Astra 9mm questions....

E

Eric Larsen

New member
A local shop has a NIB Astra 9mm satin nickle 9mm. It appears and feels like a good gun. He bought a bunch of these and pulls one out to sell it when he feels like it.
Its the same size as my CZ Compact and has 220" on the slide. It has 2 hi cap mags and a Sig style decocker that stops the hammer from just hitting the stop. I know Astras have a fairly good rep and this gun is quite frankly just plain *sweet*! I got him down to 330.00$ out the door for one...Is it a good deal or just fair?

Thanks for any help....and Shoot well
 
A-75 or A-100?

(A-75 is a single-stack with the decocker where a 1911 thumb safety would be and the A-100 is a double-stack with a SIG-clone decocker in the grip.)
 
Decent guns. Heavy, due to all-steel construction. Full cap mags hold like 16 or 17 rounds. Pretty reliable and acceptably accurate. I've owned an A-75 in .40; it ran well.
 
The A75 Astras were a heck of a gun. I owned a Star Firestar and an A75 Astra in .40 S&W in the "pre-Kahr" days and they were the smallest single stack .40's on the market.

On the A75 I installed a Cylmer Arms recoil reducing guide rod and had it hard chromed at Metalife as it has a long stratch down the slide from the factory.
The gun shot like a champ. Thousands of rounds without a single failure. It really reminded me of a mini SIG. I always wished I had bought an alloy frame 9mm model. That would have been a nice carry weapon. Eventually I made a set of bird's eye maple grip panels for the A75 and it looked so good a friend offered me too much money for it one day. I still try to buy it back now and again. He's just to dern smart to sell it.

LOL
 
The only beef I had with my A75 (other than weight, as you mentioned) was that after three or four thousand rounds of .40, the slide-to-frame fit had loosened noticeably. Lockup was still tight, reliability was still fine and accuracy hadn't deteriorated noticeably, however. I sold it some time after the 4k mark. I'd buy another one in a heartbeat.
 
This was the problem with many of the handguns that were designed for 9mm and were converted to .40 S&W with just putting in a new barrel and mags. The Astra part number for the recoil spring was the same for the 9mm and the .40 S&W!!
We did not see real durability in the smaller forties until companies began to design them from the ground up. Of course that was one of the design intentions of the .40 was to give guns designed on a 9mm platform the punch and bigger bore to compete with the .45. Unfortunatly it was at the expense of battering the frames and slides of the little guns designed for 9mm. One reason I installed the Clymer Arms recoil reducing guide rod early on. It protected my frame and slide and the little gun is still tight to this day despite its proximity to the 4k mark. not as tight as new, but nothing a little rail peening would not cure.
 
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