Teeny Tiny Astra Cub .22

This one should be a 1956. I took it to the range a couple weeks back and ran it at 5yds. Very accurate considering the size and sights. In .22 Short.

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Got this for my "just for fun" gun group.



C1 code puts this at 1957, held up pretty well.



After some cleaning and forcing cone filing and polishing (don't dry fire these!!) ,it shoots well and with some extra punchy shorts it will be a great pocket gun for around the property. :D


Any other shorts out there?


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I have that same gun except mine is heavily engraved . Stovepipes every round . It's a safe queen .
 
I'd like to try a little experiment.
1) Find a 22 short barrel and have it reamed deep enough to chamber 22 Longs.
2) Get a spare 25ACP magazine and "pinch" the sides in to make it enough narrower inside to keep 22 Longs centered in the mag.
3) Swap the modified barrel and magazine into the frame of my 25ACP.

It would be really interesting to see if it would work.
Norma makes some 22Long ammo with a 40gr bullet at 1100fps. That's pretty close to 22LR ballistics.
 
Had a couple of those, but now only have “Frazer” .25 (a stainless copy of the little Browning Baby). I’m rather good sized, and could not usually get through a magazine without a miss-feed. Thought that the pistol was defective, but two of a buddy’s grand daughters thought it was “cute” and when they shot it it fed perfectly. If you want to use one as a hide-out, likely will want to see if it is reliable in your hands.
 
I have that same gun except mine is heavily engraved . Stovepipes every round . It's a safe queen .


Mine jammed every round until I realized that because of dry firing, there was a peened area on the barrel face from the firing pin that caught the lead on the round coming up from the magazine. It also kept the extractor from seating in the cutout on the barrel which caused stove pipes too.



Once the peened material was flattened and polished, it works fine.


Just sayin.........
 
Astra made some great little pocket pistols. The pics below are of my mom's "purse gun". I didn't learn that she had it until I was grown and out of the house. It's a .25 acp Astra 200 Firecat that was made in the late 40's as best I can make out. I think one of my uncles got it for mom in the mid-60's.

Don
That little Firecat looks like a clone of the Colt 25 Vest Pocket. Complete with grip safety and everything.

If you really want teeny, the Baby Browning in 25ACP is about as small as they get.

There is a little Walther Model 9 in 25ACP that is just a hair smaller than a Baby Browning, but they are pretty scarce.
 
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Had a couple of those, but now only have “Frazer” .25 (a stainless copy of the little Browning Baby). I’m rather good sized, and could not usually get through a magazine without a miss-feed. Thought that the pistol was defective, but two of a buddy’s grand daughters thought it was “cute” and when they shot it it fed perfectly. If you want to use one as a hide-out, likely will want to see if it is reliable in your hands.
I have a Bauer Brothers stainless copy of the Baby Browning. Mine has been 100% with every brand of ammo I've put through it.
 
Because the 22s are rimfire, they must have a rim. Obvious, right? Rimmed cartridges do not sit right on top of each other. The rims would lock. They must sit in a slant - each cartridge must be slightly forward of the one below it.


With a little bitty Pocket Gun like that, there is not a lot of room to angle the magazine. Using shorts you have room to set them at an angle. The longer 25 ACP, being rimless (all right - semi-rimmed. Sue me) can stack right on top of each other with no problem.


The question that you should be asking is how did Beretta manage to put 22 long rifle in their little bitty pistol. Because nobody else seemed to have figured it out.

I'm going with "they didn't" at least to the extent they were able to with the 22 Short and 25ACP.

Some mices assembled -

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I couldn't find my Beretta in 22 Short, but it's the same as the 25 ACP pictured. The Browning really is life sized. That would have been a great one to upsize to 22 lr. :p
 
I'm going with "they didn't" at least to the extent they were able to with the 22 Short and 25ACP.

Some mices assembled -

View attachment 549874

I couldn't find my Beretta in 22 Short, but it's the same as the 25 ACP pictured. The Browning really is life sized. That would have been a great one to upsize to 22 lr. :p
Not quite following your "they didn't" statement in regards to Beretta.
Because they DID get the 22LR to work in the Bobcat 21A. I just picked one up last week - haven't had it to the range yet...
 
BC38;141341933 Because they DID get the 22LR to work in the Bobcat 21A. I just picked one up last week - haven't had it to the range yet...[/QUOTE said:
I hope you have better luck than I did. The one I had worked better with some brands than others but was not reliable with any brand. In my opinion it was only good for self defense against tin cans and paper plates.
The gun did make 2 people happy. The guy that bought it was happy because he really wanted one and I was happy it was gone. Larry
 
Not quite following your "they didn't" statement in regards to Beretta.
Because they DID get the 22LR to work in the Bobcat 21A. I just picked one up last week - haven't had it to the range yet...

From what I’ve read, the Beretta 21a’s seem to prefer hotter loads like Stingers. Mine feed fine with Mini Mags. I have a box or 2 of Remington Yellow Jackets I’ll try some day.
 
Bernardelli made a 'Baby' Vest Pocket semiauto. Tiny little thing about the size of a Walther Mod 9
The Bernardelli was made in 25acp, 22Short and also .22Long
But no .22LR
That extra bit of length would require a different magazine and then the opening in the frame for it.
Probably not much of a problem in todays mfg' world but back when many of these were designed and made it was a different world in the factorys.

I had a couple of them in 25acp. Not very reliable the ones I had and had a habit of dropping the disconnector free of the pistol when Taken Down.
They are a pain to make from scratch.

The Astra Cub used to be available with a conversion kit 'slide/bbl/magazine/recoil spring'
in either .22short or 25acp. You could swap parts and turn your pistol from one cal to the other.
IIRC the Colt marked version offered the same conversion kits as well.

Missed a chance to buy a PPk in 25acp for lack of cash.
Not really a Mouse size pistol but a rarity in 25's.
Walther even made some Model PP pistols in 25acp
All Pre-War mfg.

Just a CZ45 25acp on hand right now.
 
Bernardelli made a 'Baby' Vest Pocket semiauto. Tiny little thing about the size of a Walther Mod 9
The Bernardelli was made in 25acp, 22Short and also .22Long
But no .22LR
That extra bit of length would require a different magazine and then the opening in the frame for it.
Probably not much of a problem in todays mfg' world but back when many of these were designed and made it was a different world in the factorys.

I had a couple of them in 25acp. Not very reliable the ones I had and had a habit of dropping the disconnector free of the pistol when Taken Down.
They are a pain to make from scratch.

The Astra Cub used to be available with a conversion kit 'slide/bbl/magazine/recoil spring'
in either .22short or 25acp. You could swap parts and turn your pistol from one cal to the other.
IIRC the Colt marked version offered the same conversion kits as well.

Missed a chance to buy a PPk in 25acp for lack of cash.
Not really a Mouse size pistol but a rarity in 25's.
Walther even made some Model PP pistols in 25acp
All Pre-War mfg.

Just a CZ45 25acp on hand right now.
I wasn't aware of be Baby Bernadelli
(Berni Baby? :)). Looked it up on the 'net and it is a smidge bigger than the Walther 9 and just a couple of millimeters smaller than the Browning.
There were so many of these little micro guns back in the day. It is really interesting to learn about them. Funny thing is the only one in recent production is the Browning design by the Bauer Brothers/Fraser and even they quit making them 35 years ago.

That little CZ45 (and it's successor the CZ92) is an interesting little piece. I like that it is DA.
 
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I had a Baby Bernadelli in .25 acp for a few years. Very small and thin and it was my carry gun for a while. But I never completely trusted it. It was reliable but had a pretty short barrel and sort of an odd takedown. Pretty much a copy of the Walther model 9 I think. So when a friend fell in love with it and wanted to buy it I let it go. The Astra Cub is a much more sturdy gun with an exposed hammer and is a better choice for carry than the Baby Browning or Bernadelli in my opinion.
 
The first handgun I ever owned was a Star in .25 ACP. It was chrome plated. It gave my wife some comfort at night when I was away for training exercises when I was in the Army. It was a loud little piece, and functioned well. I used to ride a bicycle to work very early in the morning (around 4:30 a.m.). I worked at an airport, which was outside the city. A pack of dogs began chasing and biting at me when I got to the gate. One round of .25 ACP put an end to the problem.
 
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