North American Arms question

Robin

This past weekend I visited a gun show in DeLand, Florida a looked at some pocket sized, 5 shot revolvers made by North American Arms, in Provo Utah. There are several models made in .22LR and .22 magnum. I have a few questions. Is the quality of these firearms O.K.? I have never heard of them before. With such a short barrel (1 1/8" I think)is there much of a ballistic advantage to the .22 magnum over the .22LR? Are know they are not the ideal concealed weapon but they are easy to conceal in in summer clothing;in Florida that is a consideration.

Worry is the interest humans pay on the debt of miscalculation.

Spring Creek

Since the Freedom Arms "Mini-Revolver" was discontinued, I would say the little NA Arms runs a real close second.
Both have a belt buckle made specifically for them (they will NOT interchange) and that makes a nice little "package".
I know of LEO's who have used both revolvers for their back-up or 2nd gun.
This may not mean that they'll compare to a S&W 29 for stopping power or overall quality, but it says something about their dependability.

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Prebanparts

I dont know about the new production stuff, I had the early models both NAA and Freedom. Freedom had a floarting firing pin NAA Was hammer fired. Both were quite reliable however note this I shot an empty beer bottle with NAA 1.8 bbl .22lr , bottle did not break much less move and had a lead streak on it..they aint pumping any velocity but are better than nothing and fit in a hat band or shirt collar quite nicely

maggiethecat

is a .22 even legal to carry in FL?


SGT USMC

The greatest happiness is to see your enemy scattered before you, to see his village in ashes, and to gather to your bed his wives and daughters.-Genghis Khan 1226

RancheroPaul

Extremely High Quality Guns! Very Popular as a "Hidey Gun" in Utah. The fact they are so small is their advantage. Any small gun with an extremely short barrel suffers from "velocity loss." That is the case with these. However, there would be a little advantage with the 22 Magnum over the 22 Long Rifle. But, I personally believe it would be minimal. The thing I have noticed with these is they are so small as to be difficult to hold and to shoot! The added Blast of a 22 Magnum is probably more to the detriment, in my opinion, when you consider the controllability of these "tiny guns." Hard to hold and use accurately, jump dramatically because of their short barrels and light weight, and nearly impossible to aim because of their short length. But, close range "point and shoot" is probably all that is necessary to hit something within 10 to 20 feet.......which is the distance of most gun fights anyway!

Hard to beat as long as you consider its shortcomings because of its size! Good Luck!



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gruntled

There are also longer barrels available. The 1 5/8" barrels provide a real increase in velosity. The magnum does have a useable increase in velosity & its larger size makes it easier to handle. Their web site provides a very extensive table of velosities for each barrel length & for a large number of cartridges.
There is now another company making an almost exact clone. You can find this on the Charter Arms (Charter 2000) web site.

Spring Creek

RancherPaul makes a good point about the small grip and they are so small that they are hard to hold.
Whenever I take mine out to "play", I have found that (I'm right handed) with these or any other very small derringer, etc; that if I use the thumb of my left hand as a "grip extension" on the back strap of the pistol and then hold grip and thumb with right hand, that it makes it much easier to hold and point.

mark christian

I purchased one of the NAA "mini-revolvers" back in the early 90's and found it to be a rather interesting little gun. I ordered the .22 mag with a second cylinder for the .22 LR and back then I believe MSR was around $210 for the set. I sold my pistol a few years back but I recall the gun seemed rather well made and had a sort of two-tone finsh with the frame sides and most of the cylinder polished and the barrel a and a few other parts a sort of matt color- I found it to be rather attractive.

My example also came with a decent looking set of rose wood grips which had a nice grain. Loading and unloading the gun is a hassel since you have to remove the cylinder and use the center pin to push out the empties...not hard to do...but a bother. The trigger pull was heavy, maybe 8 pounds and with the triggers very small face and hard pull it made my finger sore after about 20 shots...which of course took forever to fire due to the slow loading/unloading process I mentioned. The pistol does have sights; a square notch in the back of the frame and a front sight that was a part of the barrels solid rib. With a less than 3" sight radious they are pretty much worthless, although you could hit a man sized target at the ranges Paul mentioned and that is good enough for this type of pistol. The one particular issue I had with this pistol were the caliber marking on the cylinders. The magnum cylinder was marked "M" while the standard cylinder was marked "LR". The problem was that these markings were quite small and located on the face of the cylinder. In order to check which caliber you needed to load you had to point the muzzel of the pistol in you face to read the markings! Not very safe. In my personal opinion these little guns are not much good for anything other than coversation pieces...although they WILL KILL at close range and should not be treated as toys in the manner which the belt buckel holster suggests.

Mark T. Christian

cbxjeff

As usual, Mark has covered this pretty darn good! I have had one for a couple of years. It's the convertible model. Don't make the mistake that small is cheaply made. I think it is a well made piece. Remember that because of it's size, it can only do so much in terms of accuracy and impact. Understand that, and you will be pleased.

cbxjeffIt's too late for me, save yourself.

v35

I had a Freedom Arms 22short that I traded in at the factory during a safety recall, for the 22lr with 1 5/8" barrel. I opted for the folding stock which gives you some grip to hang on to. In experiments in April 1987, I chronographed 22lr and 22mag from 6"test bbls down to 2 1/2' in eight increments. (2 1/2"is the length of barrel + cylinder on the 1 5/8 bbl Freedom arms Mini.) and found little advantage in the 22mag over some hv 22lr ammo from short barrels. In addition, velocity spread of the 22 Mag became very large as barrels became very short.For the 22mag out of a 2 1/2" barrel, a five shot group for the 22mag gave an average velocity of 1014fps with a range of 79fps .
The CCI Stinger, the hottest 22lr ammo of that time, gave a velocity range half that of the 22mag and an average velocity of 1050fps. The 22mag bullet was eight grains heavier so the energy difference of the five shot averages was 16.5% in favor of the 22mag. Muzzle blast of the 22mag was too much bark for too little bite.
The 1050fps of the Stinger out of the 1 5/8 Mini should more than break a bottle. It equals the velocity of the Remington 22lr target shot out of a 6" Ruger auto barrel.
In the 16 years since those experiments new HP 22LR ammo has been developed that may show even better ballistics in very short barrels.
All things considered my choice was the 22lr-1 5/8" mini over the 22short or the 22/22mag combo with short barrel.

101AIRBORNE

Completely agree w/RP and MC. Ordered one a few years back with the magnum cylinder interchange-just to see what it was all about. Finely finished but I doubt that the magnum cylinder would even burn off the powder in that short barrel. Could not dislike or like the arm as I never fired the pistol.

v35

Correct my Freedom Arms to read NAA