[boati]

so that you have the needed metal to fit a dovetailed rear sight and the extractor. a vertical pin thru the slide retains the extractor. It never occured to me that drilling that out from underneath, thru the "cap' fo metal that I added to the slide, would cause problems. The hole size is .055". i just drilled it out 1/16" inch, but when the drill bit went thru the slide and hit the curved inside of the piece of tubng that I'd added, the drill bit of course was deflected and broke. It also broke at the shank, right fluse with the slide.

I had to grind a hole in the cap, drive out the broken bit, weld up the hole, and be a lot more careful, with much better bits and lots of WD-40, higher RPM on the drill press, etc, to get that hole drilled in that steel cap. The parts that i had dreaded, fitting the extractor, hardening it, hardening the threads on the extended barrel and the threat protector, that went off without a hitch. What i SHOULD have done was drill the hole into the cap from underneath, having ground a flat spot on it, and put a pin thru the slide and the cap, and THEN tig-welded all around the 4 sides of the cap.



The barrel was then no longer a tip up, due to the extractor notch I had to put into its rear end. So I pinned down the barrel and convered the barrel-release lever into a slide-lock. to hold the slide shut for maximum suppressive effect. When you sprayed the guts of the can with WD-40 and then squrted in water, locked the slide shut, and wrapped tape around the can so that it didn't "ring") it was BB gun quiet. It needed the baffled cleaned every 100 rds. Not bad in a 15 oz, 9" long gun, that still grouped 2" at 25m. A big part of that was bending the trigger into a more-acute curve, getting rid of the overtravel.

The DA trigger option went with the overtravel, but that's ok. I preferred the speed safety lever and cocked and locked carry anyway. I put the luminous front sight on the can and the rear of the slide, and the sight that I dovetailed into the thread protector was just plain blued steel. if I needed the night sights, I'd also need the can. and the night sight is just a distraction for real precision work in daylight.

I think wifey will one day be marketing such M21's to the oil sheiks and similar folks in S america and Europe. There's never been anything like it and a lot of bets can be won with such a gun. if you've got good eyesight and can really shoot.

 

[BigBassMan]

Dream on.

 

[Garand]

lolololol

 

[John in AR]

...I think wifey will one day be marketing such M21's to the oil sheiks and similar folks in S america and Europe. There's never been anything like it and a lot of bets can be won with such a gun. if you've got good eyesight and can really shoot.

Again John, unlike you I actually have a Beretta 21 and have had it for more than 30 years now. I bought it for my wife when we first got married, before I knew how horrifically weak the short barrel made the .22LR round.

It's a well-made gun, but other than the tip-up barrel (which you claim to get rid of anyway), it's nothing special at all. In that caliber and with that barrel length, it has less than 60 ft/lbs with almost all loads that I've chronographed, and less than 55 ft/lbs with some of them. Basically, it has about the same energy at the muzzle as the same rimfire ammo has from a rifle at 200 yards or so; and a .22LR rifle at 200 yards is unacceptable power-wise for defensive purposes.

The 21 does have an external hammer which I like, but it's not something I have to have in a 22 pistol.


On the "There's never been anything like it" comment; really..? You need to get out more. It's a small pocket pistol in .22LR, and there have been many of that species. There have been numerous similar-size guns, even in much better calibers for that matter.

Beretta 21 vs modern 380acp:

Compared to Beretta's own 32acp:

Iver Johnson TP22:

This is the Beretta, the seecamp, and the walther tph. They errantly put the picture of the 21 with the payload of the 32 in the pic, but again, the 32 is the same size as the 21, so the size comparison still holds true. Look at the size of these three guns, and the PAYLOAD of these three guns. They're all subsonic so they could all be very effectively suppressed (especially for someone who's already willing to drill, weld, and JB Weld on their gun), but the 21 is not only the lowest powered (by far) of the three, it also has the lowest capacity. To pick the 21 over the others - at least for any reasons other than nostalgia or emotion - would be hugely irrational:

The 21 is basically a nicely-made, polished, double-action version of the 1950's Beretta 950. It's a beautifully made pistol, but it's a joke power-wise. And this is from a guy who owns one and will probably never sell it; so no 21 hate here at all.

 

[BigBassMan]

Oil sheiks an similar folks, still laughing about that bit of nonsense! Think your brain is gone!

 

[John in AR]

I didn't comment on the "oil sheik" part because I didn't know what was meant. Are we talking about CCW pieces for oil sheiks to carry, using these guns for arming oil sheiks' bodyguards, or what exactly..? Would love an answer on this from Boati, but not really expecting one.

Never mind the "15 ounce" thing. From the factory, the gun is already more than 13 ounces loaded; which doesn't include the added steel plate, threaded & extended barrel, thread protector, the steel front sight 'dovetailed into the thread protector', and the jury-rigged extractor & miscellaneous pins added onto it. So unless we have a sub-one-ounce suppressor, we're more than 15 ounces no matter what we do.

Whatever. Back to work for me in the real world now... :unhappy:

 

[boati]

it's11 ozs.from the factory, I never said anything about loaded weight.It's quite easy to keep an aluminum can under 3 ozs. For the filthy rich, verything is just a status symbol or a toy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beretta_21A_Bobcat.

 

[boati]

wtf wants to pay for .32 ammo today, much less a Seecamp? The M21 is ideally suited for this job, cause it's easily converted to SA-Only. The problem was the too-light slide, lack of sights and lack of an extractor. The steel cap fixed all of those problems. just cause you're to inept and lazy to work on one does not mean everyone is. The .32, with US made ammo, in this short a barrel, has a whopping 80 ft lbs. big whoop, 15 more ft lbs than the .22. If you want some power with subsonic ammo, you have to go to 380, 100 grs and 100 fps, and that requires a locked breech which gets iffy as far as reliable functioning with the can mounted. The P32 Keltec has a locked breech and can be safely loaded to 200 ft lbs, but the load is supersonic and you have to turn off the semi-rim of the .32 to make it reliable with jhps. 100 grs at 1000 fps is still just 210 ft lbs, still need a brain hit to reliably not have the "hittee" not making noise. If he makes noise, there was no point in having the can. I wanted a CCW, fast draw .22 with a silencer, capable of small game hunting and I got it. If you paid to have one created for you, it would be $3000, minimum, which is 6x what any of you lops has to spend on a gun.

 

[BigEd]

Oil sheiks an similar folks, still laughing about that bit of nonsense! Think your brain is gone!

Yeah, only weapons I know for sure were more 5.45caliber as I got to see and handle one of a several AKSU-74's that had been sent to The Firing Line gun shop in Oklahoma. They were some that belonged to the Saudi Royal bodyguard.

I currently got another 21 but really only for sentiment of my misspent youth. Even then I only considred it a bad breath distance "Ear, Nose and Throat" gun that might be better than a sharp concealed blade made for stabbing.
A back up gun to a back up gun.
One tiny plus is it is nigh impossible to push out of battery in a struggle; accidentally or on purpose.

The .32 Tomcat: Maybe I got a bad one but I never liked it for one big reason. It was prone to breaking firing pins if even accidentally dry fired. With pistols in small calibers like that I practice mag dumps and it's easy to shoot the gun dry. That happened to me and won't again.
Now if it was reintroduced with a beefier firing pin yep I'd own one. Although the Seecamp it's sleeker imho.

 

[Terry G]

All this intricate work on a gun that's really a non-starter to begin with. I played around with a small .22, a Taurus PT22 I still have it. As a defense gun? No way. As John said the LCP is the better all the way around with a .380 punch. Also, what are doing working on guns? Looking for another Federal vacation?

 

[Garand]

. If you paid to have one created for you, it would be $3000, minimum, which is 6x what any of you lops has to spend on a gun.

Melvin, where would you ever get the impression that we can afford cheap firearms? How much have you spent in the last 12 months of firearms, accessories and reloading components? Personally, this year (2020) I've spent at least $5,000.00 on new firearms, accessories and reloading components. Having spent money at real gunsmiths "slicking up" my guns for competition use, I really doubt that you could build anything that is worth $3,000.00.

 

[BigEd]

$3000!
For a WECSOG'ed 21A!?
ROFLMAO!
For half that price I can get a top of the line Ruger/AEC Amphibian II. And unlike someone here I've actually shot one of the early variants. That's a Integrally Suppressed Ruger MkII pistol for some who don't know.

 

[John in AR]

...The problem was the too-light slide, lack of sights and lack of an extractor.

There's nothing mechanically wrong with the 21 from the factory. It's a very reliable gun; surprisingly reliable since they make it without an extractor. (Almost like they've been designing guns for centuries and know more about it than you and I do; who could have guessed...?) I was suspicious of the absence of an extractor at first, but it's been a non-issue for decades and thousands of rounds. And no, not just saying that for this thread. I've praised the mechanical reliability of the 21 as often as I've bemoaned its power:

I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. I was initially leery of it; but my wife said she wanted one after seeing one that her cousin had, so we tried it.

I really expected it to be finicky & twitchy, primarily because it has no extractor whatsoever, but it's surprisingly reliable with most ammo I've tried in it.

...in the course of about 30 years it probably only has 3-4k rounds thru it...

They discontinued the 21A? I didn't know that.

It's a well-made and functional gun, just horrifically weak...

...I also really like the Beretta 21A. It's beautifully made, it's very reliable when you find a load it likes, and it's in a caliber that's cheap to shoot.

Its main problem is that it's a wimp power-wise. It was great when it came out, just as with the Colt Paterson was in its day...

There's absolutely nothing mechanically or functionally wrong with the Beretta 21. It cycles fine with most loads, and that's as good as it gets with rimfire pistols.



And the fact that you don't like a caliber doesn't automatically change reality:

...The .32, with US made ammo, in this short a barrel, has a whopping 80 ft lbs. big whoop, 15 more ft lbs than the .22. If you want some power with subsonic ammo, you have to go to 380...

Not even close. Measured from the KelTec P32 that I carried in my pocket, Corbon 60-grain runs 1058 fps, which (while still subsonic) is 149 ft/lbs; almost three times as powerful as the 21A. BBTI measured 133 ft/lbs with that same load load from the Beretta Tomcat pictured above.

Even generic UMC 71-grain ball stuff averaged 94 ft/lbs, and it was the weakest load I clocked.

...If you paid to have one created for you, it would be $3000, minimum, which is 6x what any of you lops has to spend on a gun.

Need to make up your mind. One week you say we should quit bragging about owning a bunch of expensive guns, and another you say we can't afford them.

I have some cheap guns and I have a very few expensive guns. The gun in my belt as I type this was well over $700 if we count the holster. The other gun I carry (in my pocket) was $279 iirc; it was a decade ago or so that I bought it, but I think that was what I paid. Expensive isn't good or evil, and cheap isn't good or evil. I trust both of them completely, within their respective limitations.

 

[John in AR]

This just gets funnier and funnier, the way old posts pop up to the top.

So JMD, you recommend going through all the following trouble:

m21 Beretta needs steel cap added to the slide so that you have the needed metal to fit a dovetailed rear sight and the extractor. a vertical pin thru the slide retains the extractor

... ...I pinned down the barrel and convered the barrel-release lever into a slide-lock. to hold the slide shut for maximum suppressive effect. When you sprayed the guts of the can with WD-40 and then squrted in water, locked the slide shut, and wrapped tape around the can so that it didn't "ring") it was BB gun quiet. It needed the baffled cleaned every 100 rds. Not bad in a 15 oz, 9" long gun, that still grouped 2" at 25m. A big part of that was bending the trigger into a more-acute curve, getting rid of the overtravel.

The DA trigger option went with the overtravel, but that's ok. I preferred the speed safety lever and cocked and locked carry anyway. I put the luminous front sight on the can and the rear of the slide, and the sight that I dovetailed into the thread protector was just plain blued steel. if I needed the night sights, I'd also need the can. and the night sight is just a distraction for real precision work in daylight.

I think wifey will one day be marketing such M21's to the oil sheiks and similar folks in S america and Europe. There's never been anything like it and a lot of bets can be won with such a gun. if you've got good eyesight and can really shoot.

To make the Beretta 21 all it can be. And you further your argument with this:

wtf wants to pay for .32 ammo today, much less a Seecamp? The M21 is ideally suited for this job, cause it's easily converted to SA-Only. The problem was the too-light slide, lack of sights and lack of an extractor. The steel cap fixed all of those problems. just cause you're to inept and lazy to work on one does not mean everyone is. The .32, with US made ammo, in this short a barrel, has a whopping 80 ft lbs. big whoop, 15 more ft lbs than the .22. If you want some power with subsonic ammo, you have to go to 380, 100 grs and 100 fps, and that requires a locked breech which gets iffy as far as reliable functioning with the can mounted. The P32 Keltec has a locked breech and can be safely loaded to 200 ft lbs, but the load is supersonic and you have to turn off the semi-rim of the .32 to make it reliable with jhps. 100 grs at 1000 fps is still just 210 ft lbs, still need a brain hit to reliably not have the "hittee" not making noise. If he makes noise, there was no point in having the can. I wanted a CCW, fast draw .22 with a silencer, capable of small game hunting and I got it. If you paid to have one created for you, it would be $3000, minimum, which is 6x what any of you lops has to spend on a gun.

So we have step-by-step instructions to maximize the Beretta 21, to make it the best it can be. Praising it so much, that you believe it would be worth thousands of dollars to rich oil sheikhs, who can afford anything they want.

And what does it end up being? In your own words:

P938 is carried cocked and locked. It's got a thumb safety and a firing pin safety. that's plenty. a 2.5" barreled .22lr has just 65 ft lbs, barely lethal, highly likely to fail you if you actually have to fire, and such a toy-like appearance that somebody MIGHT try you, thinking that it IS a toy. there's no reason to settle for such a feeble gun. at the very least, get a keltec .32...

You say that it would be so awesome that it would be worth thousands of dollars to "oil sheiks". And you also say that even if made into the ultimate pocket 22LR, it's still so weak that it's not worth carrying and there's no reason to "settle for such a feeble gun". Which I've said all along.

So in 2015, you agree that the 22LR pocket gun as a species is a feeble joke, not worth carrying. Then in 2020, you spend time & energy explaining how to change everything EXCEPT the thing that makes it a feeble joke. That's awesome.

 

[BigBassMan]

The Sheiks would make him their wife for awhile then pass him on to the next in line then shoot him with his own Beretta 21.

 

[Dorobuta]

I like how it has to be cobbled together and wrapped in tape. I thought that was a nice touch. We're too cheap, but he can't get a decent mount and maybe even a decent suppressor?

 

[John in AR]

We're too cheap, but he can't get a decent mount and maybe even a decent suppressor?

Some days he insults everyone for being cheap, and some days he insults everyone for bragging about how much money they spend.

 

[Dorobuta]

I just find it laughable that he touts how great a gunsmith he is, but can't even fabricate a decent mount for a suppressor? Wrapping it in tape? seriously? His suppressor rings? sounds like an absolute piece of junk.

 

[BigEd]

Melvin's WECSOG Firearms & Silencer Co.
"In the race to the bottom. We're already there and always digging deeper."

 

[Dorobuta]

Some days he insults everyone for being cheap, and some days he insults everyone for bragging about how much money they spend.

it’s the Boati Paradox. Things are simultaneously true and false, depending on which thread you look at