaper to practice with. Given the marginal power available shot placement will be critical so practice is important.

Shot placement with a 2'barreled .22lr or 25acp? Have you ever shot one? They are not accurate, you mentioned it once, "contact wounds". Better make sure your gun fires with pressure o n the muzzle.

Biggest difference is, the 25's are jacketed, most 22lr are lead HP or plated. A soft lead HP 22lr is going to have a more difficult time penetrating than a FMJ.

[Cali-V]

When ever this topic comes up I remember being directed to the following... It's on the Seecamp Co. Site, from Larry Seecamp talking about ammo, and the quote is at the bottom of the page...

Shot Placement Trumps All

My advice would be to carry the largest caliber you can comfortably shoot and comfortably carry. That said, all studies show the advantage of caliber is very slight or negligible compared to the benefit of shot placement. Human beings are not Bengal tigers or Grizzly bears. We are comparatively a fragile species, including those human specimens hyped on steroids or having a natural overdose of testosterone.

However, shot placement is supper tough to deliver under a stressful defensive situation. So if you are going to carry a small caliber pocket gun, you really, really need to train...

BTW the above link has some other good info... at least I think so...

[lwk]

I got a beretta 21 a few months ago and love it, the sights suck, but it is fun to shoot. Based on this impression, I bought a beretta 3032 tomcat. The 3032 has much better sights, but the trigger pull is horrible making it very hard to shoot accurately. Both double action and single action are very heavy, but I manage to keep all rounds on the paper at 10 yard, so it is usable.... The beretta 3032 is larger than the other .32 guns. Mines has 100% reliability so far using the factory mag and magtech ammo, but I have yet to try hollow points. I also got a promag 10 round mag which lets you use the pinky which helps keep the gun controllable, but it is not 100% reliable like the factory mag. The beretta is also the only .32 gun that you can get a drum mag for, but sadly not in california.

Clearing a dud or jam in these guns also requires more training as it does not have an extractor and is slower. If you do the typical rack the slide, you will double feed the gun. what needs to be done is to flip the barrel which will throw out the dud, then rack the slide to load in a new round.

[saki302]

Don't bother getting solds in .22LR. In the small pistols, the HP will not expand anyways, works just like a solid

I disagree on seecamp reliability- my .32 has been 100% never a jam or misfire. I do wish it had sights, or at least a front bead. The Beretta is large by comparison- the seecamp is almost like having a .25 pistol that shoots .32, and it's a slick little gun (nothing to snag on).

The P3AT IMO does not kick hard at all. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel my Walther PPK is far more punishing than my P3AT.

-Dave

[Moonclip]

Shot placement with a 2'barreled .22lr or 25acp? Have you ever shot one? They are not accurate, you mentioned it once, "contact wounds". Better make sure your gun fires with pressure o n the muzzle.

.

Some of the better quality guns of this type at normal defensive range use of the handgun, are accurate. The Walther TPH and some of the Berettas come to mind.

[BigRich]

Shot placement with a 2'barreled .22lr or 25acp? Have you ever shot one? They are not accurate, you mentioned it once, "contact wounds". Better make sure your gun fires with pressure o n the muzzle.

Yes, actually I have fired several. I had a Beretta 21A and it would reliably put a whole magazine into a fist sized group right now at 10 feet. My Seecamp 32 can make head shots at 10 yards. The Browning 25 I used to have could hit soda cans at 10 yards. All three of these guns will make contact shots and go bang at least once. I don't have a ready supply of people I can practice making multiple contact shots on.

[QUOTE=Biggest difference is, the 25's are jacketed, most 22lr are lead HP or plated. A soft lead HP 22lr is going to have a more difficult time penetrating than a FMJ.[/QUOTE]

I don't think the jacket will make that much difference. Use solids in the 22lr. You do realize that we are talking about the bottom of the barrel here on stopping power with a 25 and a 22. You are going to try your best and hope you are lucky too.

[tankerman]

Some of the better quality guns of this type at normal defensive range use of the handgun, are accurate. The Walther TPH and some of the Berettas come to mind.

At the "accurate" distance of 10' there is no time to line up the micro-sites that come on these guns.

[jazman]

At the "accurate" distance of 10' there is no time to line up the micro-sites that come on these guns.

Nor maybe any other sights either under pressure at 10 feet...but I am comfortable I could put the majority of the 8 Silvertips into center mass at 10feet with my Beretta Tomcat, which should solve the problem.