J D was the father of my college amigo Kirby. Both are gone now, but JD loved his Ravens, and not because he was unaware of better firearms.

The were easy to acquire, reliable, and easily replaced. Pretty sure he tossed at least one into Lake Winnebago. They were, however, fragile when it came to dry firing, and Raven firing pins were expensive for what they were. Well, he was a machinist, so he just made his own.

He handloaded for his as well. W231 behind a homemade swaged soft lead thing using a .22 case as a jacket.

Raven was the father of half a dozen other makers of Zamac framed cheap pistols made in City Of Industry CA.

bit but didn't have much faith in it power wise.

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Sincerely,

Hobie

I w owned sone odd and cheap ones before but the one that sticks in my moms was the cheapest gun I had ever bought. It was an Excam GT-25. About like the astra you posted above, a little single action .25 acp. I paid $27.50 for it and a box of fmj. I found some odd Winchester ammo that was basically a plated lead hollow point but had a bb pressed into the cavity. I guess the idea was it would still feed in cheap little guns and the bb would push itself into the HP to open it up some. It was amazingly accurate and reliable but I still had zero faith in the caliber. Somewhere I read about a ‘face shooter’ and I figure that’s about what this was. I think Jared has a similar model he picked up recently.

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https://facebook.com/M2bKydex/

I had the Beretta with the tip up barrel, I don't remember what happened to it, think I gave it to a family member.

Curiously I also have a Lorcin that I bought, oh...some thirty/forty years ago that's still in the little plastic wrapper and still in the box. I never took it out or shot it. I don't remember why I even bought it, what's puzzling is why I've hung onto it for all these years.

I do have a set of British Transitional revolvers. These were an intermediate step between pepperboxes and Colt style revolvers. Some writing indicates the Brits wanted to make revolvers like Colt's, but were prevented by patents. So they did the next best thing; they used the back end of a pepperbox, converting the barrel cluster to a cylinder, added a cylinder axis pin, a rifled barrel, and a barrel wedge. Mostly all DA only, the trigger pull advanced the cylinder, cocked the bar hammer, and pushed a pin forward to lock the cylinder in place as the hammer fell.

They were also smuggled into the South during the Civil War; there is an excellent nearly-new example in the NRA museum that was confiscated from a Blockade Runner.

On both of these, the bar hammer was cracked, likely from dry firing. Internals were not working and appear to have been 'gunsmithed' by someone without a clue. I have TIG welded one hammer but I am still studying the second one as someone - likely the aforementioned 'someone without a clue' - attempted to braze it. That will have to be removed before welding or a new hammer made. Caliber is about .440" with deep rifling in good shape.

Any further interest, I can post more pics.

kept a .25 in his refrigerator butter dish. Movie: "Dogs Of War".

In my early 20s, I thought that was so cool as to make me get a .25. And keep it in the butter dish. Mine wasn't cheap at all, it was a very well made 1920s era Mann. So tiny even as a .25, it required a delayed blowback, and did the annular chamber rings for that. It came with 2 boxes of Gevelot ammo, Berdan primed, hot, and marked "Produit du France". They worked well together. It also had a near 90 degree grip angle.

Friend of mine carries a Czech DAO .25 as his second backup.