The cute little Colt Junior pocket pistols
Colt bounced back into the Post-WWII mouse gun market with an offering that had some decidedly European origins, yet proved popular enough to keep around for over twenty years.
Early baby Colts
Going back to days of when Teddy Roosevelt was in office and movies were silent and lasted about 15 minutes, Colt had a series of small “vest guns” such as the 1903 Pocket Hammer and 1908 Hammerless Model N on the market for the discerning gentleman or lady. These abbreviated blowback action semi-autos, typically in .25 and .32ACP dated from when John Browning was working for the company and were svelte mouse guns that could be slipped into a small handbag for the ladies or waistcoat watch pocket for the men.
Remaining in production in one form or another until World War II, in the late 1940s Colt was looking to bring these popular (they sold more than 400,000) guns back to the line but just couldn’t make headway against inexpensive European guns from Beretta, Astra, Tanfoglio, Star and others being brought in from Europe.
That’s when Colt decided, if you can’t beat them, join them.
Enter the Spanish partner
The firm of Astra Unceta y Cía dated back to 1908 and really came into its own when they made thousands of their .32ACP Victoria model pistols (ironically based on the Colt M1903) during World War I on contract to the French Army and the 9mm Largo Campo Giro for the Spanish Army. In the 1930s and 40s they made and sold trainloads of their Model 400, 600, and 900 series pistols to militaries around the globe. Finally, they had built and sold another Colt clone (of the 1908 Hammerless) as their Model 200 Firecub since 1926.
With such a record of making affordable, yet quality guns, and with an affinity to produce Colts without a license, the teaming of Astra and Colt to make a Colt-branded pocket gun in Europe for the American market seemed a no-brainer.
Design
Instead of rebooting a legacy design, the new Astra-Colt, which would carry the name Junior in production, was a new gun, even if it used old concepts. A semi-auto blowback action pistol, the Junior was simple in layout with an exposed hammer and rounded spur. A 2.25-inch barrel produced a gun that was just 4.4-inches long overall. Compare this today to the revolutionarily small Ruger LCP of 5.16-inches overall and you see just how concealable the Junior was.
Produced in two calibers, .22LR and .25ACP, both used a 6-shot single stack magazine that was comparable in size to a domino piece. With the two caliber offerings, a conversion kit was sold that switched out the top half and enabled the gun to be converted back and forth. (These are rarely encountered today).
Sights were small and fixed, but as the sight radius is about as long as a cigarette, it really didn’t matter. Early models had black rubber grips while later variants had checkered walnut, but both had prominent Colt seals.
Astra’s cub was pretty basic
Astra put the gun in production for European sales as the Model 2000 Cub in 1954 with plastic grips, a lower level of fit and finish, and in light blue or chrome variants. Production of the nicer Colt models in blue and nickel began in 1958.
And, while mechanically the same as the Cub, the Colt Junior was much easier on the eyes.
