“Tag: pocket pistols”

A compact, but familar .380.

Louis Seecamp was an ingenious gun designer from a family of gunmakers. Over the years, he worked on a lot of gun matters, but settled into double-action conversions for .45s in the days when there were no such things available on the open market.

In the early decades of the 20th Century, a number of makers offered a new class of gun called the pocket pistol. These were among the very first semi-automatic pistols ever made and they attracted a great deal of attention. There were many makes offered—Browning, Beretta, Mauser, Walther, Astra Star, et.al., in Europe, but the American makes were fewer.

I recently picked up a gun that establishes just how small a true functional automatic pistol can be made. In fact, this tiny Bernardelli pistol is a fine example of the gunmaker's craft.

The automatic pistol was a new and intriguing device in the early part of the 20th Century. While the first ones may have come from Europe, it didn't take the canny American arms industry very long to pick up on the potential of a quick-to-load handgun that automatically removed and replaced the fired cartridge in the chamber.

Kel-Tec and North American Arms both provide truly pocketable .32 ACP autos for use as back-up guns and for deep concealment.

The Mustang PocketLite proves that Colt can still produce a quality little gun.

Sub-compact .32 ACP pistols are still among the most compact and lightweight backup and hideout guns available. They offer a much better level of stopping power and selection of defense-grade ammunition than similarly sized .22s and .25s. Kel-Tec and North American Arms each provide pistols with a unique set of features, but both guns are reliable and eminently pocketable.

Want a pocket pistol that won’t punish you on the range? Try the LC380.