It’s my understanding that carry licenses valid in LA come few and far between.  Sort of like unobtainium.   Mr. Oscar Rodriguez, our resident imaging specialist, apparently has one or carries on the sly with his “New PL-PRO! 😀” ensemble.  From Everyday Carry.

Personally, I think I’d opt for a .22 over a .25 Auto, but different strokes for different folks.  Oscar’s got a classic Beretta .25 Auto.  Does that make it a Jetfire or a Tomcat?   Whichever, it has what I would describe as a European-style magazine release.  Ugh.

He wrote this about his fancy new light.  Which won’t mount on his old Beretta .25:

Loving Olight’s latest 1500 lumen PL-Pro Valkyrie! Just purchased from Skyben Trade on Amazon.

Krikey. 1500 lumens on a weaponlight?  Maybe for a long gun for outdoor applications.  Touch that sucker off indoors anywhere except an auditorium or an indoor stadium and you might as well just turn on the overhead lights.  Heck, with a tighter beam, he could probably signal the Space Station with that.

He also has a Sanrenmu 710 Pocket EDC Folding Knife (available for $14.99 at Amazon!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

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43 COMMENTS

  1. I can’t get a permit to carry because of my zip code. So when I feel it’s needed I pocket carry a j frame in a pocket holster.

    In the old days I would have preferred .25 acp to .22 lr. The acp had a slight reliability edge over the lr. It may still have one but it’s likely pretty small. As long as you properly load the mags the lr would be suitable in place of the acp.

    JMB designed the acp round to give the same performance of a lr round in a small pistol without the feeding and ignition issues of the lr. In 1905. LR ammo has come a long way since.

    • I’m still going with a .25ACP over a .22LR. There have been numerous credible studies on the ballistic differences between the 25 vs 22 out of Berettas. Out of those short barrels, the .22LR has no advantage. The .25s have a real advantage over the .22s in reliability. There are now rounds out that help the performance of the .25. I do carry a NAA .22LR as my last backup, but it is a revolver and much cheaper to practice with.

      Do I daily carry a .25? No. My mother did start carrying one in her 90s as she could no longer rack a slide easily and could no longer handle the recoil of a .380. She was still carrying it when she died at 103. She started to carry during WWII (WAVE assigned to Navy Intelligence) and it was a 1911. Over the years she downgraded to a 9mm and later a .380 before going to the Beretta .25.

      • I’ve carried both at different times. My thinking is that the lr ammo is cheaper and more readily available. Equals more range time. But I’m not judging any that prefer the acp. I currently own neither in a pocket pistol. But if I stumble across a DA Beretta in either caliber I’ll buy it just for shits and giggles.

  2. I’m guessing Bobcat, due to the hammer being down (the Bobcat being DA/SA while the older Jetfire is SAO). Though that might just be for the photo.

  3. Well ….. cant tell if it’s a Jetfire or Bobcat since I can’t see the trigger guard to see if its DA or SA.

    I would say the 25 has a distinct advantage of 22 long rifle in reliability.

    NEVER has a 22 pocket auto that I would choose to trust my life to. Too much lead and lube exposed. And too much variability between manufacturers in ammo sizing.

    IMO – a pocket gun in 22LR needs to be a revolver.

    What the recoil like on that flashlight? With that many lumens, it must be stout.

  4. 22LR is not permitted for concealed carry weapons in CA. So 25ACP is the bare minimum.

    • There are literally only like 200 carry permits in LA county which has over 10,000,000 residents. There is a good chance this guy is carrying regardless of what the law says.

  5. I carried my Beretta 21a in 22LR back in my NYC days.
    No sense attracting attention to ones self back then with a larger gun.
    It now resides between the cushions of my couch. Its been very happy there for 10+ years. Fired occasionally cleaned and put back.
    Ill take a 22lr ballistics over the 25acp every time.

  6. Aren’t WML’s supposed to be, ya know, mounted on a weapon? Not sure why that kind of light was chosen over a traditional style flashlight. Maybe he has a rail system in his pocket.

  7. The .22 lr tip-ups are like the triangular vent windows in the cars I grew up on. Little but they’ll keep you cool.

  8. The condition of that suede holster does not say EDC to me. My guess is it’s an assembled pic, not a true representation of what one carries every day. As to the Beretta, I’d think a Keltec P32 would take up the same space, probably thinner, with a better cartridge.

    • I’m researching upgrading to a keltec p32 from my current beretta 21A pocket carry. I like the tip up barrel of the Beretta Tomcat 32. But the keltec has more accessory options. Its thinner also. The Tomcat has a history of frame cracking and was recalled. As far as I know the keltec has had a very good history. There lots of youtube video for both.

      • I cracked 2 Tomcats; Beretta sent me a 9000S after that, which I promptly traded for a Kahr P9. Sad about the Tomcats, I really liked them.

        • The Tomcat feels really good in the hand. And I like the tip up barrel. But with a cracking history like that I would not buy one.

    • I pocket carry a P32 with me often, and I am very pleased with it. I did a TTAG review for the gun back in January (I think?) if you’re interested.

  9. Jeez, I thought my 800 lumen TLR-1 HL was too bright. Turning it on can just about initiate a migraine for me. It also wrecks my night vision if it reflects off most anything within 50 feet or so.

    • A lot of these companies still have some work to do on their diffusers. Even if they upped their game in that regard I’d still think 1500L is a bit much for this application.

      That said I love the 6000L my bike lights put out these days, so application is a big part of this too.

      • Geeze, and I thought the 600L my old Cygolite TridenX LED put out was a lot.

        What light are you running?

        • Currently I’m running RedLine Lumtronix Novastar GX’s at 6500K, 3000lm/unit x 2. for 6000lm total output when running highs.

          I’m actually thinking, because of the way the housing is constructed of moving to a set of XKGlow Elite, 6000K at 6000lm/bulb x2 because the way the deflectors are made for that bike brightness will get some more reach (since what you see is 1/r^2 where r is the distance to the object, which has some implications for suppressors and why 90% of people are wrong talking about them too… funnily enough) without blinding oncoming traffic. Expensive for bulbs but cheaper than upgrading the lamps which would require a kit for the whole front end and I just don’t feel the need to rebuild the whole front of this bike.

  10. quote————Personally, I think I’d opt for a .22 over a .25 Auto, but different strokes for different folks. ————–quote

    The Author clearly has zero experience with the small pocket pistols in each caliber. The ignition energy in a .22 rimfire is vastly weaker in a pistol than in a rifle. My own experience has shown that the .22 rimfire, especially in .22 short in very small pocket pistols is an unreliable performer except in some high quality pocket autos using European ammo which is light years more reliable than the unreliable junk that U.S. manufactures are currently vomiting out. The .25 auto has no such ignition problems.

    Also rimed cartridges are also much more notorious for causing jams because of “rim lock” which is the top cartridge rim being locked to the cartridge below it by loading it incorrectly in the magazine. Again the .25 auto being rimless had no such problems. I might add that the .32 acp which is rimmed also frequently has problems of rim lock in the magazine.

    The advantages of the small .25 auto is that its very concealable in the pants pocket and its so small sometimes a person even tends to forget he is armed. Not so with the bigger pistols which are uncomfortable to carry no matter what holster you use and many of the big bore blasters often get left at home or underneath the car seat where thieves get to steal them when you leave your car.

    One danger that Jethro Bodine is unaware of is that when you constantly charge the chamber of an auto pistol with the same top cartridge in the magazine over and over again you loosen up the bullet in the cartridge case that can then be driven down into the cartridge case when charging the chamber which often then compresses the power charge and if you fire the pistol the round can detonate and go nuclear on you. The other danger is that a loose bullet in the cartridge case will let in moisture and any gun oil in the pistol which will cause a misfire by contaminating the gun powder.

    Slipping the loaded round directly into the chamber and letting the extractor snap over the rim even in rimless cartridges can often case the extractor on some pistols like the 1911 to spring out of spec and then cause jams when they are fired. I think the Beretta tip up barrels are a godsend as they let one drop the cartridge right into the chamber without fking up the extractor or loosening up the bullet but the down side is that if you do get a jam the tip up barrel Beretta”s they have no extractor and trying to clear a jam in a shoot out can and probably will get you killed. Fortunately the old line Beretta hand guns most of which are no longer made were very reliable. I cannot say that for the junk Beretta is making today and that includes their plasticization of the model 92 which is now a real joke of a handgun.

    I once had a buddy who said to me “Why in the world would you want to carry a small .25 auto its such a worthless caliber”. I responded by telling him that “people who carry .25 autos always carry them without fail and having a .25 auto in the hand when you come out of a dark alley at night is a hell of a lot better than having nothing but your dick in your hand”.

    I might also add that one lady cab driver killed her rapists serial killer with nothing more than a .25 auto that he failed to notice she had hidden one on her person and one fellow in our town killed 3 drunken thugs with 1 shot apiece in an attempted robbery with nothing more than a .25 auto pistol. Try telling these people that .25 autos are totally worthless for self defense as they would laugh in your face.

    • “The Author clearly has zero experience with…”

      What a joke. ‘Vlad’, who has no experience with guns, is trying to tell us something about guns…

      • I dunno, maybe he’s on to something.

        I mean he’s the one who figured out how to fit a 32mm object into a 30mm hole. When all the engineers at Glock, and in fact the entire world, couldn’t figure out how to defy the laws of physics well, along comes Vlad to show them how it’s done.

    • still have my old man’s .25…had a concealed trigger that snapped down at the push of a small button…not sure who made it or whether it has any collector value…but it still works!….

  12. This guy is lying, the issued and Grandfathered LA city permits don’t allow anything smaller than 32 acp and the LA county ones and Torrance ones require 380 or larger. Culver City was the only issuing agency that allowed a caliber that small and they have all expired and they are no longer issuing them.

  13. Kinda off-topic but I really like Beretta as a company. During freedom week in California, they were the first OEM to support us and even offered a generous discount. I hope to one day be able to buy an APX pistol from them. Until then I will happily use my PX4 storm (with 20 round magazines, haha).

  14. Don’t shoot the (Wapo) messenger; apart from some hypocrital harumpfing, this is an excellent article about the state of things in the NRA. By far the most in depth look at all the financial & managerial concerns.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/nra-money-flowed-to-board-members-amid-allegedly-lavish-spending-by-top-officials-and-vendors/2019/06/09/3eafe160-8186-11e9-9a67-a687ca99fb3d_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c303ddda503a

    3.1 million to Brownell via ammunition contract
    610,000 to Hammer for “activism” in Florida though she attends no meetings & is afraid to appear publicly
    400,000 to some ex-NFL guy named Butz who I’ve never heard of for “activism,” and who failed to be re-elected this year
    50,000 to The Nuge to sign autographs at the NRA convention
    At least 18 “unpaid” board members receiving money from NRA via vendor contracts

    Don’t worry, the NRA’s audit comittee (composed partly of these same guys receiving vendor payments) has investigated itself and found no wrong doing, not even a need to hire an independent auditor.

  15. The 25ACP has gotten a bad rap because of the low quality zinc alloy jam-a-matic pistols (i.e. Saturday night specials) that were common in the 1970s. Thankfully, the Beretta is a high quality well made pistol. I have a Jetfire that is utterly reliable and fun to shoot. I have found that commercial 25ACP ammo is anemic, and expensive which doesn’t help this round’s reputation. Reloading addresses both of these problems and gives me confidence that the maximum capabilities of the round are available should they be needed. I use this pistol as a backup which IMO is its best role in SD.

  17. Beretta is a Jetfire 25, single grip screw below the mag release for that model. The 21A Bobcat has two grip screws, below and above the mag release

  18. love my 25 jetfire. I have had it for decades. I have a permit. I have done a lot of practice with it . It ALWAYS goes bang and feeds. Fiocchi is the best . got 50 -75 fps over the domestics. apparently they take their 25’s seriously in Europe. the great john moses browning designed the 25 acp round to address the shortcomings of the 22 in auto pistols . I never second guess him. the accuracy of the baretta would astound you . it is not usefull to the distances you would use those guns , but It speaks to the quality of their manufacture.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWLxbLKmR04

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