Mouse Guns

Welcome to my first real post in a long time. Sorry about that, I did do one post, but accidently put it on my general blog instead of my firearms blog.



I am in the mood to talk about the mighty mousegun. I believe that the term mousegun was first brought to my attention in a gun magazine article by either Masaad Ayoob or Jerry Ahern. It was used to refer to small, usually small caliber, handguns which aren't powerful enough to use to kill anything larger than a mouse.



Mouse guns in general are those weapons the non-gun nut might carry and feel safe with, but which those in-the-know also carry but are ashamed to admit they carry them in anything other than an emergency, last-ditch, back up gun for a back-up-gun.



Mouseguns have the following good qualities:



They are small and easy to carry.



They are likely to be with you when a large weapon isn't.



They are easy to hide and noone will probably know you have it.



In some cases they may be slightly more effective than throwing rocks.



Mouseguns have the following bad qualities:



They are small in size.



They are easy to carry.



They are easy to hide.



They may be slightly more effective than throwing rocks.



Okay, mouseguns are small, this is good and bad.



It is good in that they are easy to carry concealed, and they are comfortable to carry. I believe Jeff Cooper once said your self-defense weapon should be comforting not comfortable. It is bad because this makes it easier to carry one of these instead of a more practical and effective weapon. It is easier to build a small weapon around a small cartridge. There are 9mm and .45 ACP caliber guns in a small enough scale to qualify as mouseguns. They have their own drawbacks offering only the larger caliber advantage over the other mouseguns.



The small size is also bad in that smaller weapons have smaller controls. Magazine releases and safeties are much smaller and harder to operate quickly under pressure. The shorter barrel reduces cartridge performance and accuracy. The shorter site radius and tiny or non-existant sights make accuracy problematic. Trigger pulls are usually horrible on mouseguns as well. Mouse guns aren't really designed to take shots at 20 yards though. They are meant for close range, last ditch, emergency use.



Easy to hide is good, because this weapon is hail Mary pass. It is bad because chances are it will be dropped in a pocket sans holster. It can get twisted around and be ackward to draw. A pocket draw out of tight pants could be an issue also. If you carry in a pants pocket, a pocket holster is a must.



Now given that mouse guns are small, they have small or no sights, short sight radius, hard triggers, small grips and are hard to shoot well. If they are of a caliber large enough to be effective, then they are noisy, and have a lot of recoil and muzzle flash. Most people don't practice very much with them. Given the possibility or recoil and the trigger, follow up shots may be slower.



Mousegun quality varies. Mouseguns are available in every quality catagorie. Beretta offers mouseguns as well as Bryco/Lorcin. Mostly you get what you pay for, with a few exceptions.

Older mouseguns may offer some issues too. John Browning has a classic design marketed by Browning as a Baby Browning and also offered by Colt. These were to all accounts very well made weapons, however given the time period they were made, they probably weren't designed to function with anything other than FMJ bullets.



I would never really compare the quality of a Davis or Raven with a Beretta, but I've owned three Raven .25's and 4 Davis handguns, a .380 and 2 .25's. I had no problems with any of them, all functioned flawlessly with everything, even handloads. I also have had 3 Jennings handguns, 1 .22 LR, and 2 .25's. The .22 was a little finicky on ammo, but worked well with what it liked, one .25 was good, but the other jammed about every 3 shots, no matter what I tried to feed it. I also owned a Taurus PT-25. It was a great little gun, a bit heavy, and a bit larger than the Davis and Raven, but it had a tip up barrel, was double-action, and had a bit larger controls. Unfortunately this left me my only complaint. The magazine eject was a bit too large and you could hit it accidently while carrying it in a pocket holster. The magazine well was tight, so the magazine stayed in, but it dropped enough to activate the magazine safety and made the gun useless. This only happeded with pocket carry, if I used a clip holster, or carried it in a coat pocket, no problem.

My current mouseguns consist of a double-barrel 9mm Cobra derringer and an old Italian .25 my father gave me. I don't carry the .25 for sentimental reasons.