Beretta 21A .22LR
2009
Ordinarily, we post here on the use of Pepper Sprays, Stun Guns, Telescopic Steel Batons and other self defense products. I think it’s more than fair to post occasionally on handguns, since they are at the top of the heap for a personal self defense weapon.
That said, I’ve owned a Beretta 92FS for many years and love it to death. It’s never burped through several hundred rds. of assorted ammo and is a constant source of pleasure to me.
I was looking for a new pocket gun to replace my old Sterling Arms vintage pistol. I decided to buy the Beretta Bobcat 21A INOX .22LR, based on my experience with the 92FS and their website’s description – it sounded awesome!
I have had very disappointing results with fail to ejects and “mostly” stove-piped rounds. These may occur at any time, but they always seem to occur at some point when firing it. It can be the first rd. or off and on, during the firing of 100 rounds – maybe five or six of a mixed bag, mostly stove-pipes and a couple FTE or FTF (the latter isn’t bad since it has the ability to re-strike again).
Every time I take it apart and clean it, I emery the slide rails lightly on the slide and the frame to loosen things up a bit and this has helped. I also started using a very light lithium gun grease applied with a pipe cleaner, inside the slide channels.
I have ran maybe 500 rds through it and it’s very painstaking and frustrating. So much so, that I bought a new Kahr PM9 which is a wonderful pocket pistol. I just can’t bring myself to sell the little 21A as it’s a beautiful little piece of work but it’s been tossed into the gun safe with the rest of the cheap or large .22’s as a “plinker” since I could never put my life under it’s protection. I love it and it seems to be made to last a lifetime, I feel like I’ve just been separated from a spouse – very bittersweet about it.
I’ve fired every .22 load known to man and none are w/o a problem – some worse than others. Best result have been with CCI Stingers – a freshly cleaned pistol with one in the pipe and a magazine loaded one shy of full. My experience with Mini-Mags has been dismal at best.
Most folks are touting the CCI Mini-Mags but my last box was really a bad batch. I have noticed dirty chamber issues but didn’t isolate it to a particular brand/type. I’ll have to try that next.
BTW, .22LR CCI Stingers are highly rated for this pistol, but if you want to see POWER & 9mm size holes in the paper – check out Aquila Super Maximum’s OMGosh!
Well, back to the range for more firing, filing and hopefully finding that magic bullet!
October 27th, 2009 at 10:53 am
[...] from my excursion the other day to the woodpile. Seeking a good carry round if I pocketed my Beretta Bobcat 21A .22LR, I thought about some things. I have resolved all stove-pipe issues so I may just grab this [...]
February 16th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Did you have any issues with the magazine not allowing the round to advance into the chamber?
February 16th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
I had stove-pipes Randy. I would need you to be more specific. Try the Beretta Forum. Great bunch over there!
March 4th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Hello:
I have a 21a as well, and experienced the same problems you are having. From what I have read about this gun, you are not alone, check out the youtube video of this gun and all the jams. I really don’t understand how a manufacturer can sell something that doesn’t work, and I beleive the 21a is one of these cases. I am a mechanical engineer, and have been shooting for some time now, and can assure you that a firearm should not be this fussy about it’s ammo, even when it’s working, it is on the ragged edge of not working. However, there is good news, the gun is fairly easily fixed. There seem to be only 2 problems, one is that the magazine does not feed well, especially when full, the other problem is that the recoil springs are too stiff and don’t let the action come back fast enough. The magazine can be modified by steepning the feed angle of the follower, which will prevent bullet nose dives into the mag, jamming the feed. this is easy to do with a little sand paper. On my gun, the problem happened when there were 6 or more bullets in the magazine. With a slightly steeper follower, you can load 7 rounds in the mag, then feed one off the top into the chamber, mine works fine this way, but I can’t put 7 in the mag and one in the pipe. The other problem, slide functioning, can be remedied by shortning the recoil springs a litle, I don’t remember how much I shortened them, maybe 3/4 or 1 turn, you dont want to take too much off, or the slide wont be stiff enough, If you cut, do it in 1/2 turn increments, until it functions reliably. Unfortunately, the springs are a pain in the rear to get out.
I just had mine out today, and put 200 rounds of remington bulk golds through it without a hiccup, no cleaning between mags either. Remingtons seem to shoot well out of mine, but, some of the federals, and winchesters seem to have somewhat slower burning powder, and do not produce the velocity or recoil impulse in the short pistol barrel to work well. The 21a will keyhole bullets (terrible accuracy) if they are not launched fast enough to stabilize, which several brands can do. I seem to get pretty good accuracy out of the remingtons, I was shooting pop cans at 25 yards today with about 50% hits. Anyway, I read your difficulties and thought I’s share my experience with this gun. If you want more info, feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
Dave
March 8th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
What more can I add? Your comment and fixes for the Beretta 21A are spot on. Beretta advertises on their site, that this pistol makes an I deal back-up for law enforcement. I still laugh whenever I think about that. Did they really want to sell this little pop gun THAT bad? Thanks for your wonderful comments Dave!
March 14th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
MY mag does not say Berreta on it. Are the Berreta mags any better. The angle of my bullet just jams into the groove. If i only have one or two rounds in the mag the angle is better, and it will chamber.The 21a sure looks nice but thats about it. I want to buy a new mag to see if it will work better. What do you think. A friend of mine bought the taurus copy and it works great.
May 16th, 2010 at 1:58 am
I used the CCI velicitors and had good results. Ammo that is over 1300 fps worked well, also copper coated bullets.
May 26th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Just bought 21A from Academy store. “Ran 3 mags of 3 different brands of ammo. Remington Golden bullet hp from carton of 550, Winchester Western hp from carton of 525 and CCI Minimag hp. First mag was loaded with 7 rnds and the first rnd was fed from the magazine. First shot was single action. Second mag was loaded with 7 rnds and one round was loaded into the barrel by tipping the barrel up. The first round was fired using double action. The third mag was loaded with 7 rnds, the hammer was dropped and the first shot was fired using double action.. RESULTS AS FOLLOWS:
Remington–Mag #1 had 2 failure to feed requiring a light tap to put into batttery, #2 One failure to feed on second shot also requireing a light tap to put into battery, #3 No failures were noted.
Winchester- Mag #1 One failure to feed on third shot. Round did not come up far enough in magazine to be fed into chamber. Required racking slide back to load round. #2 No failures noted #3 One failure to feed on fourth shot. Required tap on siide to put into battery.
CCI Minimag- Mag #1 First round jammed against top of chamber when feeding from the magazine. Cleared round and had no further problem. ;#2 No failures noted. #3 No failures noted.
I should note that this pistol was taken out of the box and test fired. No cleaning or lubrication was performed on the pistol before the test. All 3 test rounds performed more or less the same. Pistol should be more dependable after cleaning, lubrication and break-lin. Group size at 7 yards were in the softball size and would be easily accurate enough at that range for headshots. All in all, not a bad little pistol to have on you when things aren’t going your way.
June 15th, 2010 at 1:17 am
I have a 21A on layaway and am eager to learn as much as I can about it. I am new to the 21A but I have owned several pocket .22’s and have turned them into good shooters. The solutions presented above are commensurate with my experience. Rimfire magazines are sensitive to feed angle, the rounds must point upward to feed properly. Many rimfire pistols have recoil springs which are too stiff to allow the pistol to cycle most common types of ammo.
The problems are compounded by the fact that most rimfire ammo is designed for rifle length barrels and doesn’t create enough recoil energy in the short tube to operate the action reliably.
June 24th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
I own three of the model 21A’s and have to say that I have had during the break in period the precise problems mentioned. For the first 500 or so rounds, they stovepiped and jammed consistently. Unless I kept a very firm grip on the weapons, they stovepiped on every round (I was using the 333 round cheap winchester ammo from Wal-Mart) I was very discouraged. I had bought them as backup guns for myself and my parents, only to find that they were very unreliable.
After about 500 rounds through each however, the problems have become less. With CCI minimags the problems are completely non-existant, but only if i have one round in the chamber and five in the magazine. If I fully load the magazine, the weapon jams every time. So, I keep it loaded with 5. I have kept them loaded in this manner and they did not fail to perform correctly (even when limp wristed) after six months in this condition.
Basically, they are very finicky on ammo and the magazines cannot be loaded to capacity. Now that I am more knowledgeable about guns, the lack of an extractor is definitely a bad problem. Im sticking with my Glock 17 for defensive use.
June 28th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I have two Bobcats, the black matte .22LR versions. First, Mistral is right about a break-in period. Mine had a significant percentage of failure to ejects and mis-feeds at first. It took about 500 rounds to reach acceptable performance, and now at about 700 each, they function as well as any autoloader I’ve owned, which is a good sized list.
The computer controlled machining at Beretta makes for extremely precise parts tolerances, and these take a bit longer to smooth-in as compared to guns in years past.
I can load my magazines full, and chamber a round as well (love that tip-up barrel) without any problem. They are a bit finicky, if you call working well with any Federal or CCI ammo finicky. They do not perform as well with other brands I’ve tried.
These are my CCW guns of choice, as they can be carried year-round with lots or little clothing. I don’t think it’s a good idea to change carry guns with the seasons and lose familiarity. I carry with CCI Mini-Mag hollow points.
July 13th, 2010 at 6:28 am
Purchased one recently — went to the range –f ired over 200 rounds of CCI Stingers — not a single issue — gun worked like a charm
July 16th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Me again. Just bought myself an Inox last week. I expect it to perform just as well as my black ones, and will be easier to clean, too, The matte ones take a bit of Birchwood-Casey Super Blue touch-up after each session, especially on the barrel and slide. Those are the only two actual stainless parts on the Inox. If they ever make a totally stainless Bobcat, I’ll be buying a fourth one !!
July 22nd, 2010 at 7:18 pm
I have the Bobcat as well. Mine’s only problems are that it needs either heavy (40 Grain) ammo or hot ammo (Stingers) to work the slide and rounds don’t feed properly. When it cycles the incoming round gets it’s nose jammed into the TOP of the barrel seizing operation. It is just a poor design and in my opinion you get what you pay for.
July 27th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Chris – maybe you can gain som insight from Tim and Dennis. I tweaked my magazine lips and kept putting rounds downrange. My INOX Bobcat is very dependable now. Check out this post: http://www.crime-information.com/mouse-guns-for-self-defense and this post too. http://www.crime-information.com/aquila-super-maximum-22-lr-tests Don’t give up on it – they’re very nice pistols.