jkroner659
01-04-2009, 02:13 PM
It's been a while since I last shot my little 21a, and I was needing some assurance of it's reliability, in short I am pretty impressed. This was only my 2nd outing with this gun since I have bought it. All shooting was done @ 5 yards.
PREP: I always like to go to the range with a clean/freshly lubed gun just so if there are any failures, I can rule out bypassing the clean/lube. So I cleaned it with dry patches because I did not shoot it since I last cleaned it so it did not really need to be cleaned per say but a light dusting was in order. After a slight cleaning, I ran a couple of patches slightly lubed with Gun Butter through the bore to make it clean/very lightly lubed, than ran a dry boresnake through the bore twice. I then used Gun Butter on the frame rails and lightly lubed the inside of the slide where the frame rails ride also.
Shooting: I have a few kinds of .22lr ammo for future testing but I bought a good amount of CCI Stingers and CCI Mini Mags both hp's and round nose. I brought with me to the range what I heard from some of you and what I consider to be the most reliable ammo for this gun, the 32 grain hp stinger, and the 40 grain round nose mini mag. I brought 200 of each to the range with me.
I started off with the Stingers. I marked down each time I ran a complete mag through it and I planned to note any failures of any kind(you can see my log in one of the photo's). I proceeded to run stingers through the 21a mag after mag with no bore snaking in between to check for reliability since this is what I have been carrying when I can't carry a full size gun. At mag #15, I had one fte(extract) which resulted in the spent shell still halfway in the barrel while another round from the mag was half way out, the rest of the mag went fine. At mag #16 I had the same exact sort of problem. This is when I decided the chamber was getting dirty and from then on I would probably have a few of these fte issues until I cleaned it. So I ran the bore snake through twice and "started over" with the stingers, I finished the rest of the remaining stingers with no issues whatsoever after bore snaking at mag #16. So with the Stingers I had 2 fte out of 200 rounds, this is purely because the chamber get's dirty and it needs a quick bore snake to make the gun function 100%. I was happy with only 2 fte with the Stingers, and they did not happen until mag #15 and #16, which is not bad when you think how this gun has no extractor.
Next was the 40 grain round nose mini mags. After I switched from Stingers to the mini mags, I decided to run the bore snake through twice to give the mini mags a fair shake at the reliability test in the 21a. Well, 200 rounds, mag after mag was flawless...I found my new carry ammo! I did not clean the gun at all, I just ran mag after mag through it with the mini mags...flawless. I was carrying stingers, and still might but it appears that the mini mags are cleaner and therefore more reliable. I gotta say though, shooting the 21a with stingers is a fun time, they are definitely more powerful then the mini mags.
Accuracy:My gun(and maybe all 21a's) shoot high. Both kinds of ammo shot high @ 5 yards. One can adjust to this but really, what do you expect out of this little 21a in terms of accuracy? I find this accuracy realistic of such a small barrel. Be aware though if you aim for COM you might end up getting a headshot:cool:. To be fair I did not concentrate on accuracy as much as I was concentrating on shooting in sporadic realistic strings to check for reliability. Many of my shots were very quick double taps, trying to get a jam or something to occur. The one thing that needs to be said for accuracy is this gun shoots high, and is what most people would consider average or quite good for such a small barrel(when slow firing for accuracy).
Here are some pics of my targets, and a pic of the barrel after 200 flawless rounds of mini mags, I tried to show the crap that causes the fte's but of course I did the best I could for taking some quick shots. I would recommend a Beretta 21a for a fun range gun or even a back up gun, although many more "real caliber" guns exist that would be better...but something is very attractive about the 21a to me, it's such a neat little gun. I am actually very happy about it's reliability today, only 2 fte's out of 400 rounds, and both were with Stingers, it's clear that Stingers, while more powerful, are also more dirty which would hamper reliability if shooting more than say 10 mags back to back...which one will never have to do most likely in a real world situation, so in reality both the CCI 32 grain hp Stinger and the CCI 40 grain round nose Mini Mag are good for carry since they are reliable and are powerful enough to cycle the slide and knock out the spent shell. Good day at the range, I am happy about the reliability of my 21a, I was actually surprised...
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport002-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport001-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport003-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport004-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport005-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport006-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport007.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport009-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport011.jpg
PREP: I always like to go to the range with a clean/freshly lubed gun just so if there are any failures, I can rule out bypassing the clean/lube. So I cleaned it with dry patches because I did not shoot it since I last cleaned it so it did not really need to be cleaned per say but a light dusting was in order. After a slight cleaning, I ran a couple of patches slightly lubed with Gun Butter through the bore to make it clean/very lightly lubed, than ran a dry boresnake through the bore twice. I then used Gun Butter on the frame rails and lightly lubed the inside of the slide where the frame rails ride also.
Shooting: I have a few kinds of .22lr ammo for future testing but I bought a good amount of CCI Stingers and CCI Mini Mags both hp's and round nose. I brought with me to the range what I heard from some of you and what I consider to be the most reliable ammo for this gun, the 32 grain hp stinger, and the 40 grain round nose mini mag. I brought 200 of each to the range with me.
I started off with the Stingers. I marked down each time I ran a complete mag through it and I planned to note any failures of any kind(you can see my log in one of the photo's). I proceeded to run stingers through the 21a mag after mag with no bore snaking in between to check for reliability since this is what I have been carrying when I can't carry a full size gun. At mag #15, I had one fte(extract) which resulted in the spent shell still halfway in the barrel while another round from the mag was half way out, the rest of the mag went fine. At mag #16 I had the same exact sort of problem. This is when I decided the chamber was getting dirty and from then on I would probably have a few of these fte issues until I cleaned it. So I ran the bore snake through twice and "started over" with the stingers, I finished the rest of the remaining stingers with no issues whatsoever after bore snaking at mag #16. So with the Stingers I had 2 fte out of 200 rounds, this is purely because the chamber get's dirty and it needs a quick bore snake to make the gun function 100%. I was happy with only 2 fte with the Stingers, and they did not happen until mag #15 and #16, which is not bad when you think how this gun has no extractor.
Next was the 40 grain round nose mini mags. After I switched from Stingers to the mini mags, I decided to run the bore snake through twice to give the mini mags a fair shake at the reliability test in the 21a. Well, 200 rounds, mag after mag was flawless...I found my new carry ammo! I did not clean the gun at all, I just ran mag after mag through it with the mini mags...flawless. I was carrying stingers, and still might but it appears that the mini mags are cleaner and therefore more reliable. I gotta say though, shooting the 21a with stingers is a fun time, they are definitely more powerful then the mini mags.
Accuracy:My gun(and maybe all 21a's) shoot high. Both kinds of ammo shot high @ 5 yards. One can adjust to this but really, what do you expect out of this little 21a in terms of accuracy? I find this accuracy realistic of such a small barrel. Be aware though if you aim for COM you might end up getting a headshot:cool:. To be fair I did not concentrate on accuracy as much as I was concentrating on shooting in sporadic realistic strings to check for reliability. Many of my shots were very quick double taps, trying to get a jam or something to occur. The one thing that needs to be said for accuracy is this gun shoots high, and is what most people would consider average or quite good for such a small barrel(when slow firing for accuracy).
Here are some pics of my targets, and a pic of the barrel after 200 flawless rounds of mini mags, I tried to show the crap that causes the fte's but of course I did the best I could for taking some quick shots. I would recommend a Beretta 21a for a fun range gun or even a back up gun, although many more "real caliber" guns exist that would be better...but something is very attractive about the 21a to me, it's such a neat little gun. I am actually very happy about it's reliability today, only 2 fte's out of 400 rounds, and both were with Stingers, it's clear that Stingers, while more powerful, are also more dirty which would hamper reliability if shooting more than say 10 mags back to back...which one will never have to do most likely in a real world situation, so in reality both the CCI 32 grain hp Stinger and the CCI 40 grain round nose Mini Mag are good for carry since they are reliable and are powerful enough to cycle the slide and knock out the spent shell. Good day at the range, I am happy about the reliability of my 21a, I was actually surprised...
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport002-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport001-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport003-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport004-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport005-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport006-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport007.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport009-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o15/jkroner659/21arangereport011.jpg