Today’s feature is from our service, SHOOTING NEWS WEEKLY. All images from Travis Pike.
I’ve become partial to Spanish handguns and I can’t quite say why. Maybe it’s the odd nature of the guns. Production of modern — or modern-ish — handguns started with World War I and the Ruby pistols. The Rubys were essentially Colt M1903 Pocket clones with a few minor changes. That model became the tradition of Spanish handgun production, which you can see with the Astra Police Revolver.
It’s a Smith & Wesson…basically.
Star and Astra are the two big companies that imported a variety of handguns into the United States. These companies essentially clone firearms and change a few features here and there to create their own guns. For example, the Astra A-80 is a SIG P226 clone with a heel magazine release. The Astra Police is essentially a beefed-up clone of the S&W Model 10.
Astra Police or Astra 960
Astra made several revolvers, and this appears to be an Astra Model 960. Most 960s have 960 stamped on the barrel, but this gun is stamped ‘Astra Police.’ The guns appear identical, and it seems like Astra didn’t stamp them all 960. One big clue that the Police is a 960 is the cylinder.
The cylinder has Astra .38 SPL stamped on it. This is important because the Astra 960 series were .38 Special guns built on Astra .357 frames.
The Astra weighs more than the Ruger, but the Ruger is a .357 Magnum.
The only difference between a 960 and a .357 Magnum was the cylinder. I assume this was a cost-cutting measure. It was cheaper to build one frame than two for international police forces that wanted a .38 Special revolver.
Cylinders were likely marked with the caliber to ensure the right one went in the gun. The Astra Police certainly feels like a .357 Magnum. It weighs more than my Ruger GP100, which is a seven-shot .357 Magnum. It doesn’t matter that the gun only holds six rounds because I have a baton if I run out of ammo.
The Beefy Boy
The gun weighs 39 ounces, and you feel it. This model features a three-inch barrel, which is my favorite barrel length for .38 Special. The 960s also came in four- and six-inch varieties. The Astra Police has a fixed front sight and the typical trough rear sight. The ejector is fully shrouded, and the barrel falls into the heavy variety.
Look at that beefy barrel.
The Astra Police have very simple wood grips. They aren’t checkered, but they do look nice. Mine are chipped a bit from years of use, but they are in good enough shape. The cylinder release is the S&W push-forward design, but it’s a little slimmer than S&W revolvers.
The Spanish basically clone guns while changing a thing or two.
My gun is well-used and loved. The finish still looks nice, with some old-school blue appeal. The sight is dinged up and beat up. It’s been through the ringer and needs a dab of white paint to lighten up, but it’s fine. The Astra Police isn’t fancy, and Spanish handguns tend to sit on the simpler side of life.
Shooting the Astra Police
Is the Astra Police capable of offering +P rounds? Maybe the frame is, but is the cylinder? I can’t see any +P markings, and I don’t have the original manual, so it’s not a risk I’m taking. I stuck to some fairly light-recoiling 158-grain solid lead projectiles. It’s the cheap stuff that’s soft and fun to shoot.
The weight of the gun makes the .38 Special shoot soft. Let me try to explain this as clearly as possible. I would hand this gun to a beginner to shoot. As long as that beginner has the upper body strength to hold that gun up, it’s uber soft to shoot. It barely moves and delivers this uber-soft impulse.
The Astra Police doesn’t have the best sights, but they are straightforward and fine. I still can’t shoot revolvers all that straight without a proper rear sight. I did find the Astra Police to be precise enough. I aimed dead center of a recreated IPSC A-zone and ripped six rounds in double action at 15 yards.
Four shots were nice and tight, with two flyers. For me, the group was tight. That’s about as good as I can do with these types of sights. I can do a good bit tighter with the aforementioned GP100 and its adjustable rear sight. However, with how easy this gun shoots, it might be the gun I finally learn to shoot revolver sights with.
What About The Trigger
The trigger is smooth. The double action isn’t all that heavy and it feels great. My scale says it’s nine pounds. The double action is a hair over four pounds. I need to buy a digital trigger scale, but that seems close enough to be accurate. I’ve handled triggers that are a lot worse than this.
Some of these loads were a little smokey.
While working on my double taps, I kept failing to allow the trigger to be fully reset. That’s a user error, but this is the only revolver where I’ve had that issue. I shot the GP100 and this gun side by side with the same idea, and I only had that problem with the Astra. I have to slap the trigger guard; maybe bigger grips would help.
Remember how I mentioned the Spanish cloned guns but changed things? With the Astra Police, that change comes beneath the grips. There, we have a wheel that the hammer strut meets. You can rotate the ring to change the double-action trigger pull into four different settings. I’ve avoided changing mine, but I am looking into how exactly it works. It’s a neat idea.
Very Much Worth It
If you can find the Astra Police at a low price point, it can be worth the cost of admission. It’s a stout gun that’s accurate, reliable, and has a decent trigger. If I were on a tight budget and saw one of these in the used case, I’d feel confident toting it. I wouldn’t pay more than 200 or so dollars because then we get into the entry-level Taurus semi-autos.
The Astra Police is a solid little revolver for the money, and keeps up the Spanish tradition of doing something a little different.
— Travis Pike
