Real, genuine, unadulterated stupidity...!

[Texas by God]

I would take a Star PD over any Officers Model- Colt or otherwise. They solved the compact .45 dilemma before it even started. Detonics who?
The machining and craftsmanship on an Astra 400 or 600 is world class work. Check one out sometime if you have doubts.


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[Der Gebirgsjager]

You might try the following link. They have a lot of barrel links. You may find a close match to what you need.
https://www.egwguns.com/1911-parts/s.../barrel-links/

Thanks for the link to the links! I have a couple of the kits they show that contain several links of different sizes that I acquired from Brownell's back in my 1911 building phase of life. Should be no problem to fix this. Going to do so soon, and will post the results.

Well, Gopher Slayer, I'm not going to mount a defense of the Llama .380. I own 5 of them, and they all work just fine. You can buy a lemon in almost any product line including Smith & Wesson and Chevrolet. It sounds like yours had already been tinkered with. The III and III-A models were one of the flagships of their product line, sold thousands upon thousands over many years, so that sort of speaks for itself. There was one significant change which was that the original production had a linked barrel, but that later changed to being a blow back. Mine are 3 of the first and 2 of the second, all work. The sad thing is that since all the good Spanish makers have been out of business for at least 20 years, any of their pistols you buy is likely to be used and what their former owners did to them is unknown, just like this 9mm/38 with the broken link.


Top .380, bottom 9mm 4S Brand grips .380 I made the grips

DG

[rintinglen]

The older, locked breech, 380 Llamas were much better than the later, blow-back ones. My buddy Cole, now sadly passed on, had a 50's -60's gun that ran like a top. IIRC, it was imported by Galef and sons. At the time, I though I'd do well to get some thing similar. But it didn't turn out that way.

Both of the ones that I have had were/are pretty poor. The one I have now, a late production, red box gun from the mid 90s would not feed at all and appeared to have been unfired when I got it. After polishing the feed ramp and altering the feed lips of the magazine, I got it to where it only hangs up on the last round in the magazine. Not exactly comforting, but 7 out of 8 shots work ok.

[HumptyDumpty]

DG, those are some very nice looking grips. Every time I see something like that, I think that I need to take up woodworking. Then I remember that I can't even keep up with my existing hobbies.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

I can't relate to Gopher Slayer's experience at all, but then, all of my Spanish pistols have been Stars. I actually prefer their variation of the 1911 design, in both the BM9 and PD45. I wish they were still in business.

Star pistolas--love 'em! My usual carry pistol is a Star Model B 9mm. Very accurate and reliable, but just a bit more svelte than a 1911. I've got one of the SS model .380s also, and it's a keeper until death do us part! So--you want a good laugh....here's the one I carry (usually). I bought it on Gunbroker about 10 years ago. It was one of those sort of lightly rusty all over pistols. I completely stripped it and cleaned everything. It was fairly presentable, with no pitting, but I found that it continued to lightly rust. The only explanation I could come up with was body heat and humidity from being under a winter coat. So....I polished it down to "in the white" and painted it! The only solution I could come up with at the time, but I've since thought that black hard chrome might have been another option. I used Brownell's Aluma Hyde II, and got the stainless steel grip screws from e-bay. It's quite reliable, quite accurate, goes most places with me in an IWB holster. You won't hurt my feelings if you say that it's ugly.....but like my momma always said, "Ugly is as ugly does." (Sorry Forrest Gump...couldn't resist.)



But, at least the grips are nice. There's a story there......way back in 19hunertand81 I was going through the Colorado School of Trades gunsmithing school, and they had a very active stockmaking section. The students would take some very attractive walnut rifle stock blanks and lay out a stock pattern with a template, then cut away the excess with a band saw. The scraps went into the trash bin, and you know who was there to scrounge the exceptional pieces. There was a great pistol grip maker named Reine Smith in Texas, 4S Brand, now retired, (a year older than me!) who pretty much specialized in grips for Spanish pistols. In fact, for those interested, he is one of the leading U.S. experts on Llama pistol model identification, having a large collection and having made grips for all of them. Since he retired he shut down his web page, but still maintains one for M1 Carbine collectors, and if you can find it there is a link to his Llama model identification page. Anyway, about 2005 I sent off one of the salvaged chunks of fancy walnut to Mr. Smith and received back several sets of nice grips. Yeah...I'll admit it; painted pistol and fancy grips--just another eccentric old gun guy.



Here's the Star SS Model .380.

The Star BM model might be the best of the breed. They were the official sidearm of the Guardia Civil before they followed the trend to plastic. They must have had a lot of them, and all of them must have been imported to the U.S., which made for them being relatively inexpensive. J&G still has them in stock. The first wave of them had the Guardia's property mark on them on the right side of both the slide and frame, but the second wave had the markings removed by a swirl marking. Here's an original and one I built from a stripped frame. I got the frame on Gunbroker and the parts from J&G. I do not advise that course of action, as the one I built ended up costing as much as just buying a complete pistol. As you can see in the photo, the C.G.'s marking is on the frame, but has been swirled out on the slide.


Click to enlarge.

DG

Well, an edit here to explain the extra photos of the BM. I took them to illustrate the progression of applying the stock finish to the bare maple, and was sorting through them for the final photo (top row). Don't know how the extras rode along into this post.

[WRideout]

Nice work, DG. I'm jealous.

I halfway thought about getting a Star BM when they were so cheap. Probably should have.

Wayne

[Battis]

I have a few Spanish handguns and keeping the calibers straight makes my brain work harder than it wants to.
I have an Astra 400 in 9mm Largo/38 ACP. I get a kick out of watching unaware people try to work the slide. Some can't.
I have a Colt 1903 Pocket Hammer in 38/ACP. I use .38 Super brass. Occasionally I ready about people shooting .38 Super loads in those guns (Astra and Colt), and I cringe.
I have an Astra 600 in .9mm Luger.
I have a Star Super in .9mm Largo but it also came with an aftermarket (Korean?) .9mm Luger barrel. Drops right in and shoots well.
I did fire several .9mm Luger rounds in the Astra 400, which is not a good idea.
Great guns, all of them.

[cainttype]

I was never a fan of Llama, and saw too many problems with them too often.
I was very fond of the Star line, though, and hated to see them become history.

The early Stars were what I considered JMB would have drawn up as a 1911 in 1935. By then he’d moved away from sliding triggers to a pivoting type and he never really “wanted” the 1911’s grip “safety” included in any of his designs.
Star’s design progressions eventually eliminated the barrel links (as JMB did with the 1935 HP) and also adopted full-length guide rods.

The last of the Star designs was probably the best of all the “wonder-9s”, if having enough weight to beat a horse to death wasn’t an issue, the 30MI.
The 30MI design borrowed almost every unique attribute from the various “best of the best designs” and incorporated them into one ultimate 9mm after adding a few of their own “better” ideas… Those same guns came through the surplus market here cheap, and it’s a shame they weren’t better known at the time.

If you really want to see an exceptional “Duty Gun” design and are not familiar with the big Star, do yourself a favor and look it up.

[JoeJames]

I have a few Spanish handguns and keeping the calibers straight makes my brain work harder than it wants to.
I have an Astra 400 in 9mm Largo/38 ACP. I get a kick out of watching unaware people try to work the slide. Some can't.
I have a Colt 1903 Pocket Hammer in 38/ACP. I use .38 Super brass. Occasionally I ready about people shooting .38 Super loads in those guns (Astra and Colt), and I cringe.
I have an Astra 600 in .9mm Luger.
I have a Star Super in .9mm Largo but it also came with an aftermarket (Korean?) .9mm Luger barrel. Drops right in and shoots well.
I did fire several .9mm Luger rounds in the Astra 400, which is not a good idea.
Great guns, all of them.

This post excavated an ancient memory. Around 1972 a buddy got in what I think was an Astra 600 kit. Over a few beers we decided to put the thing together. We had no idea of how strong the recoil spring was - no consideration of its being blow back operated. So I've got a pretty fair grip on the Astra and my buddy is desperately trying to push the recoil spring and front cap down on to it.

Warm night - windows open - my buddy lost his grip, and "sprang!" off went the spring through the open window. Never found it.

He ordered another spring and figured it might go together easier if the receiver was in a vice.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

There isn't really a trick to the final stage of reassembly--more a matter of technique. The way I do it is to stand it vertically, put the cap on the spring, then start slow, even downward pressure. Once the cap's locking lugs enter the slide give it a twist and it locks. Sometimes you have to back off and realign the cap's lugs with the slide slots and try again. I think everyone who has never disassembled for the first time gets a big surprise if they don't keep pressure on the cap when turning it!

DG

[Battis]

The Astra 400 that I bought came with a few hundred vintage rounds (I think it was 200 but I'm not sure). Boy, what a deal...except every single "vintage" round was a dud. I salvaged the jacketed bullets at least.
I have an Astra Constable .380 that I cannot get to feed correctly. I bought a second magazine but something's not right. I think it might be the recoil spring but I can't find a replacement.