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| Second Amendment Social Distancing | April 2020 | |||
| Dan Martinez | ||||
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So even though we are officially in some sort of a “lock down” for the month of
April, I took advantage of these official declarations to head up to J&G Sales in
Prescott to purchase an Italian Polizia Penitenziaria surplus Beretta Model
81 in caliber .32 ACP. These became available on the market somewhere around the
middle of 2019 as far as I can tell. I noticed them a few months back, but recently
stumbled upon them again. I decided that I needed to grab one before they dried
up, as surplus arms usually do.
J&G has them in two grades, Good and Very Good. The Good ones are $199.95, and the
VG ones are $229.95. I opted for a VG. I headed up there mid-morning, mid-week,
and strolled right in to an empty shop. No line to get in as we have seen at the
popular outdoor stores here in Phoenix since this crazy situation started. I was
able to take my pick out of three that the clerk brought out. The gun comes with
only one magazine, but Classic Firearms presently has spares available for $35. I
ordered one extra.
The Beretta 81 is one of Beretta’s 80-Series pistols known as "Cheetahs". Other
variants in this series are chambered in .22 LR and .380 ACP. The 81 is a double
stack .32 ACP (known in Europe as the 7.65mm Browning) that holds 12 in the
magazine. It looks very much like a baby M9. It is an open-top slide, exposed
barrel design just like the military M9 (92FS). However the Cheetahs are all
straight blow-back, not locked breech.
The Cheetahs are medium-sized. They are bigger than a pocket pistol, but smaller
than a service pistol. Height is about 4⅝", length is about 6⅝" from
the tip of the beavertail to the end of the muzzle. I measured barrel length at
3.9 inches.
However, the Model 81 has a rather fat grip. The grip width measures 1.365” –
quite hand-filling. For grip length, half the width of my pinky finger hangs off
the bottom of the magazine baseplate. The frame is aluminum alloy and the slide
is steel. The grips are shiny hard plastic.
The Cheetahs were introduced in 1976. These surplus 81s are mostly the earliest
variation, the plain Model 81. There have been a few imports of Model 81BB’s as
well, but they go for $50 to $100 more if you can find them. The main functional
difference is that the straight Model 81s do not have an internal firing pin block,
which means that safe handling is a little more tricky.
These Berettas use the DA/SA operating system. With hammer down and chamber
loaded, you can squeeze a long double action trigger stroke to fire the gun.
Subsequent shots will leave the hammer cocked, so next shots will be single
action. However, there is no hammer drop decocker. To decock after chambering
a round, you have to do it the old fashioned way, by pulling the trigger, but
having your thumb placed between frame and hammer to arrest its fall.
That’s quite doable with a little practice, but here is where you have to be
extremely careful due to the lack of a hammer block safety. For guns with a
hammer block safety on the underside of the slide, after you trip the hammer to
decock, you release the trigger before allowing the hammer to continue on down.
Releasing the trigger activates the automatic hammer drop safety. So even if you
fumble the hammer at this point, if you have released the trigger, there is no foul.
For this gun, releasing the trigger after dropping the hammer allows the hammer to
catch at the half-cock position. If the trigger was kept back, the hammer will go
all the way down allowing the hammer to push the firing pin against the primer.
Done gently, the round will not go off, but a blow now against the back of the
hammer will fire the round. The safe decocked position is at half-cock.
Instead of a decocker, the Model 81 has an ambidextrous frame mounted safety. It
is in exactly the right place to be activated and deactivated easily and confidently
by the side of your thumb. This makes cocked and locked carry a good alternative to
manual decocking, for those folks who are comfortable with that carry method.
Because it is a straight blow-back design, the recoil spring is pretty stiff. That
means that racking the slide could be a struggle for some. Despite the agreeable
recoil of the .32 ACP cartridge, I would not necessarily recommend this as a carry
gun for beginners. Not only for the need to manually decock, but also because the
slide takes significant muscle to manipulate.
My favorite carry gun to this point in time has been the Smith & Wesson Model 632
Carry Comp chambered for .327 Federal Magnum. The .327 Federal is a stout, obnoxious
little beast of a cartridge. As a result, I mostly shoot and carry .32 H&R handloads
in this revolver.
The best resource I have found on the web that details the performance differences
amongst the various .32 caliber cartridges and also compares them to other small caliber
cartridges that may be considered for defensive purposes, is on LuckyGunner.com:
Lucky Gunner’s test results show that most .32 ACP loads from the 4” barrel of the
Beretta 81 clock between 980 and 1100 fps. The SAAMI spec for cartridge pressure for
the .32 ACP is 21.5 kPSI. However, the European C.I.P. spec equates to around 25 kPSI.
As a result, you will almost always see greater velocity with European .32 ACP ammo.
The power level of .32 H&R Magnum compares favorably with the .38 Special, a well
respected defensive caliber. The typical velocities for the .32 ACP are almost
identical to .32 H&R. The difference is that the .32 H&R Magnum uses bullets nominally
around 20 to 40 grains heavier than the .32 ACP, so the Auto cartridge is definitely weaker.
Is the .32 ACP a viable self-defense round? The common wisdom in this caliber is to use
FMJ both for practice and also for self defense. I’m not sure that I should subscribe to
that idea, but the rap on HPs for the .32 Auto is low penetration. Adequate penetration
with FMJs is not a problem, but we’ve been taught that tissue destruction wrought by
expanding hollow points is necessary for rapid incapacitation.
For at least the first half of the 20th century, this was Europe’s most prevalent caliber
for police and military officer’s sidearms. But let us remember that civilian self-defense
is a fundamentally different mission than police or military work.
All that a civilian defender needs to do is create the “social distance” to end the threat,
and allow the defender to escape the bad situation. That does not specifically equate to
lethality. We know that most of the time, just pulling a pistol will send an adversary
running. If not, very few are going to keep coming at you after being perforated several
times, even by teensy-weensy little .32 caliber FMJs. Low recoil means shots can be
optimally placed for best results.
As an alternate carry gun for myself, I’m thinking, yeah, why not? As it turns out, the
fully loaded weights of both the Beretta and the Smith are almost identical:
With this little pistol, you get Beretta quality at an absolute bargain price. Whether
for collecting, carry, or just plinking, my recommendation is to go get one while they
remain available.
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