Gun Digest Book of Beretta Pistols. Massad Ayoob
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naming a .32 after felis domesticus and the .22 after a wildcat seems a bit over-reaching insofar as the latter. It’s a little like naming your goldfish “Moby Dick.”
Beretta’s Tomcat has earned itself a lot of friends. Some owe it their lives. A fellow identified only as GB wrote the following first-person account of such an instance in the “It Happened to Me” section of Combat Handguns magazine: (1)
Even the short-barreled Centurion 9mm dwarfs the Tomcat .32, below.
“That day had started like any other for the last 15 years. I’ve had a jewelry store and pawn shop in West Palm Beach, Florida, but this day would change my life forever. I set up the showcases for the day. It’s a beautiful South Florida day, hot and humid. (Two young males dressed in black) were hanging around looking at rings and things. The first guy was in the shop in the morning and was looking to sell his 14-karat gold chain. I thought he was going to make a trade for a ring or some cash. The pair just kept looking at more and more stuff. After about 35 minutes I asked, ‘Do you have any cash?’ The first guy just showed me a pocket with nothing in it. He still had the 14-karat gold chain to work with, so I went on waiting on them.
“Not one person came in all of the time they were in the store. The first guy said he was going to buy his girl a ring and I went to show him diamond rings. I pulled a tray of diamond rings out of the showcase and when I raised my head up, the other guy was pointing a gun right between my eyes. It was about two inches from my head. I looked down the gun barrel, a .25 caliber. In a split second I swung my hand and hit the gun. At that point I ducked behind the counter and crawled on my hands toward the back room, hoping the pair would just run off. The next thing I knew I had one of them on my back and he’s calling for his friend to help him get me down. I told his accomplice that he’d better run. I managed to pull my Tomcat from my side pocket. I got it in my hand and hit him with it so hard that I broke the trigger guard, and he went down. He was still calling for the other guy. With no time to waste I had to even up the odds.
Key features of the Tomcat are tip-up loading, seen as the thumb pushes the release lever forward, and a barrel held rigidly in place so the pistol won’t jam if a muzzle-contact shot is attempted.
“Now he was getting back up from the floor so I flipped off the safety on my gun and put it to the side of his head. I kept second-guessing myself. He was getting up and calling out for help from his accomplice in crime. I didn’t know if the accomplice was going to come in the back room so I put the gun to the side of his head and pulled the trigger. Bang the gun went off and he went down to the floor half over a chair. I heard the doorbell ring as the accomplice ran out. I locked up and called 911. He was still where he fell, dead.
The Model 3032 Tomcat is a fast-moving pistol in the gun shops.
Sitting low in the hand, the Tomcat has low bore axis and minimal muzzle rise. The slide abrading the hand is much less a problem than with many other pistols in its class.
“Two days before the holdup I’d just picked up the Tomcat from the gun store across the street. For some time before that I hadn’t been carrying a gun. My 9mm was just too big.”
There are those who like the Tomcat as a police backup gun, too. My friend and colleague Mike Boyle is one of the nation’s top police gun experts, and an outstanding trainer whom I’ve seen teach in such venues as the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers, and the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors. In a roundup article discussing pocket pistols for backup in a police-oriented publication he and I both contribute to regularly, Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement, Mike had the following to say about the Tomcat in the February, 2005 issue.
“Carried in a Tomahawk holster from Pocket Concealment Systems, the Tomcat doesn’t cramp my style at all. Magazine capacity is seven rounds. I have considerably more trigger time with the Tomcat than the other pistols tested and to date my experience is most favorable. The manual of arms for the DA/SA Tomcat is a bit more involved than the DAOs, but the single-action trigger makes hitting small targets or distant targets easier. On several occasions I’ve watched officers qualify with their Tomcats on the state-mandated course, which includes a 25-yard component. High scores were the rule rather than the exception.
While very compact, the Tomcat has a grip frame that allows two fingers to wrap solidly around it. Some pistols in its class allow only one and perhaps part of a second.
“The Tomcat represents a classic pocket pistol design, which has clearly benefited by the power boost to the .32ACP. As a last-ditch backup, it offers a great deal of potential.” (2) Nothing has really changed since, except for the intro of a couple of still smaller .32s by other makers, such as the Kel-Tec P32.
GB showed in his incident subsequent the efficacy of the muzzle-contact shot. The tip-up barrel design of the Tomcat not only eases loading and unloading for many people, but also holds the gun’s parts rigidly in battery allowing the pistol to fire when it is in hard contact with the target. Many, many auto pistols will have their parts “pushed out of battery” by such contact, and will be rendered incapable of firing. GB’s statement that he had bought the Tomcat because a 9mm was just too big to carry, really says it all. While slightly larger than some of the other new-generation subcompact .32s such as the defining Seecamp, the almost impossibly light little KelTec P32, and the North American Arms Guardian, the Tomcat .32 is spectacularly easier to shoot by comparison. Not in a class with the Beretta .380, by any means, but certainly better in that respect than the other true pocket pistols in .32 caliber.
Personally, when danger threatens I’d like to have the cry of angry 9mm leopard speaking for my side, or the snarl of a .45 caliber lion, or the roar of a .357 caliber Siberian tiger. But, you know, the meow of the Tomcat is still a better sound than the whimper of a victim …
The Meow Of The Tomcat
Beretta is a company that believes, like Burger King, that you, the customer, should be able to “have it your way.” A recent Beretta ad in a foreign gun magazine showed a range of Model 92 options from the old frame-mounted safety style that hasn’t been imported into the U.S. for many years, to the familiar 92FS, the shorter Centurion, and the heavy-duty Brigadier. And of course there’s the double-action-only 92D that’s popular among U.S. police.
Similarly, Beretta USA offers a wide power range to the good guy or gal who draws a weapon in the face of imminent, unlawful use of deadly force. You can respond with the roar of the Cougar (9mm Parabellum, .40 S&W, .357 SIG, or .45 ACP caliber). You can reply with the growl of the Cheetah (.380 ACP).
And now, you can answer with the meow of the Tomcat, the smallest .32 auto that Beretta has offered.
This is not your grandfather’s Beretta .32, which would have been the single-action 1935 model, a solid and chunky gun that was optimistically named the Puma when Beretta sold it here commercially years ago. Nor is it the .32 version of the Model 84, the high-capacity DA first-shot pistol of recent years. Both of those autos were much better in their natural caliber, the .380 ACP. Their recoil was negligible, and they were hell for accurate. Unfortunately they were also big for the power they put out.
The Tomcat, whose name is a quintessential tribute to truth in advertising, is not particularly accurate and, in the feline