Beretta Bobcat (22LR) - Worst accuracy of all times...?!

I used to own a 21a in 22lr, and I had no problem hitting pop cans at 25yds. I still have one in 25acp, and it is just as accurate.

The Bobcat is not the easiest handgun to shoot accurately. It just wasn't built with the advantages given a gun with better sights and a longer sight radius.

In my Bobcat's case, it is a plinker you can use the surrounding dirt to walk your shots onto a target. Paper punching is not its strong point.

Keep shooting it, the gun's accuracy will improve.

It's a nice gun for what it is. Don't give up on it after only 1 box of ammo. Mine likes CCI Mini-Mag and shoots very well. I quailfied for my CCW with it. It will take a little time and effort to shoot accurate with it but it can be done. It really is a fun little gun.



By the way that was a very good price. I paid more than that 25 years ago.

Did you shoot it using a rest or let someone else shoot it to find out if it's you or the gun? I ask because I have one of those; mine is so accurate that I was extremely surprised the first time I shot it.

The Beretta 21A is as accurate as any other small gun.

No offence, but any gun that's, "all over the rather large NRA 25 yard paper target at seven yards" is the fault of the shooter, not the gun.

I taught my friend's two boys to shoot with the 21A when they were so young they couldn't pull the slide back (tip up barrel). They both shot back to 15 yards with no trouble.


I've had the Beretta 21A for many years. Carried it concealed for years.
At present the gun is used for low light laser small pistol practice. With or without the laser the gun will shoot small groups at seven yards.

Despite the lack of high visibility sights, I can shoot my 21A pretty well out to about 15 yards or so on a felon-sized target. Beyond that, my aging eyes make "spray and pray" a preferred tactic anyway.

A small handgun with a short barrel is more difficult to shoot accurately. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. Shorter sight radius, which means sight alignment errors have greater effect. A misalignment of 1/16-inch with a Beretta Bobcat has more effect on accuracy than the same 1/16-inch misalignment with a Beretta 92.
2. Movement of the pistol when the trigger breaks - especially if the trigger pull is heavy.

M2 Carbine said:

No offence, but any gun that's, "all over the rather large NRA 25 yard paper target at seven yards" is the fault of the shooter, not the gun.

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Well, there are exceptions to this. I once shot an old Colt .32 revolver that had the rifling rusted out of the barrel, and it was tough to keep the shots on a refrigerator box at 30 feet or so. That thing was throwing knuckleballs! Needless to say, we put it away pretty quickly for safety's sake.

Well, there are exceptions to this.

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For sure.

I've had guns that key-holed at 7-10 yards, but mostly, at 7 yards, guns will easily put all shots in a group you can cover with your hand . The Beretta 21A definitely will.


Heck, even the 21A's little brother, the Beretta MINX 22 Short will mostly stay on a silhouette target at 100 yards (white pasters).

Mine shoots well and seems to really like Eley Tenex. It certainly does take some practice to get any good with it though.

Bobcat Accuracy

I've got a Beretta Minx....pretty much the same gun, but my Minx is a .22 Short....At 7 yds, I can shoot the top of a soda can out...very accurate, given the small size...you may be popping the trigger.

I had a Beretta tip up single action in .22 short. Accuracy? Hell, I only got one out of 3 rounds to actually fire and that usually jammed. I got rid of the POS. Oh, yeah, and it wasn't what I'd call accurate, either. My NAA mini revolver will shoot rings around it. Didn't have a lot of ammo choices available local, though. Sometimes you have to find out what they like.

The Beretta 21A isn't a plinking pistol, nor a target pistol. It's a defensive last ditch pistol designed to either deter a close-in, personal crime or pump a number of small high-velocity bullets into the chest or head of a bad guy when he won't listen to reason.

With practice, bullets can be placed with a high degree of accuracy. I've read many articles where people not only defended their lives with these little pistols, but actually killed their assailants.

As far as I can tell, these little pistols aren't designed to use their sights, and I'm not even sure they should have rear sights. Just keep trying. The guns are great protection if you use the right ammo.

My Bobcat is left over from my Army days. Several of us on my team always carried a 21A shrink-wrapped (regular kitchen machine) in heavy oil with a couple of mags and different ammo for survival purposes. One of the things we liked about that particular pistol was the tip up barrel. This feature allowed single feeding ammo that wouldn't mag feed like a shot round we made from .22mag cases. Eventually, a fella would find just where particular rounds would strike at reasonable ranges and we found good consistency if we didn't stray on the ammo. Used to be, you could get permits in National forests that would allow subsistence gathering like traps, snares and even the use of these for survival training regardless of season and we took a lot of critters - flying and crawling - with them after a lot of practice.

Seems a couple of the pistols were actually Taurus rather than Beretta and one fella tried a .25 for which, oddly, I still have the grips.

Anyhow, the point is, given the time to find what it wants to be fed, they can be relatively accurate given the micro length barrels.

Another odd thing I still have is a dummy suppressor and a threaded barrel that I picked up - who knows where - or why, for that matter... Looks cool, like I'm all Mossad an stuff!

Count, I purchased one myself from the same sale! $210 was a great deal. My dealer verified it was below what he could buy it for. So I felt good about that. I have not shot mine yet so I don't know how it will perform, but one of these small Berettas has been on my long list of things to get if I found the right deal. From what I've read mose people seem happy with theirs. Your report has me spooked a bit though!

the count said:

Which would be.....?

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If it feeds well, something like the CCI Stinger would be about the best you can hope for.

See this link at Golden Loki where the Taurus version of the Bobcat is used.
http://www.goldenloki.com/ammo/gel/22lr/gel22lr.htm

Look at 4th from the bottom of this page to see what velocities BBTI got with the Bobcat for a variety of ammo.
http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/22.html

In my Bobcat, the Stingers didn't always feed well since they were hollow points. That little hollow point would get hung up just enough to be troublesome. However, non-hollow point round-nose CCI MiniMags fed the best.

Beretta

Very hard to shoot accurate. However, the pistol itself is very accurate. I've read that in a mechanical rest they shoot way less than 2" at 25 yards. I've owned a few but never shot them. Most all tiny pistols are very hard to shoot accurately.
Wish I had a link to the article on the Beretta's accuracy. From memory so don't trust it totally.

Mine is reliable with CCI Minimags, and Stingers. It is also more accurate than it should be. Fun little gun that I use as a BUG from time to time.

Well, for not much more, you can get a P32 or even a P3AT/LCP/TCP/etc, etc, etc that are lighter and about as compact and more powerful. I don't see the appeal of the little .25 and .22 autos anymore. Yeah, they'll work for self defense, but I think more punch is much more reassuring to me.

I normally pocket carry a 9x19 Kel Tec or .38 Ultralite snub, though. I have a really tiny and light NAA mini .22 in a folding grip in my weak side pocket as an also gun just in case. It's not a target gun, either, but it's not bad at close range, minute of eye socket at 10 feet, and at least I know it will go bang and won't jam.

HA! That's good shooting compared to my Cobra .38 derringer!

the count said:

Which would be.....?

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Stingers, Yellow Jackets, CCI MiniMags. Cheap stuff like Thunderbolts jam my Beretta 21 every time.

Got mine from Tanners, too. (They're local - no shipping! ) Only had one range session but kept "paper-plate-sized" groups out to 10 yards and I would expect it to improve with use.

I don't really have a "use" or "niche" for it. I have better guns for pocket CCW and the range. Bought it because I like it and the price was right. At that price it's just for fun, anyway. I am trying to collect up a few .22's for those range days when I have the time but not the ammo-money. Very cool little gun and the challenge of getting better hits with any gun makes shooting fun and interesting for me. It may also be that getting better with a gun like this will make you even better with your "easier to hit with" guns.