The best gun is the one you carry. Regardless of caliber. Reagan was shot with a .22
No, I carry a rat gun.
.380 with ARX rounds.
Can I shoot you with it?
I won’t carry anything lighter than the 9mm. Even that calibre is very dependent on bullet placement.
I finished watching “Godless” from Neflix the other night. A great quote from the character, Frank Griffin..”Aint nothing scarier than a man with a gun. And aint nothing more helpless than a man without one”. :)
Vasily Blokhin
German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP
Blokhin would stand waiting behind the door in his executioner garb: a leather butcher's apron, leather hat, and shoulder-length leather gloves. Then, without a hearing, the reading of a sentence or any other formalities, each prisoner was brought in and restrained by guards while Blokhin shot him once in the base of the skull with a German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistol. He had brought a briefcase full of his own Walther pistols, since he did not trust the reliability of the standard-issue Soviet TT-30 for the frequent, heavy use he intended. The use of a German pocket pistol, which was commonly carried by German police and intelligence agents, also provided plausible deniability of the executions if the bodies were discovered later.
I never had to defend myself from a mouse. I had 458 magnum to pick wild raspberries. A boot works on mice.
A little’s a lot if it’s all you’ve got.
It’s better than nothing but if you ever find yourself in an actual defensive gun use situation, you’ll probably be wishing you had brought more gun and more bullets. That little .25 might make an OK BUG but it’s not really ideal for that either IMO.
It is better than nothing.
It is surprising how many people think differently.
Yes. The issue is hitting the target.
Ian Fleming had James Bond carrying a .25 caliber Beretta early on. The British gun expert Geoffrey Boothroyd wrote Fleming and said the .25 caliber gun was only suited for a lady’s handbag and suggested the Walther PPK. Of course the .380 PPK isn’t that powerful, but it’s a big step up from a .25 caliber.
The .380 Sig is about the same size.
And has a lot more pop.
Have a revolver in 32 S&W long caliber
Use Buffalo Bore +P ammo (100 gr wadcutters at 900 fps)
I have this exact model .25 Browning. It is well made and has never jammed. It remains in the center rest of my car for emergency use. I did buy some new ammunition for it as the cartridges I had were over 40 years old.
“Is this .25 ACP Mouse Gun enough for Personal Defense?”
NO! However it MAY be better than nothing considering that many crimes are stopped/prevented by the presence of a gun. It may be worse than nothing if you have to shoot someone and it makes them mad. A properly placed shot with a .25 can kill so shoot for the head if thing get serious.
Ever so often I carry a nice little Beretta .25. Now I find a Ruger .380 fits just as well.
The Browning Baby is a dandy pistol for the healthy gentleman to carry in a vest pocket during his daily aspirations. Whether on horseback or velocipede, he can be assured of security against dogs and miscreants in auto-mobiles. Until the future brings us personal steam ro-bots and aero-plane dreadnoughts, the .25 caliber pistol is here to stay.
Remember the old HANDGUN TESTS and PISTOLERO magazines from the 1980s? They came about after high dollar guns failed.
The editors often went to Mexico to test their handguns of live pigs. In one, they tested the .25 and a crossbow on hogs destined for market. The .25 to the brain worked well. Restored my faith in small guns after a lifetime of Jeff Cooper indoctrination.
Now, once when I pulled into an isolated I-40 gas station in the middle of the night, I grabbed TWO 9mm high pistols, A Browning Hi-Power and an an Italian version of a Czech 75. when I didn’t like what I saw there.
That said, an old .25 pistol like the Phoenix Arms HP25A weighed 20 oz and was 5.5 inches long and 4.1 high. A modern 9mm Glock 43 subcompact is 18oz (22oz loaded), 6.26"x4.25", so what's the point of .25ACP when you can get a 9mm just as small? And better built?