Shooting Grandpas Pocket Pistols

[barnetmill]

I’d love to have an Astra 300 - preferably in .32 auto.
No reason except that I like the .32 better than the .380….
I’ve had great experiences with the 400 and 600 pistols- accuracy and reliability.


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I have owned both and I believe that they are worth more way more then $30 and $55 dollar with a military issue holster.

[rintinglen]

I'd buy a wheel barrel full at those prices, but I have never seen them that cheap. They were 69.00 back in the late 80's, jumped up to 89.00 when CCI started making that execrable blazer 9 mm Largo ammo. At the time, 89.00 meant a lot to me.

[barnetmill]

I'd buy a wheel barrel full at those prices, but I have never seen them that cheap. They were 69.00 back in the late 80's, jumped up to 89.00 when CCI started making that execrable blazer 9 mm Largo ammo. At the time, 89.00 meant a lot to me.

My astra 400 would chamber 38 acp ammo. Another spanish 9mm largo pistol with a short recoil system, I had to open the edges of the breech face little. That one not being blow back can likely tolerate 38 super. They used to sell 9mm barrels for that one also.

[barnetmill]

I'd buy a wheel barrel full at those prices, but I have never seen them that cheap. They were 69.00 back in the late 80's, jumped up to 89.00 when CCI started making that execrable blazer 9 mm Largo ammo. At the time, 89.00 meant a lot to me.

Mine were purchased in the early 70's.

[rintinglen]

Back on topic, I dug out my leather working stuff and whipped up a Saturday Afternoon Special holster for my 1903 Pocket Hammer and loaded up the last of my 38 ACP brass. I should be good to go come tomorrow.

[rintinglen]

When you look at this design, you quickly sense that it was a work in progress, incomplete but with promise. It was designed to use the half-cock as a safe, not unlike the Winchester 1894's made prior to the 1980s. There is no safety. What strikes me as oddest is that when you compare it to the Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless, which has both a thumb safety and a grip safety, is why one or the other was not added to the Pocket Hammer.

Both models were designed in 1897, and while the 1900 pattern Colt Pistols (with their 6 inch barrels) had been around for several years. They had been tested and turned down by the U.S. Military, in part because of the lack of manual safeties. You'd have thought that Colt would have tried one or the other of the safeties found on its smaller sibling, but it didn't happen. The 1905 pattern 45 had a grip safety, as did the 1907 but I think it would be 1910 before the large frame Self-loaders would have the thumb safety that makes the 1911 pattern so well thought of. Yet Colt would be making the 1902 and 1903 pattern guns for years after the 1911 hit town, and why they didn't make a 38 Colt version similar to it, I can't say. Perhaps the success of the 1903 32's, 1908 25's and 1908 380 pistols made Colt indifferent to the need to improve the older design. Maybe the upcoming Military trials were absorbing the talents of their engineers, but whatever the cause, these early pattern pistols never achieved the popularity of either the larger 45 frame or smaller 32/380 and 25 frames. In my view, largely because of the failure to update the safety features.