Naa Mini As A Personal Defense Gun?

I had a chance to do some outdoor shooting recently with my FA magnum mini - this is smaller than the NAA .22Magnums, four shots, smaller one-finger grip frame, 1.5" barrel.

I managed to hit a torso-sized metal trashcan with it, one shot in four would hit.

Not bad, from 50 *yards* out and no benchrest :D.

You CAN make hits with these little boogers, especially the BW/MM series with better sights and grips.
 
I always thought the 22 mini revolvers were for a third or fourth gun. I dont worry about being able to hit a barn wall with it, cause I think the instruction book says to screw it into thier ear before discharging it. (If you're not close enough to screw it in thier ear, you can probly run!)


50 yard practice with the mini?:rolleyes: MAN, you musta been bored!
 
As I've posted in other threads on this subject, I carry my NAA Mini .22WMR (1-5/8"barrel) in a modified NAA pocket holster daily. My Mini travels in my right hand pocket both day and night. During the day it is my primary defense weapon, but at night it is back-up to my S&W Model 60 or my Colt Combat Commander Series 70.

There has been some criticism on this board of the NAA Mini Revolver as a defense weapon. Apparently most criticism comes from those that believe that a .50 cal Desert Eagle is the minimum CCW handgun (oh yea, they probably carry that Desert Eagle in a ankle holster too!).

But in the real world most of us can't carry the "big ones" to work and the NAA Mini is a lot better than a 45 Auto left behind in ones gun safe.

Yes, the Mini will do the job. A local fellow defended himself with a Mini 22LR during an armed robbery. He shot the 15 year old perp approximately between the eyes. Results were immediate: DOA for one perp. Definitely ruled a righteous shooting by all.

The Mini is strickly a up-close-&-personal defense weapon. If you can smell their breath, you are in range. Beyond that it is just a "maybe-I'm-lucky" weapon. Nevertheless, the Mini is by far better than nothing.
 
The 22 was designed as a hunting round for rabbits and the like.

And the NAA Mini was designed for point shooting. But most people don't practice point shooting enough to be effective. You must strike the neck, eye, or ear regions to be effective. In three years and several gun ranges, I've only seen one gun point shooting. If you want to carry it, practice point shooting regularly.

Now for the bashing . . .

Emergency rooms treat people who were shot with 22s. Some of them even die. But a good hour or two later. The 22 just can't inflict enough traumatic tissue and organ damage to stop or incapacitate a bad guy within a minute.

Sure you can shoot them. Hope they don't have on a jacket. may not make it through.

And the presentation of a weapon stops most conflicts. But the NAA mini looks like a toy and you may get laughed at. It happened here in a Safeway parking lot late at night. A man drew his NAA mini and the mugger laughed at him and before the guy could get off a shot, he was sucker punched by the BG and mugged. He had a nice shiner but said under stress he couldn't get the darn thing to shoot. It's way too small for me.

Want to go rabbit blasting? Get your 22. Preferablly a Ruger 10/22 or a Marlin Papoose.

But at 2am in the parking lot, the NAA mini is only good once you've run out of 9mm or 45 ACP. Then you can stick the Mini in his ear to stop him because the crack was in his veins. I see perps stopped by 9mm, 40sw, 45 ACP, and 357 mag regularly but few if any stopped by a 22 bullet.

It's your life. Carry the toy. But there are similar sized guns by a couple makers that will offer you better ballistics. the Mini's are nice and well made but classified with the Derringers. Nice idea but not as effective as other current product offerings.
 
Additional comments:

Modify NAA pocket holster by removing leather over hammer spur and under trigger so that ones trigger finger can gain immediate purchase on the trigger.

With hand in pocket, the method of draw includes covering hammer with thumb while pulling the Mini out of the holster with you finger on the trigger. Hammer is cocked as Mini leaves the pocket. Assuming your hand is positioned in your pocket, finger on the trigger and thumb on the hammer, it can be drawn very FAST! Practice - practice - practice at 3 yards on life size target.

One last point. My method of carry is hammer down on empty chamber. This provides zero tension on hammer spring. Use of notches between chambers may leave some tension on hammer spring. Don't worry about having only 4-shots available as you may not get but 1-shot anyway.

To those of you considering purchasing a NA Mini, I would suggest the Magnum version. The Magnum has a larger grip which is easier to grasp and draw quickly.

Once again, I convey this information based on my experience in carrying a NA Mini Magnum for at least 7 years.
 
jtduncan says,"The 22 just can't inflict enough traumatic tissue or organ damage to stop or incapacitate a bad guy within a minute."

Well, you can bash the NAA minis all you want, but the above statement is just not true. CNS disruption causes instant incapacitation. Instant. Surely I don't have to explain where you have to shoot someone to accomplish this. Of course there are more effective weapons than the NAA minis, but they are not toys.

On a related note, there is a thread on General Discussion that contains a new Col. Cooper column with the following quote in it: "Man fights with his mind; his weapons are incidental."

CoyDog
 
AUTiger73, you're 100% wrong on the hammer position on safe issue.

When you drop an NAA's hammer into the safety notches between two cylinders, it should fall just as far as it would when firing or fully resting on an empty cylinder.

IF NOT, YOU'RE NOT USING THE SAFETY CORRECTLY.

To drop the hammer into a notch, you must first line the hammer up with a notch, and then pull the hammer back slightly while fully depressing the trigger. Only then will the hammer fully fall forward into the notch.

Look at the hammer position from above when it's fully into the safety notch versus when it's fully down on an empty cylinder. The hammer position in relation to the frame is identical.

If you don't pull the trigger while dropping hammer into safety notch, then the hammer is only hovering OVER the safety notch on the half-cock. Which is NOT safe, because the cylinder can spin into battery and now all you have is the half-cock to prevent a drop-fire and that's not adequate.

The NAA manual on all this is on the NAA site. I strongly suggest going back and re-thinking what you're doing, and then properly carry the little puppy on the safety, fully loaded with five rounds.

Jim
 
I have to agree with AUTiger on this one. If you carry your NAA mini with all chambers loaded and the hammer resting down in the saftey notch between chambers, the bolt is not engaged in the cylinder. Thus, if you pull the hammer back just far enough so that it clears the saftey notch, the cylinder can rotate so a round rests under the hammer. This requires only about 1/8" of pulling the hammer back, even when the hammer is completely down in the saftey notch. :eek:

On the other hand, if you carry with the hammer down over an empty chamber, the bolt engages the cylinder preventing it from turning. Even if the hammer is pulled back 1/8" to clear the chamber or saftey notch, the bolt is still keeping the cylinder from turning. You have to pull the hammer back at least another 1/8" past the half cock position before the bolt disengages allowing the cylinder to turn.

Try it yourself. With the hammer down in the saftey notch, slowly pull back the hammer until the cylinder rotates. It only takes a slight pull back on the hammer to rotate the cylinder. But with the hammer down on an empty chamber, it takes a much larger pull back on the hammer for the cylinder to turn.

Hope I explained this clearly. It's much safer carrying the hammer down over an empty chamber. Thanks
 
"EAR GUN", or "UNDER THE CHIN".....

I consider my NAA as a contact weapon, similar to a knife. I don't expect to scare someone, I expect to shoot them.

Again, my current threat assessment is MUCH different than in the past.
 
I have to agree with Jim March on his above statements. I always carry my mini with the hammer resting in the notch. This is a simple yet great design, and enables you to carry it fully loaded. It makes no sense to me to carrry it on a empty chamber when the notches are there for that very purpose.:cool:
 
I carried them (had three different ones) from '88 to '98 with the hammer on the notches, loose in the front pocket of my jeans. There were a couple of times when the hammer somehow walked off the notch and I discovered it resting on a primer when I took the revo out of my pocket that evening.

It was a little scary, but I never let it keep me from carrying the things (tho eventually I put it in a pocket holster).

I stopped carrying them because I don't think you get enough muzzle velocity to guarantee stop-quality damage on a human with those itty-bitty bullets. I've seen enough cases where .22s did not work - out of longer bbls than we're discussing. And no, AUTiger - in case you were referring to me, I don't carry a .50 in an ankle holster (always uplifting to see ad hominem attacks on fellow board members). I responded to this thread because someone asked about using these things, and I know something about it. No need to be snide about people who disagree with you.
 
Speaking of loaded chamber safety...I own the FA 22 mini. Is a 5 shot. It has no notches between the cylinders for carry safe, after loading you carefully cycle the hammer down, then pull back one click so the hammer dont rest on the pin/primer. I dont trust it and carry 4 in it and still hammer off the pin. What do you think, would it be safe with 5 in it?
 
Jim: It appeared to me that the hammer when engaged in the notch between cylinders was not fully as rest. Yes, I may be wrong about this, but there have been some reports of broken hammer springs and to mitigate this perceived problem I continue to carry my Mini with the hammer down on a empty chamber. I see that others have raised some issues regarding the hammer becoming disengaged from the safety notch. NAA pocket holster should prevent this from happening. However, keep in mind I modified my pocket holster so that the hammer spur and trigger are exposed.

So there is no misunderstanding, I place the cylinder so the empty chamber is immediately to the left of the barrel. Pointing the Mini in a safe direction, I cock the hammer to bring the empty chamber in line with the barrel and gently thumb the hammer down while pulling the trigger. The end result is a cylinder locked by the bolt stop with the hammer down on an empty chamber. No it does NOT follow the instructions in the manual.

There are two important questions to be considered here:

(1) Is it safe to carry the Mini with the hammer down on an empty chamber? I contend that it is absolutely safe to carry hammer down on an empty chamber, just as it was when my grand daddy carried his SAA 45 Colt with the hammer down on an empty chamber. To deny this is to deny the historically accepted safe method of carrying single-action revolvers.

(2) Will you need all 5 rounds to defend yourself? I contend that you are in very deep $hit if you need 5 rounds from a Mini. We are generally in agreement that the use of a Mini for defense is a "up-close" proposition. We are talking about in-your-face conflict here. You had better hope that 1 shot to the head will immediately end further hostilities because you may not get a chance for a second shot.

This brings me to my final point. As far as that statement about a "... 22 not inflicting enough traumatic tissue or organ damage to stop or incapacitate a bad guy within a minute" ... I doubt any of you would volunteer to be the test target.

As I stated earlier, the Mini .22 used in a local shooting was very effective. Adding to that statement, the perp took 1 shot between the eyes and immediately expired. The news account called it DOA but one of the paramedics said the perp died instantly. Consider that this Mini was a 22LR and the perp could not be any "deader" if a 22Magnum was used. Footnote to the story is that the deceased was "only trying to feed his drug habit" and he was a "victim" of poor home circumstances.
 
If it doesn't have the safety naotches because it's an FA or a very old NAA, you have two choices:

1) Carry with the hammer on an empty round.

2) If it has a fluted cylinder, and you have a very tight pocket holster, it's possible to fully lower the hammer down on the empty areas between rounds and then rely on holster tension on the cylinder to prevent it spinning into battery if the hammer is accidently partially cocked. This isn't 100% safe, but in the year and a half that I carried my 4-shot FA .22Magnum mini, it never failed.

On current minis, I still recommend the safety notch and fully-loaded carry. Yes, it's possible for the hammer to go to half-cock in your pocket, but it doesn't happen often. Full-cock by accident pretty much never happens, it's a pretty stiff spring in there. For an accident to happen, it would have to go to half-cock, then spin into battery, and then something would have to whack the hammer hard enough to both slip the half-cock AND set off the primer.

That's a lot to go wrong all at once.

Jim
 
jtduncan where did you get that neat little holster for your P-32?
I still say the Mini in .22 mag HP is better than nothing. If you can't take it out of your pocket and shoot it quickly, then you haven't practiced enough. You can't hit a chest size target at 20 feet, then you haven't practiced enough. If you can't get off 3-4 shots into a chest size target at 10-20 feet, while moving, then you haven't practiced enough. If you carry a weapon, and go through daily life without being aware of your surroundings, then you need to practice more. No flame intended, but this is pretty much true with any CCW.
this was a good thread, thanks.
DA
 
2200 fps? Really? Dark Angel, you might want to consider chronographing shots actually coming out of your gun. I really doubt you are getting 2200 fps out of a 1.5" revolver barrel.

I think it is great that several of you proclain so staunchly about the lethality of .22 lr out of one of these guns. The potential is there, but then again, a lot of things can be lethal. People have been killed by a single stab from a 4" ice pick, about a .15 caliber at most and without great penetration. People have been killed with pencils and ball point pens, closer to a 9 mm. Heck, kids have been killed with seemingly low powered BB guns. The point is not whether the little guns can kill or completely incapacitate a person. That is without question. The real issue is whether you can actually deploy the little gun in an effective manner and deliver that all important incapacitating shot.

Put another way, most handguns are pretty much underpowered for what we would really like them to do, stop other humans who would want to hurt us. Think about all of the debates on the effectiveness of larger calibers and the fact that a lot of people don't get stopped with one, two, and even sometimes three shots from a 9 mm or .45 acp. Within the spectrum of handguns, NAA revolvers are at the lower end of the power scale, certainly much less powerful than 9 mm and .45 acp.
 
Within the spectrum of handguns, NAA revolvers are at the lower end of the power scale, certainly much less powerful than 9 mm and .45 acp
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If I be not mistaken, that is what is known as a truism. The NAA Mini .22s do not compete with larger caliber guns; they supplement them.

The real issue is whether you can actually deploy the little gun in an effective manner and deliver that all important incapacitating shot.
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On TFL there have been quite a number of reports of NAA Mini revolvers being deployed in an effective manner, delivering all important incapacitating shots.

Such as:

A 60 year old man was put in a headlock by a young assailant. The man put his NAA Mini against the attacker's knee and scored a one shot stop of the assault.

An NAA Mini was used to score a between-the-eyes shot which instantly killed an attacker.
 
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Your right

Double Naught Spy........your right on that 2200 fps, I'm sure that was out of a 6 inch barrel. But even knocking off 200 fps.....a 40 gr piece of lead going at near 2000 fps is nothing to snease at. It is my least choice weapon, but you can't carry a Glock 23, or a PO P-12 everywhere.
later
DA:D
 
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