.25 ACP ammo question

The OP asked a pretty simple question. I gave him a pretty simple answer.

There are a lot of simpletons that don't know who this guy is.

cantstop said:

The OP asked a pretty simple question. I gave him a pretty simple answer.

There are a lot of simpletons that don't know who this guy is.

Click to expand...

THAT guy was big dick and he enjoyed killing.

Thank you to all those that answered with constructive responses. I tried to be clear in my initial post that this was not an issue of buy a new gun or better caliber. This is basically an heirloom, and the guy wants to see if he can find modern ammo that would be halfway decent for defense purposes if he ever needed it. The current ammo that he has is old and full metal jacket so I will probably just recommend he gets some Modern Full Metal Jacket. I had done a search and found some new 25 ACP hollow points and didn't know if the newer modern hollow points were any better. It looks like Hornady make some in 25 and didn't know if there is did really well considering they make good stuff. He does have a 9mm and this would just be a backup or just an emergency situation. It doesn't even get shot much. He was just curious about getting some Modern ammo for it to have on hand just in case

TheOriginalMexicanBob said:

Click to expand...

I've got one, just for this reason

eruby said:

THAT guy was big dick and he enjoyed killing.

Click to expand...

Yup. That pretty much sums it up.

50gr FMJ is going to be the best option for reliability, 35gr Hornady's shoot nice - and even group somewhat well considering most .25's are 'mouse-guns'.

My 1908 Colt will eat either with no hiccups, feed beautifully, eject cleanly. In water jug testing, the Hornady's didn't even expand, just deformed.

**And while the .25 may not pack much 'punch', I've YET to find anyone willing to take a magazine to the chest/face.

cantstop said:

The OP asked a pretty simple question. I gave him a pretty simple answer.

There are a lot of simpletons that don't know who this guy is.

Click to expand...

I never saw that picture. Please enlighten us simpletons so we may start becoming all knowing. Better yet...don't.

Magnumite said:

I never saw that picture. Please enlighten us simpletons so we may start becoming all knowing. Better yet...don't.

Click to expand...

My post was directed at the fools that will state that the 25 ACP is a toy caliber and not a serious (lethal) weapon.

Regretfully, I often post before I think. Calling folks fools and simpletons is just plain wrong on my part.

Vasily Blokhin is the hired killer in the photo. Although he was a Russian army officer, his weapon of choice was the .25 ACP German Walther Model 2.

got it...frequently the spirit of some posts are lost without vocal inflections and interaction.

thank you for the positive response

Biggfoot44 said:

Indeed, the above Bauer is a fine high quality piece, that's why I bought one in the day. But when the first subcompact .32acp that cost less than a Seecamo came on the market, ALL .25acps lost any semblance of practicality, and became (occasionally collectable) paperweights .

Click to expand...

Even though I would love to have a stainless Bauer, I just can't bring myself to fully trust a striker-fired .25acp. And over the years I've been flabbergasted by the number of times the lowly .25 has stopped bad people from doing bad things. You know those little write-ups in the American Rifleman and other NRA mags? I've not only read them for years, I've written a number when I worked for the NRA years ago. And I'm amazed then, and now, how many times those things worked! (And not only worked, but put the bad guys in the morgue!)

Jeff Cooper used to disparage the .25 so often in print (and in speaking) that it was clear he hated the guns and the calibers. I had an FFL back then and knew a lot of people in law enforcement. I ordered enough Raven autos for federal agents that I wondered what all the fuss was about. So I ordered one for myself and sure enough, even though it was a striker-fired, it was reliable enough for me to put my faith in it. Then I got its little brother, the Jennings J-22 auto. It, too, was ultra-reliable and never missed a lick. After my second time firing it, I took it home, cleaned it up as I looked at it, I couldn't help but wonder at how a gun that inexpensive could be so darned good. And it was smooth. I don't know what compelled me to do it, but I loaded it back up, pulled the slide back to chamber a round and released it.

*BANG!!*

What the hell? The bullet left a small clean round hole in the wall. I'd just become a victim of my first and only hangfire! I knew enough not to carry the thing with a round in the chamber, but I also knew it had to function well if and when I ever needed it. I still have that little grunt today, but I've never carried it for protection nor have I ever jacked a round into the chamber unless I was at the range.

Now I have a nice little mouse gun collection. There's the Jennings, two Beretta 21s (one blue, one stainless), one Beretta Jetfire and one Davis P-32 which jams repeatedly. To this day I still don't like striker-fired pistols, though I know there's nothing wrong with Glocks and other plastic pistols. I just like having hammers, and though I know that the hangfire happened because of the rim of a rimfire, I still wince when I jack any round into a chamber.

And I never apologize for having a .22lr or .25acp mousegun. When I start reading accounts of them failing to protect their owners, I may change my mind, but until then, I'm good with them.

Sure . Just among my personal circle, there have been two " sucuessful" defensive deployments of .25acp , against rapist and armed robber respectively.

As can be gleaned from said decades of Armed Citizen columns in the American Rifleman the overwhelming percentage of Defensive Uses of firearms don't involve bad guys getting shot . A large percentage of malfactors will break off their endeavors upon discovering their presumably unarmed victims is armed , and additional percentage will break off upon hearing any gunshot vaguely in their direction without being hit . Good guys & gals go home unscathed, chalk up positive results for the Good Guys .

But it takes ignorence, or huge leap of suspended disbelief to rely on a defensive tool with almost entirely psycological value . Had either of the referenced malfactors been more determined, more drunk or stoned , or less overconfident of intimidating their victims, the good guys would have been in much more precarious situation.

Yes , there can be an actual need for a reliable , extremely compact pistol , even at tradeoff of power. Only about 1% of people who think they want one, but greater than zero . And during the era between John Browning's first .25acp , and the Berretta .32acp ( Bobcat , Tomcat ? ) it was indeed a quality .25acp .

And yes during that era ( and even some who aquired their knowledge base during that era, and ignored progress ) lots of Lawmen used .25acp as a BUG . And i deed in that era a quality .25acp was better choice than a Derringer or later mini-revolver . ( Again just among my LE relatives in one jurisdiction just before the dawn of the .32 era would have turned up 3 Colt .25acp, and 1 Fredom Arms mini-revolver . They reported similar practice among their colleagues.)

But the sea change of having exponentially more power in guns equally as small , is of the same significance as antibiotics replacing leaches for treatment of infections .

They don't use leaches anymore? Oh oh, somebody better tell my doctor.

Hangfire? So you pulled the trigger?

Blokhin probably had a larger total count due to the longevity of his career . But Rodolfo Fierro exceeded him on a day by day basis , with more style, and great feats of arms.

Most famously one occasion he set out to execute 300 prisoners . He had them turned loose 10 at a time. If they could run across a field and climb a wall , they could go free , while he fired with a succession of revolvers reloaded by his assistants, and passed to him as needed. Only one made it over the wall when Fierro had to massage his stiff trigger finger . 299 executed on the fly in two hours .

Schipperke said:

Hangfire? So you pulled the trigger?

Click to expand...

I think he meant slam fire.

Cold Steel said:

Even though I would love to have a stainless Bauer, I just can't bring myself to fully trust a striker-fired .25acp. And over the years I've been flabbergasted by the number of times the lowly .25 has stopped bad people from doing bad things. You know those little write-ups in the American Rifleman and other NRA mags? I've not only read them for years, I've written a number when I worked for the NRA years ago. And I'm amazed then, and now, how many times those things worked! (And not only worked, but put the bad guys in the morgue!)

Jeff Cooper used to disparage the .25 so often in print (and in speaking) that it was clear he hated the guns and the calibers. I had an FFL back then and knew a lot of people in law enforcement. I ordered enough Raven autos for federal agents that I wondered what all the fuss was about. So I ordered one for myself and sure enough, even though it was a striker-fired, it was reliable enough for me to put my faith in it. Then I got its little brother, the Jennings J-22 auto. It, too, was ultra-reliable and never missed a lick. After my second time firing it, I took it home, cleaned it up as I looked at it, I couldn't help but wonder at how a gun that inexpensive could be so darned good. And it was smooth. I don't know what compelled me to do it, but I loaded it back up, pulled the slide back to chamber a round and released it.

*BANG!!*

What the hell? The bullet left a small clean round hole in the wall. I'd just become a victim of my first and only hangfire! I knew enough not to carry the thing with a round in the chamber, but I also knew it had to function well if and when I ever needed it. I still have that little grunt today, but I've never carried it for protection nor have I ever jacked a round into the chamber unless I was at the range.

Now I have a nice little mouse gun collection. There's the Jennings, two Beretta 21s (one blue, one stainless), one Beretta Jetfire and one Davis P-32 which jams repeatedly. To this day I still don't like striker-fired pistols, though I know there's nothing wrong with Glocks and other plastic pistols. I just like having hammers, and though I know that the hangfire happened because of the rim of a rimfire, I still wince when I jack any round into a chamber.

And I never apologize for having a .22lr or .25acp mousegun. When I start reading accounts of them failing to protect their owners, I may change my mind, but until then, I'm good with them.

Click to expand...

I have very often wondered at the contempt of modern shooters for the little .25acp. Growing up in Washington D.C. in the 10950's and 60's, I saw a lot of people c carrying guns. Most were small very concealable pocket guns like the Baby Browning, Beretta Jetfire and minx's, Colt 1908 vest pocket models.

In my life I've seen first hand shootings immediate aftermath's and I never saw anyone who was shot with a .25 or any of the small cheap .22 revolvers that were around, still up and moving. This myth that a .25 will just PO someone was in part inspired by self promoted and self inflated people like Jeff Cooper who made his money selling a [product; his training and use of the 1911. His famous statement that "never carry a .25, because you may shoot someone with it and if they find out about it they will be very angry with you" is typical of the gun guru nonsense that abounds.

A .25acp will kill you. When John Moses Browning wanted a small vest pocket sized pistol, he designed the .25acp round first, making it so small, it is the smallest case he could get a center fire primer into. He wanted to duplicate the bnalistics of the .22lr, but with more reliable priming. He then designed the gun mourned the cartridge. John Browning wa s true genius, and he knew just hat was needed. Enough power to punch through the chest wall into the heart/lungs area. The .25acp was never designed for gunfighting, but close range set defense. It odes a very good job of that. If Ian Campbell or Carl Hettenger had a .25 on them, there wold never have been an option fired murder.

I knew a guy named Al. Al was a friend of a friend, and I thought he wa sort off an a$$ hole, but that's another matter. To give Al credit, he was one nth degree black belt in Karate with a case full of trophies from his competition. His day job was a government cubicle cog. One day he gets off the metro at the Silver Spring station and goes to the parking garage to get his car to go home. He gets off the elevator with some other people, and there in the parking garage is some little late teens inner city crackheard with a gun.

All the witnesses say the kid was no oder than 19 or 20 at the most, skinny, about 5' 7 or 8", and holding a shiny little semi auto pistol. Later ID'd as a Raven .25acp. Crack kid tells everyone to toss down their wallets and get back on the elevator. They star to do so, but Al, in some delusion that he's a budding Chuck Norris, goes to kick the gun out of crack kids hand. He misses, the kid doesn't. Witnesses say it was like a fire cracker going off, and Al, all 6 foot 2 inches of him, takes one more step towards the kid and falls flat on his face. Crack kid runs off and people rush to help Al, but Al says "Oh shite' and dies right there. A single round right in the chest at about 6 foot range.

I wish Jeff Cooper had been there that day, so I could ask him if Al looked like he was PO'ed. Idiotic nonsense like the disdain put out for any gun, is dangerous. If it's a gun and goes bang, it can put a bullet in you. Very bad things happen when a bullet penetrates the human body. Organs get puntured. You can die.

The .25acp is a gun, like a .22lr. It can and does kill people on a very regular basis.

While discussing the .25 ACP:

For grins and giggles I had a .25 ACP rifle barrel made for a TC Contender. With a 10X scope, I am able to hit a golf ball at 100 yards approximately 50% of the time. Reading the wind is VERY important as it is sensitive to drift, but fun to shoot.

As stated above a .25 ACP pistol in your hand beats a 1911 under the seat of the car, in your glove box etc.

Good luck

Jerry

The thing about .25acp is not only do they cause a surprising number of DOAs, a bad guy's gotta be thinking: "Okay, it's a small round, but if I take one in the torso, even if I don't die, it means going to the hospital, having a tube stuck down my throat and surgery. Then jail 'cause they've gotta report it."

It goes back to the adage that no one wants to be shot, but it's deeper than that. No one wants a tube down their throat while a doctor digs a bullet out. Then there's recovery (if he's lucky), and then the cops coming in and asking questions. It's a lose-lose situation. I don't mean to say that all this goes through their heads while the crime is going down, but most likely it's part of the things you have to face as a bad guy if the clown you're knocking over has a gat in his pocket.

The real problem with a .25 is if you're in a mass shooting and the bad guy has already ascertained he's not going to be living through it. That's when your pea shooter can be a liability (though not as much as not having one). If someone's yelling "Allah akbar!" and is shooting everyone in sight, Cooper has a point. Fortunately, your chances of being in such a situation is remote. And in any situation you have to weigh the correct responses. Sometimes it's better if you give the guy your money if 1) he has the drop on you and 2) he seems to only want your money and a quick exit. In that kind of a situation, if you're likely to run into such criminals, it may be a good idea to carry two wallets, one with a couple of $20s in it, the other with your credit cards, driver's license and other things you don't want to lose.

In the case of the Beretta .25acp, you've got 8-9 shots in it, which is quite a bit of firepower for such a tiny gun.

cb51 said:

I knew a guy named Al. Crack kid tells everyone to toss down their wallets and get back on the elevator. They start to do so, but Al, in some delusion that he's a budding Chuck Norris, goes to kick the gun out of crack kids hand. He misses, the kid doesn't. Witnesses say it was like a fire cracker going off, and Al, all 6 foot 2 inches of him, takes one more step towards the kid and falls flat on his face. Crack kid runs off and people rush to help Al, but Al says "Oh shite' and dies right there.

Click to expand...

Ouch. Did they ever get the Crack Kid? What happened? Just curious.

cb51 said:

I think he meant slam fire.

Click to expand...

I did. Hang fire is going BANG! some time after the primer has been hit. I've never had one of those, but I've talked to people who have and they say it's an unnerving experience. That slam fire also was unnerving.

Cold Steel said:

The thing about .25acp is not only do they cause a surprising number of DOAs, a bad guy's gotta be thinking: "Okay, it's a small round, but if I take one in the torso, even if I don't die, it means going to the hospital, having a tube stuck down my throat and surgery. Then jail 'cause they've gotta report it."

It goes back to the adage that no one wants to be shot, but it's deeper than that. No one wants a tube down their throat while a doctor digs a bullet out. Then there's recovery (if he's lucky), and then the cops coming in and asking questions. It's a lose-lose situation. I don't mean to say that all this goes through their heads while the crime is going down, but most likely it's part of the things you have to face as a bad guy if the clown you're knocking over has a gat in his pocket.

The real problem with a .25 is if you're in a mass shooting and the bad guy has already ascertained he's not going to be living through it. That's when your pea shooter can be a liability (though not as much as not having one). If someone's yelling "Allah akbar!" and is shooting everyone in sight, Cooper has a point. Fortunately, your chances of being in such a situation is remote. And in any situation you have to weigh the correct responses. Sometimes it's better if you give the guy your money if 1) he has the drop on you and 2) he seems to only want your money and a quick exit. In that kind of a situation, if you're likely to run into such criminals, it may be a good idea to carry two wallets, one with a couple of $20s in it, the other with your credit cards, driver's license and other things you don't want to lose.

In the case of the Beretta .25acp, you've got 8-9 shots in it, which is quite a bit of firepower for such a tiny gun.


Ouch. Did they ever get the Crack Kid? What happened? Just curious.


I did. Hang fire is going BANG! some time after the primer has been hit. I've never had one of those, but I've talked to people who have and they say it's an unnerving experience. That slam fire also was unnerving.

Click to expand...

You're right on a few counts. When I was running the streets of D.C. in my poverty ridden youth, we were some bad boys. Did things I'm ashamed of in later years, and joined the army to get out the old neighborhood. But even in my young gang member days, it was a huge, humongous, no-no to get shot. It meant the law would get you, pure and simple. If you had to go to the hospital with a knife or gunshot wound, you knew as sure as the sun rising in the east the next morning, the cops would be there before the ER docs were done with you, and probably end up in Lorton.

This was even over the fear of dying. Getting shot was bad news, no matter what you were shot with. Didn't matter. You learned very early on that bullet holes in your body meant one of two things, both bad. Cops and jail if you survive, and a pine box if you didn't. Everybody knew someone who had been shot. It was part of growing up. When my friend Eli got shot, he was hit in the stomach with a single .22 round. I asked him much later if he couldn't get out of there. He said" 'no way man. It was like a white hot soldering iron twisting around in my guts." So Eli was still laying there in a tight curled up fetal position when the cops got there. And Eli was a big beefy Irish kid just shy of 6 foot and 200 pound range.

As for a belly gun in a mass shooting. So far there hasn't been but one or two that someone shot back. Here in Texas, the church shooter retreated and fled soon as he started taking fire from the other guy. I can only wonder of people started to shoot back with anything, if it would make a difference. A half a dozen .25 or .22 bullets actually hitting the target may have a effect. Most shooters are cowards by nature and shoot themselves when the cops show, rather than fight it out with someone armed and ready to take them on. In the Florida night club shooting, I can't believe if there were any armed citizens there, they couldn't have found a way to get sights on the guy? Or just one armed person in Sandy Hook, when Adam Lanza was breaking through the door, could've shot back and nailed the SOB?

Man is a very thin skinned watery bag of meat. It doesn't take a lot to do damage. A screw driver will do it. Any kind of small concealable pocket gun that the shooter is familiar with, and has practiced with, should do in a lot of situations.

And no, they never got the crack kid. He was gone from the scene when the cops and coroner got there.

Disparaging remarks about the .25acp are from people who grew up in nice neighborhoods and never witnessed a real shooting in their life, and read too many gun magazines. Or they are some self promoted guru like Jeff Cooper, with something to sell, like their high dollar training. You can go around like some tactical would be hero with guns and ammo hanging off you, for something that may never happen. If you do get caught in a man shooting, do you really think that Glock 26 or Sig 9mm is going to be of much help? In 'Vegas, the shooter was too far for any handgun to reach, and in Texas he had on body armor. So it won't matter what you have under that shirt, your comping from way behind. Far better to hit the floor and find cover and barricade yourself in a corner and see if he comes to you.