Ha. I was thinking a liberator style pistol with the “in grip spare ammo storage”.

I would argue that running those “Saturday night special” type POS’s out of business etc. was a disservice to society and forced criminals to start embracing guns that…….well actually work. I’d much rather face a home invader with a Raven/Lorcin etc. then even the most clapped out Glock.

I dunno, the chrome on that Lorcin, and the pearl grips make it a pretty attractive firearm.
Maybe it just needs to be shot some more to break it in.

My Dad had a jennings .25acp in the early 90’s. If that pot metal junker could go thru both 6 round mags of .25 fmj without puking it was an achievement. I remember the gun rags of that era rife with Lorcin ads, the tone of them seemingly putting the Lorcin as the Cadillac of the cheap Saturday Night Specials.

After that video it seems that Lorcin is even worse than the jennings which I would have previously thought to be impossible.

An older woman came into the LGS where I hang around, wanting to sell her dead husband’s pistol. They told her to bring it in so they could take a look at it. It was an ANIB shiny chrome Lorcin .380. They told her they weren’t interested, even at the $50 she was asking for it.

I don't recall the name of the company owner, but IIRC, "Lorcin" was a portmanteau of his daughters' first names, Lori and Cindy.

I had a co-worker who bought one for his wife and I told him to lookup Saturday night special and shoot it before handing it off for her to purse carry. (That’s an entirely separate topic on its own)

Needless to say it went about half a mag or so before it took its own life and something sheared off internally.

Check out “ring of fire companies” if you are bored and want to learn a little history about old cheap pistols.


-Jeff

I bought a Raven .25acp for $40 from Cabelas around 10 years back... I'll be damned if that gun has never faulted when I've shot it.

I've been told the .22lr versions were absolute rubbish.

I had capguns when I was a kid that were better built than a Lorcin.

Yeah, ran better than I figured it would. $100? That poor guy got rinsed.

When I was still in Florida, I came into a pile of guns for free. This lady brought her grandfather to live with her because they couldn't afford professional care. She had young kids and didn't want his guns in the house. I told her I'd help her sell them. Brought me a badly sporterized Enfield No. 4. and a bunch of Saturday Night Specials in a laundry basket and said "just keep 'em." There were a few FIE's, and some other revolvers I'd never heard of, all .22's. Out of about nine or ten guns, the only ones in the basket that seemed worth keeping were a snub nosed Smith & Wesson 10-5 and a Jennings .25. The rest were absolutely unsafe to fire, and I didn't have a good way to destroy them, so of everyone who jokes about having lost their guns in a boating accident, it's actually entirely possible that they really did end up in deep salt water.

I never shot that Jennings. I had, and still have, a Baby Browning .25, and so I had ammo for the Jennings. Never loaded it. Didn't feel safe to. I took it apart once, and when I got it back together, the striker mechanism wouldn't work. For lack of deep salt water and the will to smash the thing with a hammer, it sat. Years later, I saw an ad on the local board from a guy who, of all things, wanted to buy broken Saturday Night Specials. Met up with him, he handed I think fifty bucks, and we got in our cars. I wasn't even out of the parking lot yet and he texted me that he got it working. Mazel Tov.

That was my adventure with cheap pot metal guns. I think the only other brand name they went by that hasn't been mentioned yet is Bryco.

I worked quite a few shootings with Raven .25’s. I’ve never seen one jammed.

Yes, in the 1980s, the Raven pistol in .25 ACP was the low budget choice among the shooters I knew. It had a reputation for reliability that was far out if its price class. I worked with an engineer at a TV station who carried one in an ankle holster and swore by this pistol.