Can the 25 ACP be taken seriously?

SAFireman

SAFireman

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After having seen numerous threads about the pocket guns (Colt Vest Pocket, Baby Browning, Walther 9, ect..) I wonder just how effective the 25 ACP really is?

My grandmother carried one on duty as a probation officer (yes, it was her only carry gun, and it was department approved). With all of the 25's floating around, can they be taken seriously? Are they effective? Would a 22 long rifle round be better?

I just ask because there are many times that I would feel less ~obtrusive~ carrying one of the pocket guns that lies flat in the pocket and is teeny tiny.

I do know of several LEO's that carried the 25 as a last ditch 'get off of me' gun, so it can't be that bad....

What do you guys think?
Who here carries one daily?
 
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Lots and lots and lots of people have carried and used them for decades.

But you'll find very few of them posting on the internet.

I will admit to carrying one for a brief time - a Bauer. Good gun, very reliable and "accurate". No longer. I'd much rather one than no gun at all, but just.


Cat
 
For their size, the .25's were preferred over .22's by many because the jacketed FMJ bullet was not nearly as prone to cause malfunctions as the outside lubed .22 bullet was.

Any gun is better than no gun, but with all the .380's around now that are comparable in size I can't see much need for them. I would imagine that there are very few .25's carried as backups for LEO's these days, but I would also expect that quite a few civilians have one squirreled away where it is handy.
 
Serious? Yeah I'd take it serious but.... chances are whoever is shot with one possibly will have time to shoot their (eventual) killer many times.

It will kill, no doubt... but will it STOP in time to save it's shooter from being shot/killed?

Same as a 22..... it will kill... hell, a lot of deer have been shot with 22's.... some drop like they were hit by a pole axe and some run off 50 yards and fall over. You get the picture.
 
The very first murder I responded to involved a .25. The victim was laying on the ground rapidly departing this world. I saw a little dimple perfectly centered on the bridge of his nose. In viewing the scene it was apparent that he had staggered around for a (very) few seconds before collapsing.

If I could count on making a shot like that every time, I'd carry a .25 or .22. Since I'm not that good I'll carry something that allows for a little less precise placement.
 
Daily carry...nope, but I do have a couple of nice Beretta .25s and when I have the rare occasion that my attire precludes carrying anything larger I'll slip one in my pocket...otherwise, I prefer not to carry anything smaller than my trusty model 60.

I know that there are a lot of small, more powerful guns but, since I rarely use these "mouse" guns and they have proven their reliability, I've just never seen the need to purchase anything else for that "rare use" role.

These are nice little hammer fired single action pistols that operate like a mini Browning High Power but with a tip up barrel. It seems they are being replaced with the double action versions that are nice as well but are necessarily a bit larger. I have two of the double action versions in .22 but, since they are rimfire as opposed to center fire (the reason for the .25 ACP in the first place) I prefer to carry the single action "Jetfire". Although my wife has had occasion to carry one of the model 21s (due to being more comfortable using the double action) when she was precluded from carrying anything larger - they also have functioned 100% so far...:D
 
Last year I had a little Walther Model 8 .25 that used to be a backup for a investigator (wished now I had never sold it) and I decided to do a little ballistics test. I compared it with a .22 Long Rifle pistol. At 7 yards I took 4 gallon jugs filled with water. The .22 went through two, stopped in number 3 and flattened right out. The .25 zipped through all 4 jugs and never stopped and I never found it. I did a little digging on the .25 and found a few histories where the .25 dropped more than one person in their tracks. Granted, it isn't up to par with the .380 or the .38 Special, but it beats the .22 and it's better than nothing.
 
Smith357 said:
Though I personally don't carry anything less than a .38. If I get one pointed at me I'm taking it very seriously.
Click to expand...

A close friend spent a considerable amount of time in Vietnam as a member of the 5th Special Forces and one day while telling a "war story" he mentioned, that, in addition to his long gun, that day he was also carrying a 1911, a Browning Hi-Power and a .25 acp. Knowing he was a proponent of the, "If you are going to shoot full size people you should be shooting full size bullets" mind set I had to ask him what was up with the .25? His answer was short and sweet, "Some people don't want to be shot with anything, it just might make them think twice and stop what they're doing."
 
I own a Browning, a Beretta and a Titan in .25 and never carry or shoot them. I did not even buy them. My mother bought the Titan and I inherited it. The Browning was a gun I won in a raffle. The Beretta was given to me by a friend that lost his right to be around guns due to a domestic problem. He could not find a buyer for it.

There is not enough power in one to get me to carry a gun of that size.
 
my dad is 80 yrs. (god bless him), and is still involved in the repo buisness, and never leaves home without his "bauer .25" in his pocket, along with "colt .38 detective special"inside his waste. he's carried the .25 since the early 80's.
 
When I worked as a hospital orderly in the 1970's we had a black guy with a big afro come into the ER. He had been shot center of the forehead with a .25 auto. the bullet pierced the skin and traveled around to the back of his head between the scalp and the skull. There was a slight fracture of the skull at the POI. The ER doc determined that he needed to clean out the bullet path and remove the small lump from the back of his head. The fun began when my partner told him that we were going to have to shave off the afro. He said "You ain't shaving my 'fro." In the spirit of compromise we offered to only shave off half of it. It took the ER cop to calm him down.

Rest of the story: The city police asked him who did him that way and he told them he would handle it. They advised against it but he insisted there was nothing to report. Later that night a DOA showed up shot with a real gun. The city police went to question our superhero and he promptly admitted to the deed. He said "I told you I'd handle it."
 
I suppose it's better than a knife, but it would be just about the last caliber of firearm that I would choose to defend myself or a family member with. Now I know someone is going to say, "there are a lot of people in the morgue that died from .25acp bullet wounds". I would not argue that........ but the purpose of shooting someone is to stop the threat as soon as possible, not to have them die 6 hours or two days later from mortal wounds. IMHO the .25 acp just does not have enough shock power, knock down power, sectional density, or just about any thing a good defensive cartridge should have.

I own a Colt 25acp 1908 Pocket Pistol and I love the little thing as a collectible and to pop off a few rounds once a year, but I would never carry it for a S/D gun.

My .02 cents...........

chief38
 
The biggest advantage to .25 ACP compared to .22LR is reliability, both feeding and ignition. If it were necessary for me to carry a .25, I would be feeding it Hornady 35 gr. JHP/XTP at 900fps which will expand. I'd also practice enough to insure that "minute of eye socket" was my normal accuracy level.

BTW, the only .25 I own is a Beretta 418, the model that James Bond carried before "M" made him switch to the PPK, ostensibly because the Beretta jammed too much.

30132My_Beretta_418.jpg


Now that was truly fiction - this pistol performs flawlessly.

Buck
 
I have a newer Beretta Bobcat .25, also a .22.

I carry the .25 once in a while, just something to dump in my pocket when I'm not going far from my house. There are .32 Autos now a days that are the same size, if not smaller than the older .25 pistols, like the Kel-Tec and Beretta TomCat. .32 ACP has roughly twice the energy of .25.

Again, like was said about the .380........ with guns out there using today's hi-tech polymer techiques, like the S&W Bodyguard and Ruger LCP both chambered in .380, and both micro-sized and very light, there's no excuse now not to at least carry a .380 for times when "deep concealment" is important.
 
Hard to take the .25 as “serious”, but it does beat having no gun at all.

I have my Grandfather’s pre-war Colt .25. Many, many moons ago I used to follow the lead of one of the senior deputies out here and would place that little .25 in my palm under my citation book when I did traffic stops (few guns were smaller back then); of course I also had either a .357 mag or a .41 mag on my hip at the same time. The thought was that if needed, the .25 would keep the BG entertained while I was backing up and grabbing for the real artillery on my hip; never had to use it.

I now also have a L. W. Seecamp in .32. Its only a little better than the .25, but even a little better is better, and I sometimes use it for extreme concealed and I might use it as a backup. The .25 Colt stays pretty much just in the safe.

Oh, I used to have a homicide scene photo of a rather heavy woman killed with a .25. She took a single round through her thick left bicep; it passed through into her chest cavity and came to a rest at her heart (just touching). The report said that she “dropped like a sack of potatoes” – ‘course, I figured it just “scared her to death”, so I wouldn’t rely on this one incident as representative.

Peace,
 
A friend of the shooter told me this story.

A big guy picked a bar fight with the shooter, who put 7 25ACP rounds into his chest, instead of his face. This pissed the big guy off and he broke the shooters back in the fight. All 7 rounds were found lodged in the chest muscles. None penetrated into the chest cavity.
 
SAFireman said:
I do know of several LEO's that carried the 25 as a last ditch 'get off of me' gun, so it can't be that bad....
Click to expand...

My baby Browning came to me from a retired police officer. He really didn't want it any more and he knew I thought it was a cute little gun. He carried it in his pants pocket for many years - always fully loaded with the safety on. (And it looks like it. In those days, nobody used pocket holsters.)

Anyway, his opinion was that if it ever came out of his pocket, he planned to shoot it dry and hope that was enough. It was loaded with Winchester FMJs when I received it. He didn't think talking much about the effectiveness of .25s was such a good idea since one of his colleagues was killed during a traffic stop by a creep with a .25. Not a happy subject.

I think the answer to the question has already been given. If someone is pointing it at me, for sure I am taking it seriously. On the other side of the gun, "It's better than nothing," seems like the best summary. :)
 
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