The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery. Massad Ayoob

or snake out of a pocket than a square-backed auto pistol, easy to load and unload and utterly reliable, these little revolvers make up for their vicious recoil with their reassuring presence: being so easy to carry and to access, they’re always there.

       At 7 yards, the J-frame Scandium .357 gave this acceptable head-shot group.

       The finger points to where sights were aimed at 25 yards. The 340 Sc hit far below that, with a poor group.

       This federal agent experiences the recoil of a .357 Mag round in S&W 340 Sc.

       Here is the Taurus CIA (Carry It Anywhere), that firm’s answer to the S&W Centennial.

       Trainer Michael de Bethancourt shows the aggressive stance required to control “baby Magnums” such as this 340 Sc.

      When Bert DuVernay was director of Smith & Wesson Academy, he made the very good point that while revolvers were indeed becoming a thing of the past as mainstream police service weapons, the small-framed revolver with a 2-inch barrel seemed assured a spot in the law enforcement armory as a backup and off-duty weapon. He seems to have called it right.

      In states where “shall-issue” concealed carry has only recently been instituted, armed citizens are learning all over again how handy the “snub-nose .38” is as a personal protection sidearm. Many of the permits are going to law-abiding civilians who use these as their primary carry guns. For many of them, the option of the super-light models makes carrying a gun easier. For some, the super-light guns make carrying a gun possible. For that reason alone, I am grateful that these good guns exist.

       The five gut-shots were aimed at the center of the chest from 25 yards. Ammo was medium-velocity Remington Magnum fired from the 340 Sc. The author is about as pleased as he looks.

       Micro Handguns

      First, let’s define our terms. How small is small? Smith & Wesson dubbed their 13-shot 9mm pistols of the 1980s, the Model 469 (blue) and 669 (stainless), “Mini-Guns,” but they were substantial enough that a number of cops wound up wearing them as uniform holster weapons. Glock’s smallest models have been known as the “mini-Glocks” and the “baby Glocks.” Kahr Arms dubbed their smallest series with an MK prefix, for “Micro Kahr.”

      How small is mini, baby, or micro? We can start smaller than that in the world of the combat handgun.

      For many years, the tiny .25 auto was considered the quintessential “ladies’ gun” and the “gentlemen’s vest pocket pistol.” There has been the occasional save of a good person with one of these guns because they simply had a gun, and might not have had anything bigger when the attack came. However, we’ll never know how many people have been killed or crippled by attackers who weren’t stopped in time by the feeble bite of these tiny sub-caliber guns. As the streetwise martial artist Bill Aguiar put it, “A .25 auto is something you carry when you’re not carrying a gun.”

      Sometimes a .25 is all you can handle. A psycho was beating a single mom in California to death when her little boy, pre-school age, grabbed her Raven .25 auto and screamed, “Get away from my mommy!” When the man did not, the child carefully shot him in the head, killing him instantly and saving his mother’s life. I doubt he’ll grow up troubled by the act. In Washington, an elderly man with an invalid wife fended off the attackers with the only weapon available, his wife’s little .25 auto. As the attackers broke down the door and came at him, he fired once and the men fled. One died a few steps from the back door from a tiny bullet wound in the carotid artery. The other was captured within a few blocks. The grand jury almost instantly exonerated the old gentleman, and probably considered chipping in to buy him a bigger gun.

       Comparable in size are the Colt Pony Pocketlite .380 (left), Beretta Tomcat .32 (center) and Seecamp LWS –32, (right). Author picks the .380 for deep concealment.

      Since the 1970s we’ve had tiny, single-action, spur-trigger revolvers that harken back to S&W’s No. 1 revolver of Civil War vintage, only smaller. They range in caliber from .22 Short through .22 Long Rifle to .22 Magnum. These guns are so tiny they are awkward to manipulate. A fellow on the range recently handed me one to fire. I pointed it downrange too casually, and when I triggered a shot, the gun jumped right out of my hand. I had only been holding it with part of one finger. Embarrassing? Yes, but not nearly so embarrassing as if it had happened in a fight.

      Let me be the first to say that there are people who owe their lives to these little guns. In Los Angeles, a woman carrying one was savagely attacked. She pressed the muzzle into her assailant’s chest, pulled the trigger, got him just right, and killed him where he stood. The slaying was ruled justifiable. In the south, a police officer was disarmed of his .41 Magnum revolver. The resolute lawman drew his mini-revolver from his pocket and laid into the attacker, who decided that rather than be shot with anything, he would give the revolver back. In South Africa, a gang of armed thugs set upon a man outside his suburban house. Rather than let them get in to attack his family, he drew his miniature single-action .22 revolver and opened fire on them. It was rather like sending a Chihuahua to attack a wolf pack, but he pulled it off. He managed to wound one or two of them. Deciding that being shot even with tiny bullets was not nearly as much fun for them as terrorizing helpless people, the attackers fled.

      Yes, there are people who have used tiny guns with tiny bullets successfully for self-defense. There are also people who have jumped out of airplanes with nonfunctional parachutes and survived. It is respectfully submitted that neither is a promising model for the rest of us to follow.

      Next up on the handgun ballistics food chain is the humble .32 ACP cartridge. There is no credible authority who will recommend this gun as a primary weapon, but everyone in the business admits that it’s a quantum leap beyond .22 or .25 caliber. Evan Marshall’s research into actual shootings indicates a significant number of one-shot stops with this cartridge. However, a review of the cases synopsized in his books shows a disproportionate number of these were either gun-against-knife or disparity of force cases. Disparity of force is the legal term for when one or more unarmed men attack someone with such force that likelihood of death or great bodily harm becomes imminent. The attacker’s greater size, strength, skill, or force of numbers is treated as the equivalent of a deadly weapon that warrants the use of a genuine deadly weapon in lawful self-defense.

       Both at 14.5 ounces, S&W Airweight .38 Special at left is only slightly larger than Beretta Tomcat .32, right. Author chooses the .38 hands down.

      The Winchester Silvertip, the CCI Gold Dot, and the Federal Hydra-Shok are hollow-point .32 rounds developed in hopes of getting the .32 caliber up off its knees. They get all the power out of the round that is probably possible. The problem is, there isn’t that much there to start