Can the 25 ACP be taken seriously?

Why not......

beemerphile said:
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."
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Why not just shave a stripe along the bullet path?:D
 
The Kingfish would agree with the .32....

ironhead7544 said:
The 32 ACP and 380 ACP with ball loads show 50% one shot stops. So do 38 Special standard 158 gr LRN from a 2 inch with 55% from a 4 inch.

So, I would say the 25 ACP is a good threat. I would just get one of the tiny 32 ACP pistols if I needed a tiny gun. You can up the stats a little bit with the Silvertip 32 ACP load if it functions in your pistol.
.
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Senator Huey Long (Louisianna) would agree with using a .32. It wasn't a one shot stop though. He ran down a flight of stairs to the ground floor where he collapsed. It took him a couple of days to die, also, but it did do the job. Whether Carl Weiss, his assassin, was stopped with one shot is uncertain because he was shot 62 times.
 
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How does a 3 year old thread come back? I always wonder about that.

I have two comments about the .25 ACP.

First, I carried a Beretta 950 BS in .25 ACP daily for more than a decade. The advent of the CHL law made me less concerned about anyone spotting a gun so I switched to a 642 sometime in the late 90s. Yes, yes, before that I carried a concealed handgun without legal permission - millions of us did that. At no time was a I concerned that
OMG! It's just a .25!
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It was a gun if a gun was needed. That's all that concerned me.

Second, I love to use the phrase that I picked up some time ago and have seen others on this Forum use.
Okay, it's just a .25 - anyone want to volunteer to be shot with it?
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Didn't think so.

Same with .22s.

Sure, there are failure stories, like the pillow absorbing the impact, the head wound that didn't accomplish much - but the fact remains, it's a bullet moving at speed. NOBODY likes to get hit with a bullet - if it's the target's lucky day and it doesn't cause death or severe bodily injury, well, call him lucky - but it's a gun, firing a bullet, and I'm NOT interested in being on the receiving end.

To this day that Beretta is in the pocket of one of my bathrobes and a .22 Magnum derringer is in the pocket of the other one. First line of defense - have a gun!


***GRJ***
 
I remember a homicide that took place in my small NC hometown when I was nine. The shooter walked up to the victim in midday and shot him once with a .25 handgun. Victim immediately went down and shooter fired three or four more shots into him. DRT. The reason I remember this is because my teacher that year was the shooter's BIL. I believe he was sent to a mental facility in lieu of prison. Could be wrong about that..it happened in late 1967.
 
Taurus sells tons of PT25 pistols so the round isn't "dead".

Many people don't know or care about stopping power and just want some kind of small pistol to carry.
 
I have several .25 pistols...

that I sometimes carry as a second gun.

I know several people who know a lot about guns who carry a .25, one of them carries nothing else and he owns a gun shop and could carry anything he can lift. One of my .25's - an Astra-made Colt Junior - was a local street police officer's backup pistol for his career.


As far as "stopping power" goes, I think a lot of that depends on the person being shot and the shooter. I remember a story from WWII told by a young LT of Marines in the pacific who shot a large Japanese infantryman with his .45 pistol....8 times...without putting him down. I guess he had not heard of Col. Cooper...

Aim at the largest possible target and shoot several times.
 
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I like the guns .25's come in. The FN , Colt Vest Pocket. I had a Beretta 950 which was very reliable and Glaser Safety Slugs seemed pretty potent. However, I was shooting one day and using old , left out in the desert sun, plastic shot gun shell hulls. I could hit them every time, but not a one had a hole in it. The plastic got dented, but no hole.
 
I 'spose, but:
Some years ago there was a report in the press of an armed robber shooting a grocery store manager several times as he ran out the door. The manager felt pain and was bleeding.
When the paramedics arrived and stripped off his shirt they started laughing. Seems all the bullets were sticking out of his skin.

I once heard someone refer to the Beretta .25 as a "nostril gun." Meaning, of course, sticking it up the assailant's nostril before pulling the trigger.

Maybe new ammo is more effective, but I side with those who say a 9mm Kurz/.380 Auto is minimum. It it's good enough for James Bond - - -
 
I believe James Bond's PPK is in .32 acp. He had to turn in his favorite Beretta .25 to do so.
 
Sadly last year a police officer in my area died from a single hit with a 25. Hit his carotid in the neck. If it is what you have it can do the job. Every caliber has stories of spectacular stops and failures attached to it. There seems to be a tendency to amplify small caliber failure and dismiss large caliber failures. I shoot and carry a beretta 21 in 25 acp from time to time. I actually shoot it and rapid fire mag dumps at 7-10 yards are held inside a playing card and at 25 yards can hold groups inside the ten ring of a ppc target. Shot placement is king. Hit the right spot regardless of caliber it will work wrong spot same thing for failures. There are lots of stories of 45's hitting people multiple times and not stopping them. Today there are better hideout guns and calibers for sure. But a well placed 25 can ruin an assailants day no doubt
 
My old Titan 25 is pretty accurate. But I always pull the shots a little because of how small it fits in my hand. Either way I get decent groups from it. This was at the typical 21 ft mark.

0222141708_zpsf138aa61.jpg
 
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wow....the zombie thread lives!

I find it hard to believe that I started this thread a few years ago and it is still plucking along.

I was contemplating carrying a Colt 25 ACP vest pocket like the one that my father's mother carried. My sister inherited the little Colt and now it does dresser drawer duty. I don't think that it has even been cleaned in the time that she has owned it. I can only hope that it is well oiled and relaxing comfortably.

I did inherit my great grandfather's Armi Galesi (shown in the pimp gun thread ;) ). I was able to repair the issues that my dad had reported (unreliable feed/extraction, ect). I have now shot a full box of JSP rounds out of it. It is remarkable comfortable to shoot, but just as heavy as my 36 (maybe heavier?). I might carry it one day for 'old times sake', but I never knew my great grandfather, so memories of him have to be relayed by my dad. He was a judge and carried it concealed in a leather glove. Apparently, he was quite a character, but I will let dad relate those stories if he chooses to post them.

Thanks for all the comments so far, it seems that the little 25 has been carried by a lot of different folks over the years, and it can still do the job.....and nobody has volunteered to to stand in front of one for testing.

Keep the stories coming gents :)
 
Two .25 ACP anecdotes from my college days in the '70s

Some great stories here; thought I would pass along two stories about the .25 ACP from my youth.

I went to a small college that had a really good basketball program. One of the best players graduated and was hired as an assistant coach. He was built like a brick house, tough and hard. He was caught in bed one night with another guy's wife or girlfriend and was shot in the heart with a .25 auto at close range. He dropped dead instantly. A buddy of mine was working in the medical examiner's office where the autopsy was done. The ME said this guy was the most fit person he had ever examined, but a .25 to the heart dropped him instantly.

The other story I read in the newspaper in he '70s. A young man was leaving his mobile home for a night on the town. As he descended the steps outside the front door, the .25 auto he was carrying in his front pants pocket fired, the bullet hitting his femoral artery. He bled to death in his front yard. That story shook me up. Now, with what we know about tourniquets, I wonder if he couldn't have saved himself by using his belt to tie off his thigh. But we didn't have cell phones back then and he might not have been able to call for help.

I have the Browning Baby Lightweight .25 Auto my Dad owned. He loved little guns, the smaller and lighter the better. I used to give him a hard time about carrying a small, low powered gun, but at least he was armed. I'm glad he didn't have to use it. My son and I take it out every once in a while and shoot it and swap reminiscences about his Grandfather. It hits steel targets with authority. I enjoy the .25s and am always on the lookout for a Beretta 950bs or a Colt/Asta. They are fun to play with but my Ruger .380 is a lot better choice for a pocket gun.
 
hazman said:
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.
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Hopefully he carries the .38 in his waist. It would be awfully messy if he carried it his waste!
 
poordevil said:
I believe James Bond's PPK is in .32 acp. He had to turn in his favorite Beretta .25 to do so.
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The way I remember it from the Bond books I read in the 1960s was that in "From Russia with Love," his Beretta .25 caught on his clothes and malfunctioned when he tried to shot the Soviet woman with the poison-tipped blade in her shoe.

In the next book, "Dr. No," Bond had been ordered to upgun. The armorer Q gave him a choice of a J frame S&W or a Walther PPK, probably in .32 ACP. Bond carries the Smith on his mission but loses it in combat. Thereafter he uses the Walther.

As I was typing this, I did a quick search to check my memory and found this very interesting site about the guns of 007.

The Handguns of Ian Fleming?s James Bond
 
I have a mini .22 revolver somewhere. A HS .22 mag derringer in GOLD.
Plus a .22 short Astra which is really accurate for a tiny .22.
None get carried any more.
The Bauer I had 30 years back is long gone. After pocket carry on a fishing trip I actually needed it. She was bound up with sand and lint. So I used an axe handle to TCOB. Nothing serious though.
I will keep my faith in a J frame now. 158 GR FBI loads.
Recently I opted to carry an LCP since my surgery requires no belt and it is so flat and light it will do for now.
Serious as a heart attack the .25 will still put a hurting on you.
 
I'm confident that I would take a .25 much more seriously from the muzzle than from the screen of my iPad 2 but no, I don't really take it seriously. For the past 10+ years I've carried a Glock 19 (9mm), 23 (.40), or one of 3 J-frame S&W .38s and realistically .38 Spl is as "low" as I go for CCW except on very rare occasions when I'll carry a Kel-Tec P-32 (yes, I know..."it's only a .32") as it is unbelievably easy to conceal in any situation.
 
SAFireman said:
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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Failing to take ANY CALIBER gun seriously could be a fatal mistake by the one posing the threat.
 
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So after four whole years of talking about this, is there a consensus? Anyone reached a definite conclusion, or does the (yawn) issue need further study and research?
yawn.gif
 
Began LEO in 1962. First service revolver was a .38 spl 4" blued Colt Trooper (used). On the advice of a "Seasoned" Officer I acquired a Browning "Baby .25 acp which I carried in my handcuff pouch and handcuffs in my right rear pocket. In the future after California's "Onion Field" incident I CCW a Colt Agent in my front pants pocket and a hidden handcuff key taped to the rear of my belt.
 
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