Spanish "Libia" .25 ACP

[TailGator]

While cleaning out the house of a deceased relative, my wife and I found a little .25 ACP pistol with slide markings "Fabrique D'Armes De'Guerre Grande Precision," and "Libia" and a patent number on a second line. The only thing resembling a serial number consists of three widely spaced digits on the frame under the grips.

From what I have learned so far, these were made by a loose consortium of Spanish companies that used a common exporter. (Some say that the export firm was named to deliberately create confusion with FN.) It seems they were manufactured almost entirely in the period between the First World War and the onset of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Quality apparently varied.

The design is said to be based on the Colt 1908 vest pocket pistol, but not being familiar with the Colt, I am not willing to say how faithful of a copy it may be. I have already seen some differences in disassembling it for cleaning and comparing it to a pdf Colt manual and some YouTube videos I found.

It has mother-of-pearl grips which I suspect are not original, since every picture I have found on line had black rubber grips with "Libia" in fairly large letters.

I have seen prices online of $90 to $150 for good examples, but the one we found has a significant amount of surface rust and finish wear, and probably isn't worth much. I am not willing to trust the .25 ACP for defensive use for oft-discussed reasons, but I plan to keep this around as a novelty and memento item, and put an occasional few rounds through it at the range if it is deemed safe to shoot.

I have encountered one problem in disassembly: The pin low on the rear of the grip frame that is associated with the mag release and the grip safety absolutely does not budge. It is soaking in a penetrating oil right now, but if anyone knows of a trick for getting it loose I would love to hear it. So far, the efforts have consisted of escalating vigor in the use of a punch and hammer, while depressed the grip safety and/or mag release. I have used enough force that I am ready to pass on that part of the disassembly if I don't hear a new idea.

Any comments, further illumination about the history of this piece, or corrections of any misconceptions I have acquired will be welcome.

No pictures yet - right now it is a pile of parts, and I didn't shoot any "before" pictures.

Thanks for any comments that are offered. The expertise available on this site has made it a very enjoyable web destination for me.

 

[James K]

If you want to shoot the gun, forget about removing all the pins, and just soak it to clean out the crud. Too often disassembly of a gun results in lost or broken parts, and why have that happen.

Most of the Spanish pistols are not really copies of the FN Model 1906 or Colt 1908, being hammer fired and having a safety that blocks the trigger. But the scanty information I have is that the Libia was an exception, being striker fired and having a safety at the rear blocking the sear, like the FN and Colt.

There seems little doubt that the name was intended to be taken for the Belgian company.

Jim

 

[TailGator]

Thanks for the input. You are correct about the striker and thumb safety. The safety also locks the slide in either of two positions, closed or open.

I have the same thoughts as you about further disassembly. If there was some trick I was missing I was willing to go further, but I am not willing to use more force than I have already applied.

We were amused to find one round of ammo in the magazine. That is kind of consistent with the approach to life of the previous owner - short on planning and long on confidence.

 

[James K]

"long on confidence" might well describe anyone employing a .25 auto for serious purposes.

Jim

 

[TailGator]

Good point, and I entirely agree with you. Even given that, the "Barney Fife" plan gave us a grin.

 

[PointOneSeven]

Sorry for your loss. Cool little gun to add to your collection.

I also vote for leaving it assembled. Last Saturday night special I took apart I buggered up one of the springs. It never made it through a full load of ammo after that. Single shots are fun, just not as fun.

Should be a sweet little range gun.

 

[TailGator]

Thanks. I think we might have some fun with it as a short-range plinker.

I am not sure that "Saturday night special" is a good description for this pistol, though. It is all steel and the machining and construction seems pretty competent. The more I mess with it the more respect I am gaining for the materials and workmanship.

 

[shaunpain]

While I don't have any experience with that particular pistol, I have played around with some Spanish pistols and some of them were little .25 ACP mouse guns. They ALL worked. Given that, I would only really worry about degradation of parts and not the quality of materials or craftsmanship. I don't think I'd start knocking pins out of the gun at all as there's a healthy chance there's no large body of knowledge of that gun and most likely few or no assembly instructions. I'd take #0000 steel wool and oil to whatever surfaces I can get it and as long as I don't see any cracks I'd go ahead and fire it, assuming that once it's all back together the hammer, trigger and firing pin all work. I use the pencil test on all old guns to make sure the firing pin is smacking with authority. One thing I've noticed about the various Spanish mouse guns of that era is most of them are worth almost nothing, but most of them also seem to work just fine. I'm not sure why the values are so low, maybe because America is awash in Spanish .25 autos or that it's a platform that died a long time ago. Now that I think about it, Vest Pockets can be had for pretty cheap last I looked. I think that soaking it in mineral spirits to get all the old gunk out and a fresh coat of CLP should make it tick.

 

[James K]

The problem with Spanish auto pistols of that era is that the metal (steel? iron?) is very soft. While internal parts are often case hardened, parts like the slide and frame are soft and can often be damaged in ways not always obvious. For example, it is common to find firing pin heads "mushroomed" from firing even a relative few rounds, to the extent that the firing pin jams in the tunnel or won't go forward far enough to fire. Often, the slide will be battered at the firing pin tunnel, or at the barrel lugs; barrels will be battered where the slide hits them in returning to battery. Note that these are not things obvious in firing a few rounds, all most people expect from that type of pistol, but they can cause problems down the road if the pistol is used very much.

Jim

 

[TailGator]

Thanks, folks, for the help and advice. I don't expect to put many rounds through this little bugger. To be honest, I can't imagine that it is going to be much fun firing a lot of rounds with that little bitty grip. I'll put a magazine or two through it once or twice a year and see how it holds up. If it gets retired to conversation-piece status I am still not out anything.

I am enjoying fooling with it, cleaning it up, and such. This week has been nuts with business and professional matters; I am hoping next week will give me some more time to fool with it, and maybe then I can get some pictures posted.

 

[TailGator]

Libia update

After a considerable amount of elbow grease, the little vest pocket pistol looks like this:

Field strip is similar to that for the Colt 1908. After dropping the magazine and clearing the chamber, lock the slide back, and rotate the barrel clockwise (looking from the muzzle end) a quarter turn. Then release the slide lock and remove the slide. The firing pin, spring, and plunger will be freed as you ease the slide off. Remove the recoil spring and guide rod, and rotate the barrel back for removal.

A word of caution regarding the safety: It differs from the Colt 1908 in that the spring and plunger are in a channel perpendicular to the axis of the safety lever. This makes it extremely difficult to replace the safety, spring and plunger. I do not recommend removing the safety.

This particular example is in pretty good shape internally. Further research has identified the manufacturer as Beistegui Hermanos of Eibar, Spain, which was a shop that enjoyed some measure of respect in its day. It doesn't show wear to a degree that causes immediate concern, but I have no way of knowing how many rounds have been through it.

Sights are nonexistent; a groove along the top of the slide is all you get.
In addition to the thumb safety and grip safety, the mechanism includes a magazine disconnect.

I have not fired it yet, but function testing with snap caps went well. The mechanism runs fairly smoothly. The trigger is single action, fairly crisp, but not at all light; I don't have a gauge but I would estimate it to be around six pounds. The grip allows only one finger on the grip. I thought it would be a bit awkward compressing the grip safety with a one-finger grip, but it works fine.

Our intention is to fire it a few times, clean it, and put it away for infrequent use. It has been an interesting little project

 

[Bill DeShivs]

These guns usually had pressed cow horn grips, not rubber. I would think the pearl is original to the gun.

 

[TailGator]

Range report

We finally had a chance to get to the range, and we put 30 rounds through it.

Accuracy was better than expected. We got 6-round groups of 6 to 7 inches with the target at 10 feet, shooting off hand. With a 1-1/2 inch barrel and no sights, it could have been a lot worse.

Reliability was poor but improved with time. It was choking every two or three rounds at first but gradually improved until the last mag went through with no malfunctions. It seemed like it was feeding OK, but extraction and ejection wasn't reliable at first. It may be that the extractor loosened up with use. For the reasons cited earlier, I did not punch the pin out to clean the extractor thoroughly.

Shooting it was more comfortable than I expected. Recoil from the .25 ACP cartridge is pretty puny, and the grip wasn't that bad.

It was more fun that I thought it would be, so I'll stay to the plan of shooting it a little when I get the bug, keeping it as a keepsake, and not staking anyone's life on it. Overall kind of enjoyable to own, though.

 

[gyvel]

It's one of the better Spanish makes. The Libia was more closely patterned mechanically after the FN/Browning 1906.

 

[TailGator]

The Libia was more closely patterned mechanically after the FN/Browning 1906.

After looking at the Browning more closely, I can buy that. The sear of our pistol looks more like the Browning. As near as I can tell, though, the thumb safety/slide lock is different on the Libia. I have searched unsuccessfully for an exploded view of the Browning; if you know of one, I would appreciate a link.

Thanks to you, Bill, and previous posts for the information.