By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
It was an offer I couldn’t refuse; a longtime pal was selling a Beretta Model 70 semi-auto pistol chambered for .32 ACP, and he wanted a ridiculously low price which was just right for a third-year college student with not much cash, but certainly a need.
This was more than 50 years ago, I was living on my own, licensed to carry and my apartment was some blocks off the University of Washington campus, just uphill from the University District and even then, the place had its share of miscreants, misguided knuckleheads and students of modern chemistry.
The single-stack magazine held 7 rounds and with one up the spout, it is possible to get somebody’s attention. The magazine release is oddly located on the lower left side of the grip, and the cross-block safety is activated by a push button on the upper left grip panel. It is a single-action semi-auto so it must be cocked for the first shot, but with an open top slide, a jam has been a very rare event. Barrel length is 3.5 inches and the magazine carries 7 rounds, or eight if you push hard. Grips are checkered black plastic, and the sights are fixed with the front being milled into the top of the slide. The rear is dovetailed into place.
Sure, the .32 ACP is hardly anyone’s first choice as a self-defense round, but when it’s all you’ve got, it’s what you’ve got, and you make the most of it. It definitely is not the cartridge as described by late author Ian Fleming in his James Bond novel Doctor No. The British Secret Service armorer describes the round—fired from the Walther PPK, which Bond was forced to adopt, replacing his anemic .25 ACP—as a real stopper. In the film version, some script writer, who evidently was just as misinformed about handgun stopping power, had the armorer telling Bond (played by Sean Connery) that the round has a “delivery like a brick through a plate glass window.”
That’s Hollywood for you.
But here’s a bit of reality. One afternoon high in the mountains not far from Mount Rainier National Park, I burned up several rounds shooting at a stump across a canyon, a distance of about 125 yards. I had fired one shot to see where the bullet struck by the dust it raised, and then put several more rounds into the stump after adjusting my aim.
I’ve carried that pistol in a soft IWB holster, in a belt holster from the old S&J Leather company in Renton, Washington, and in a couple of rigs I personally built including one deep cover rig called the Undershirt, and subsequently “The Workman” by holster maestro Mitch Rosen at Mitch Rosen Extraordinary Gunleather.
It also fits well in an ankle rig, which is where I carried it for some time inside a cowboy boot. As small pistols go, it is a rather well-designed model, very simple to strip down for cleaning, and equally easy to reassemble. All it takes is a twist of the holding bolt so that the slide moves forward and off the aluminum frame.
I eventually bought a second magazine and a couple of years ago started carrying it again as a hideout piece in my hunting vest, for when I camp alone in the high country. At close range, even a .32-caliber (0.3125-inch) 60-grain JHP bullet is going to quickly adjust someone’s bad behavior.
Manufactured from 1958 through 1985, the Model 70 had a pretty good run, almost 30 years. According to an online history, it was offered also in .22 Long Rifle and .380 ACP, though I’ve never seen the latter specimen. My dad had a Model 1934 Beretta brought home from WWII by an uncle, where it probably belonged to someone who no longer needed it. The Model 70 ostensibly replaced the Model 1934 because it was several ounces lighter with its aluminum frame.
I could never sell this pistol, as it has shared a lot of adventures over the course of my life. I keep it as much for nostalgia as anything, since I’ve managed to accumulate several more powerful sidearms over the decades.
But the little Beretta remains, a relic from a simpler time, when British spies evidently knew more about espionage than ballistics, and small pistols made a big impression.
