North American Arms Mini .22 Magnum Revolver

I like miniatures of all sorts, and I've been interested in this revolver ever since I saw the first version, a four-shot revolver that was sold as the Freedom Arms Boot Gun back in the 1980s. The current version is made by North American Arms, who sell (at last count) eight different versions in .22 Short, Long Rifle, and Magnum. There are two long barreled versions, convertible .22LR/Mag versions, and even a break-open version. I thought about buying one for a year before buying mine- I'd read a lot of articles about how terribly impractical it is, but when it came down to it, I just thought it was a very neat gun.

The first impression you get on picking one up is that while it may be tiny,  this is a very solidly made gun. There are no stampings or alloy castings; every part is machined out of stainless steel with great precision. It has the feel of a much larger gun, which is not surprising, as it was designed by Freedom Arms founder Dick Casull, whose more famous guns include some of the biggest, strongest, and most powerful revolvers ever made.

Everything I'd read about the gun said that it was difficult to shoot, and suffered from a lot of muzzle flip, but my experience has been that this is a very easy gun to shoot with very little flip- even in .22mag. You do get a lot of muzzle flash, thanks to the short barrel, but there's little recoil as that short barrel also means that the projectile has much less energy than you'd get out of a longer barrel. You do have to be careful to keep your fingers away from the cylinder-barrel gap, as the gun will spit a bit of hot gas there. This is true of all revolvers; it's just that the Mini's small size means it's much more likely that your fingers will get in the way.

The sights on this gun are about as simple as it gets- a blade in front and a groove at the rear of the frame. The rear sight is so much higher than the front that if you line up the sights you'll hit a foot low at 20 feet. You've got to line up the rear sight with the base of the front sight, and then you'll pretty much shoot to point of aim at that distance. For those looking for a good high-tech sight system, you can buy a laser system from Laserlyte that clamps on the backstrap and looks as cute as the gun. (Laserlyte also makes a clamp-on Bayonet for the NAA revolvers that's about as silly an add-on as I've ever seen- but they sell a fair number of them.)

Some shooters like the Mini as a sort of backup backup gun- the gun you carry when you can't carry a a gun, as some have said. The .22mag fired out of a barrel this short has only about 150 foot-pounds of energy, but it does make a lot of noise and flash, and while it's no .45 ACP I don't think anyone would want to be shot with one. The increasing popularity of .22Magnum as a self defense cartridge (S&W makes a J-frame .22mag snubbie) has resulted in a number of ammunition makers producing a cartridge optimized for pistol barrels of 4" or less. These cartridges use a faster burning powder to try and get more complete combustion inside the gun instead of spitting out a cloud of hot, glowing gas that's still burning. I've tried the CCI/Speer Gold Dots, and they do seem to generate less flash than the CCI Maxi-Mags I've been using. The Gold Dots are said to come out of a 1-5/8" barrel at around 1100fps as opposed to around 850fps for the MiniMags.

There are a lot of interesting holsters made for the gun, including a very practical pocket holster from Galco. North American makes a folding Holster Grip that replaces the stock grip panels, and turns the gun into something resembling a bulky pocket knife. And for those who remember the Mattel belt buckle derringer of the 1960s, North American makes a big cast aluminum belt buckle that the revolver snaps into- perfect for open carry in, say, Texas.

Personally, I like mine as a neat collectible and a plinker with a high degree of difficulty. When it gets warm enough to hit the outdoor range again I'm going to see what it can do at 100 yards.

Update: I eventually sold it, four years later. It didn't take up much space in the safe, and it is kinda cute, but after a few months I never shot it again... so out it went, to be replaced by something more interesting.