In 1980 I read Gun Test Magazine's face-off between Smith and Wesson Model 59 versus the Raven P-25. The magazine article complained LOUDLY that the Model 59 jammed more often than a rock band (every time the band played...) and out of frustration went to a gun store and bought the cheapest gun in the store and a couple of boxes of .25 ACP. When the writer fired 100 shots without a bobble, the writer bought more ammo--and declared in his article that the .25 auto that fired every time was superior to the 9mm Luger that couldn't. I bought mine in Texas and fired an unknown number of shots before one of my sisters asked for a gun after she divorced. It wasn't a cannon, but the Raven was small enough that she had it with her when she needed it and it worked. My sister preferred it to my .45 pistol due to size. She broke down on the highway and had called for a tow truck. A man pulled off to help her but insisted on "helping" her even when she told him that the tow truck was on the way. She described his "creepy" behavior and yes, the man was crossing lines--she had her Raven in her hand and her hand was in her coat pocket pointed his way (might have jammed on the first shot, but...). That was enough to reinforce her NO! Besides, my infant nephew was in the car with her.
Hey Tinker, you are a decent guy former LE without a doubt. The best part of the Raven was a fixed barrel, like a Walther PPK/PP . I have an idea for you, have a shootout, compare and contrast two handguns, and decide which best meets your likening and why. My old police partner in NJ , carried a 1908, Colt vest pocket, .25 as a hidden backup on his left side. To balance out his Highway Patrolman, .357 magnum . Today he would probably carry a Bond derringer in .45 Colt or a slim .380... I had to carry a Raven for a while as backup, chamber empty. Later a High Standard derringer worked well along with a Colt .25 .
Bought my Raven in 1979. It's traveled around the country with me since. Over the years it has been 100% reliable and it puts projectiles where you want them to go provided you do your job. I heard at one time more dead bodies in Miami were attributed to Ravens as Seniors couldn't afford any better piece. I had to replace the firing pin once which (like the gun) was pretty cheap. As I recall in 1979 I paid $55 for it.
Couple years ago there was one of these guns on auction...I was willing to go up to $100, the gun sold for $140...eventually it led us to our Beretta, a much more costly, albeit more better, option (still carried today)...folks like to trash cheap guns and small calibers, but something always beats nothing...
Another good video. I am glad George Jennings could make guns. The son Bruce Jennings made junk. My dad-in-law got a brand new in the box Jennings 9mm never been shot auto to pay back a debit back in the 80s or 90s. He made it a safe queen. He let my son shoot it last yesr. The first shot of target 115g fmj federal broke the entire muzzle end off the slide. Cheap guns are great as long as they are well made.
It was better than some of the pre-GCA guns which weren't reliable or soon became that way or worse. On entering civilian LE a friend was assigned to undercover narcotics and having nothing "hideable" on hand, was given one of these by his Sergeant to carry. Stepping down from a military 45ACP he was very worried about stopping power, but luckily he didn't need to test that. And I actually owned one for all of 5 minutes. Big construction jobs always had someone raffling off things (and likely still do) and my $2 chance won me a NIB Raven. Before I could smuggle it to my toolbox someone offered me $60 for it so I took the $58 profit. The few I've shot had stiff trigger pulls but they used to be everywhere and probably still are simply because they were cheap and decent. I hear the later ones aren't so good.
I just found one of these at my local pawn shop only Chrome plated, and the newer version MP-25 Raven. I bought it because I owned one 40+ years ago, and it's quite nostalgic, at least to me. I've put around 200 rounds through it with zero malfunctions (once I learned not to let my big meat paws contact the slide causing it not to return fully into battery). Cool little piece of history. Although I have many better options for EDC, I think in an unforeseen scenario if I needed it in a close up personal situation, it would get someone off of you. Enjoyed the video brother!
According to the sources I read and how I process it... GCA 1968 came in. Raven Arms was born because of 1968. The founder/owner of Raven Arm passed away so his son took over the business and in the 1990s or so the son's "wife" divorced the son, took half of the money, some of the copyright on the gun, the company had many lawsuits and financial issues. The son sold the company to one of his foreman or something like that. The foreman bought the company and renamed it Jennsing I recall of course..lawsuits and financial issues showed up. This fella sold the company to another fella and the new guy renamed the company into Bryco. Now we fast forward to 2003 or so in CA. Some 19 year old kid tried to dissemble one of these Bryco pistol. The gun had an "accidental discharge", the bullet ricochet off, hit another 7 year old kid and cause the kid to have total paralyze for the rest of the kid's life. The parents of the 7 year old kid sued Bryco, manage to convince EVERYBODY that it was the gun's fault so therefore it's the company's fault. Bryco was forced to pay 17m to 21m(or whatever. Somewhere around that money area). Bryco declared bankruptcy and left the state of CA to Nevada. This lead to CA's Roster of Handgun system. Later the owner of Bryco sold out to another owner. They renamed Jimenez and in 2020 they filed for bankruptcy. I think Jimenze was dealing with some person who later got busted for firearms trafficking. Take this with a grain of salt.
The first one of these I saw that wasn’t in a dealers display case was in Lawton Ok while stationed at Ft Sill. It was in the hands of a drunken cowboy across the stage at a strip club. The soldier sitting beside me had said something insulting to the lady entertaining us and it turned out that the lady was married to the cowboy. Since I was driving and not drinking I explained to the other soldiers who had talked me into driving them to the club, that yes I understood it would only make small holes. But I would rather not have any holes that I was not born with, so I was leaving and they could come with me or walk back to post. They apparently were too lazy to walk back and they all decided to come with me. The next time I saw one in the wild so to speak was when I was transferred to Bamberg Germany and the first person I met was a Sergeant First Class who offered to sell me a rare “Platinum plated Raven .25” it was identical to yours except it had fake mother of pearl grips. He offered me “the deal of a lifetime” it could be mine for only $1000.00 1978 dollars. If memory serves me correctly the stateside MSRP at that time was about $49.00. To this day I have yet to own a Raven .25. A few years ago I did add a Beretta 418 to my collection for considerably less than half the price of a “rare platinum plated Raven 25”.
While stationed in Germany, a friend sold me his Baur .25. Fun little gun to shoot (the trigger on those is horrible, too). I was not allowed to bring it back with my other guns, so ended up selling it to another GI.
You may find this odd, but I rather like the look of the Raven .25. I had a Jennings .22 auto and like the old watch commercial, 'it took a licking and kept on ticking'. No matter the brand or type of ammo, it just worked. Different guns, but same incestuous manufacturers. Two thumbs up for Phoenix arms, familial survivors.
Thanks again for another gun review. I have two of the Jennings 22. They are both unsafe at this time. If i drop the slide they can go off and sometimes they will shoot all the rounds with one pull of the trigger. Both guns were given to me and work for a short time.
Inspect the breach face. It should be recessed slightly deeper than the rim of a cartridge is tall. If the recess is too shallow it will pinch the rim when a round is chambered. If that is OK the next thing I'd look at is the Fire Control Group. Is the Sear worn out of shape? Has the Sear Spring gone soft?
I had one that a buddy wanted to get rid of badly as his girlfriend didn’t want it around and eventually I bought 1 (Early 90's) for $25. I bought an extra mag and a box of 25 ACP, and that cost was more than the gun. I believe it was 30 some bucks. It always fired and was surprisingly accurate. I could keep a pop can rolling at 15 yards so plenty good for this type of gun. Over the years I've worked on, shot and helped people with several of them and the only items I see as a problem are bent feed lips on the mags and replacing the recoil spring + striker spring. Other than that they tend to be very reliable.
So happy you finally covered a Raven pocket pistol. I have the newer MP25, but honestly the safety on the P-25 you're showing is better than on the later model Raven Arms MP-25 where the safety can easily be knocked into the fire position. I think that the one you're shooting is still a viable pocket carry pistol however. Not the most potent, but certainly very concealable and a pretty accurate and reliable little pistol.. The only reason I don't carry my Mp25 is because of the wonky flip safety. On the plus side however, I think the trigger on my MP25 is fine so they must have improved the trigger a little bit perhaps from the P-25.
I wonder if Saturday nights have more crime than say a Wednesday night?In urban areas certainly a lot more people go out drinking on Saturday night along with Friday nights but that's mainly drunken fights rather than shootings,stabbings ,etc.
I'm guessing you're thinking about the name "Saturday Night Special". Back in the day, most department stores sold guns and they'd try to draw in customers by advertising "specials" for various popular goods on Saturday nights. I remember as a kid seeing RG revolvers sell this way for as little as $15.99. And around here the drunken rednecks did shoot each other with them occasionally; everyone knew which bars NOT to go to.
Try Amazon; they may be still available as Print-on-demand but I am not sure; Our publisher was bought out and the new publisher has a different business model.
the one Raven .25 that i tried out did work 100% and the magazine was real flimsy. It seemed to be made out of the thinnest metal that I had ever seen. For some reason HiPoint has not seen fit to make a .25 or .32.
This is going to sound weird. Your filming showed the live feed from the store's security cameras. The chances of that causing a legal problem for you and/or the store are pretty much nil, but there are people who will take advantage of any situation to make an unearned dollar. FWIW I'm not an attorney, but I saw some ridiculously frivolous law suits when I worked in litigation support.
One of the jobs it does is contribute to the numbers. If you are in a free state the criminals have to ask themselves if that looks like a victim. And also the government needs to look at % of people who are taking advantage of their rights.
@@tinkertalksguns7289 And you said that group was one handed ..like a fast reactive draw...with your dominant hand not support ...hand in any case if that target were an armed offender you would have dropped him.. so good job and i was so impressed with the derrenger 22 you made ...regards Greg /aus
Back in the day it wasn't just Liberals shitting themselves when blacks started showing up with guns to enforce their Civil Rights. Ronald Reagan was all in on the GCA '68.
@@tinkertalksguns7289 Wasn’t he a governor then? I seem to recall a march of some sort with guns really setting off the gun control, but I get my history mixed up from time to time.
Some people had no option for spending more. For a single mom working two jobs and barely scraping by in the 1980s $200 was a life-changing amount of money. The choice for someone like that was have a cheap gun or don't have a gun. 'Hmm... should I let provide or my kids or spend the money to get something better that I'll probably never need?' Life is seldom simple and compromises must be made sometimes and a Raven you could afford was better than not having a gun.
I think two points were made, clearly. 1. Not all cheap guns are crap, esp if used for their intended purpose. Don't shoot a cheap gun to an early death. 2. Not everyone is the position to "save up" for a higher priced firearm. You need to feel protected, the sooner the better, but you have to make *serious financial sacrifices* to afford even a cheap gun. That's real life for many people.
