Anyone else have an Astra A-75?

[hemiram]

Too bad they went out of business! A friend had an A-75 in 9mm, and after unsucessful attempts to get him to sell it to me, I bought one in .40 S&W on a gun auction. I think it's probably satin nickel, but a friend who knows a lot about guns thinks it's SS. They did make a few in SS. I can't tell. Any sure way to do so? If it is nickel, it's the best plating job I've ever seen, regardless of make.

I had put one mag through it, in a friend's backyard, just to make sure it functioned, but hadn't really shot it before yesterday. Since it's solid steel, it's not that unpleasant to shoot. The factory grips aren't bad, and except for it being way off target at first, it shot great. I think it was me, because suddenly, it started hitting pretty close to the point of aim. A little low, but not much. I put FMJ's and hollowpoints through it, and it never missed a beat in over 200 shots fired. I did manage to hit my hand with the slide when I wasn't paying attention. Didn't cut me, just a bad bruise. The gun still managed to ignore it, and loaded the next round, with just a tiny delay.

Looks like it's going to be my CCW gun.

 

[Nimble1]

Love Mine!!

I have had mine for quite a few years, bought it new. Its the nickle finish, kind of a matte finish. It has held up very well over the years. Like you said, it eats most anything you feed it. A buddy bought one right after I bought mine and he loves his also. I know that the two of us have put thousands of rounds through them. I will warn you we both had firing pins break so if you plan on dry firing it, get a snap cap. I had a local smith make a new pin and its good as new.
Great gun !!!

 

[hksw]

I liked it so much I bought two. (No, neither are for sale.) I like the compactness and solid all steel feel of the gun. A bit heavy for its size, though. Only problem I've had with one of them is on of the sandpaper-feeling plastic grip panels (which I liked the feel of, very non-slip) broke starting from the mag release button area. Bought replacements from EAA and they sent me rubber ones. I still prefer the older grips.

 

[hemiram]

Mine was barely used, since the front of the barrel and the rear where it locks to the slide was just barely marked when I got it. I might try to get a pair of spare grips, it couldn't hurt I suppose. Good to see other people are liking the A-75 too.

 

[bpisler]

Years back i had A-75's in 9mm and 45 and
a A-75L in 9mm.All were great little guns
that shot very well and were accurate too.

I would like to see a american company start
producting them,if they couild sell them for
around 350 bucks they would sell well.

 

[critter]

I had one in .40 for a while. Loved the lil gun as it was solid, compact, functiioned 100%, accurate for its size and quite a carry piece. I FOOLISHLY sold it in a fit of 'gotta have a new one-itis'.

 

[HPJeep]

Astras made good guns. I like my A70 single action 9mm. Never could convert myself to the double action scene. Reliable as all get out too.

 

[hemiram]

Critter, I have sold a bunch of guns over the years, and regretted many of them...

Beretta 84
Browning BDA380
S&W Model 28
S&W Model 10 with heavy barrel.
Colt Python, wasn't impressed with it's shooting qualities, but it was pretty!


Then there are the ones I was glad to get rid of:

Taurus Model 83 Nickel, a total dog, the only thing Taurus did right was the plating! Rifling bad, timing bad, trigger bad, it was all bad. Had to pound the lead out wth a brass screwdriver!
AMT BackUP 380 with an insanly hard trigger pull, how could it not hit the primers hard enough to fire half of the time? Actually got worse over time. Sent it to the factory, and it came back all scratched up, but it did fire!
AMT Long Slide .45 Jam-O-Matic. Looked impressive, horrible gun. Needed to be worked on just to get it to feed FMJ ammo. Hollow points? Puhleeze!
FTL Auto Nine, little .22 that blew the extractor, or failed to cycle, unless you had just ONE brand of "standard velocity" ammo. Even then, it still stovepiped a lot.
S&W 59. Touchy, touchy, touchy. Limp wrist? jammed. HP ammo? Jams. Kept jamming all the time. Paid to have work done on it, and it still was a jammer at least once every 2 mags. Turned me off to S&W for quite a while. It was a cop's duty weapon he sold to me when he retired! Scary. He was as shocked as I was with the problems it had. He swore it wasn't like that when he was on the job. Had several people look at it, and "get a new mag" was the only thing they said. Didn't help both times!
1911 government model, jammed on anything but FMJ ammo, grip safety drove me nuts. Got it fixed, and it just annoyed me. 1911's don't really fit my hands, last one I will ever have.

Keepers:

.25 Beretta Jetfire 950. I've owned it since 1979 or '80, flawless.
Bernardelli P-018 Compact 9mm. Not tolerant of limp wristing, but it gobbles up anything if you keep a death grip on it. Will probably be replaced with a 9mm Witness or CZ SP-01 someday.
EAA Witness .45 full sized, eats everything, doesn't care how it's held, accurate, if it was in SS, it would be perfect.
Astra A-75 SS(I think) in .40. As flawless as a little gun can be. Chews up everything, and isn't horrible to shoot as I thought it would be.
Dan Wesson Model 15-2's. I have two of them, my 5th and 6th, the past ones were sold due to financial reasons. Strong, accurate, and the insides make sense, and are easy to work on! One is SS, one in blue. Both are keepers!

Future:

Beretta 84 or Browning BDA .380
Stoeger Cougar in .40
S&W Model 27 or 28
S&W Model 629
CZ SP-01
Winchester or Marlin lever action in .357 or .44
Dan Wesson 744 .44 mag.

 

[hemiram]

HPJeep:

Funny, I never felt right with 1911's or any other SA auto I had or tried, I'm not a big "cocked and locked" fan, and racking the slide before I shoot isn't something I want to do. The Beretta 950 gets around this by having the pop up barrel and half cock safety.

I guess it's whatever you start with. The first auto I shot was a Beretta 92, and the second was the made by Beretta Browning BDA 380.

 

[hemiram]

bpisler:

I saw on some web page, a gun that looked identical to the A-75, the tooling had apparently been bought, but I haven't seen anything else about it. I can't remember the name of it..

 

[Nimble1]

A-75 Clone

Link to pistol

http://www.cruffler.com/Features/DEC-01/review-December-01.html

 

[hemiram]

Yeah, that's it. I don't see any differences at all, except for the safety instead of the decocker my A-75 has. The pics look exactly the same as my A-75. I wonder if the firing pins, etc swap out? If they did/do, I might think about buying a couple, along with a spring set, just in case.

 

[bpisler]

I believe the RAP i now out of production but
i couild be wrong.If you need parts i've a
armorers kits on auction arms or gun broker
that has all of the internal parts.

 

[crusty]

Anyone else have and Astra A-75

i know the company has gone out of business, but is there anything out there that resembles the A-75......Love mine...reminds me of a more powerful Bersa Thunder and i think laid side by side the same size..they are..Bersa a bit more accurate.....nice carry

 

[Chas B]

"I like the compactness and solid all steel feel of the gun."

Exactly. I just bought one in .45 ACP and it is great. I wouldn't trade it for a Glock. It runs flawlessly and it's accurate. Just got a couple extra mags for it, and have a Gunmate IWB on the way. It is 36 oz., which isn't light, but the grip has a great feel to it, much better than my 1911's. With the 3.69" barrel it's better balanced and not muzzle heavy like a full size 1911.
Another neat thing about it is that I can put my trigger finger behind the trigger and get a safe, four finger and thumb grip on it that blocks it from firing. Mr. BG can't take it away from me because he has a four finger grip on the gun and I've only got three because I have to keep my finger outside the triggerguard a la Glock. Instead, I have a better grip than he does, which is how it should be. Mr. BG also can't turn the gun so that it's pointing at me and then press the trigger to shoot me - not with my finger behind the trigger blocking it. He can't break my trigger finger either, because it's not lying out alongside the frame, like with a Glock. If I hit him with it, well, Spanish steel ain't plastic.
I think it's a great home defense gun, and it's compact enough to carry occasionally, though too heavy to carry a lot. Still, as a CQB weapon, for actual fighting, which might be real ugly and involve the need to refrain from firing because deadly force isn't justified, I'd take it over a Glock, Sig or Beretta. Their plastic and aluminum frames are lighter and more carryable, but when SHTF I want steel in my hand. There is the saying, "weight is good for the soul". The A-75 is very good for the soul indeed.