I actually had 2 of the Astra Cubs (.22 Short only) that I carried for some years. On the Ranch I used to lay under the Tamarack trees and shoot birds out of the tree for the cats. Dad had 20-some cats on the Ranch to keep the rattlesnakes and scorpions in check. It got to where you could not walk out the door with a gun in your hand but you had 6 or 8 cats around you meowing for you to shoot something for them.

I had one of these that I carried all over California in a belly band holster. Even wore it through Disneyland. I wasn't too confident in it but it was better than angry words. One of the ammo companies made a hollowpoint load that had a BB in the nose so they would feed reliably. I pulled the BB out and shot them against a concrete block and they would not expand. I figured with an anemic round like that I wanted penetration anyway. Thankfully I never had to find out if it would work.

I bought this Bersa .22 from Jeff Quinn. It was finicky, only feeding reliably with Remington Golden Bullets. I worked on it a lot and got it feeding with most anything after a couple months. I killed 6 raccoon with it over a month or so. They were stealing our chicken feed. My daughter came to visit and shot it while she was here and when she left, it left with her. If I want to see it I have to go visit her.

I carried the .38 Special Derringer in my pocket or my boot for 8 or 10 years. This was long before Concealed Carry was legal where I lived. But I had a family and felt they were more important. It came in handy several times. Once in a grocery store when the Manager came running past me and yelled for me to help him. We confronted a guy who was shoving cartons of cigarettes into his pants. He had 10 or 12 cartons and was still at it when we ran up. He started getting rowdy and I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket and grabbed the Derringer but did not pull it out, for as soon as my hand went in my pocket he quieted right down.

I had 4 or 5 of these Ravens. You could pick them up for $30 or $40 used. My Dad made me a 45 grain bullet mold for a flat nosed bullet that I used in it. I worked at seeing how fast I could get it going out of the little bitty 2 7/16" barrel. Using Bullseye I got the cast bullet up close to 1100 fps. At that pressure and velocity the primer pocket was completely gone from the .25 ACP cartridge after firing. I shot quite a few of those loads through one and it never loosened up or quit working or blew up. It turned out to be better constructed than I thought!

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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.

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.

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Sincerely,

Hobie

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

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Sincerely,

Hobie

….producing firearms under one name or another

Otony

Bryco and Jennings are two others I remember…

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one day he opened the closet door and the Raven fell out, hit the floor and went off. Shot him through the calf of his right leg. He went to the doctors office in the small town and said that cleaning the wound hurt worse than the gun shot. He sold the Raven and bought a .38 special S&W. He said that if that was all the .25 would do he did not trust it.

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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.

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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But I expect there's little real difference. My first experience with the littlest ACP was also an Excam GT-25. Bought it for something like $60 (hey, it had the box), played with it for a while and traded it off for something unremembered.

I still have a Taurus PT25 tip-up that was Miss Beth's. It's really a decent shooter and great fun with some #3 shot and a shotgun primer. Strangely, the first mold I ever bought was for the .25 along with about 100 bullets cast from it. The seller told me he wanted to be rid of "that finger-pinchin' ess-o-bee".

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.

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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.

Now, get 'em up and firing.

list of brands? My memory, what a pain, and we see them all the time.

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Sincerely,

Hobie

firearm was a Raven which was dropped after several trips to various gunsmiths for repair of the trigger/sear due to wear from lots of shooting by the owner.

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Sincerely,

Hobie

I was wondering how progress was going on that pair. They are very neat! Looking forward to you gettting them shooting, so e can hear your thoughts on them.

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Speaking of wear, I remember hearing of a guy who bought the cheap little 22’s by the ‘case’. He’d take them out to his property and shooot them until they stopped working for whatever reason and just pitch it into the woods and grab another one. I think at the t8me they were around $69. I’m pretty sure he got a discount on the larger numbers.

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Jimenez

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.

cipher on the what to do about the brazing. The first one is functional.

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Sincerely,

Hobie

to pull up the obscure and nail it square on the head. Thanks! That was bugging me with a "Why can't I recall that?" Jimenez... of course.

The gutter grade Davis derringers are also made by a relative of the founder, and AMT supposedly had some connection to it.

AMT didn't make "Saturday Night Specials", but their pistols were mostly not very good. Great ideas badly executed sometimes...the KelTec of their day.