Review: The Cobra Firearms 22LR - Is It Worth Carrying?

Today’s review is the Cobra Firearms 22LR Derringer pocket gun.

Philosophy Of Use:

Derringers are useful for shooting bullets at targets that are very close to you. They are often used as pocket pistols, small and easy to conceal weapons that give you a couple of shots worth of protection.

Cobra Firearms makes derringers in many different sizes and calibers. The one I am reviewing is the smallest they make, the small-framed .22LR. I bought the gun on a whim, thinking it would be something about the size of a largeish key chain, and fit easily into any pocket. The larger models in bigger calibers, such as the 9mm all the way up to 45LC/.410, are obviously much bigger.

I chose the .22LR because I don’t really intend to carry it as a CCW / defensive weapon (more on that coming right up) but rather I plan on mostly using it as a range toy and .22LR is cheap & has virtually no recoil.

As I will soon outline in my NAA Mini Revolver review, let me talk about the whole .22 rimfire as a personal defense weapon thing. Like pretty much everybody I know, I do not think that the .22 rimfire (anything from shorts to magnums) is the “ideal” self-defense round, far from it. All rimfire rounds are less reliable than center fire, and obviously a 36, 40 or 45 grain traveling out of a 1 5/8 inch barrel is going to have an exceedingly light impact in pounds of force. I get that. Unlike the NAA mentioned above, this Cobra only has 2 rounds in addition to them only being .22LR rounds.

I often carry my NAA .22 Magnum anyway in the summer when I am wearing shorts, and concealment is nearly impossible. It’s better than nothing.

Is the Cobra .22LR also better than nothing? I’ll come right back to that after we show the specs.

Cobra Firearms 22LR Derringer specs:

Suggested Retail Price $189
Street Price (my local gun shop) $129

Model: Colt Firearms C22
Caliber: .22LR
Capacity: 2 Rounds
Sights: Fixed
Barrel Length: 2.4″
Overall Length: 4″
Weight: 9.5oz Empty
Frame Material: Alloy
Action: Single

Additionally, you can get conversion barrels to change this gun over to a .22 magnum, and also convert it to center fire with .25 and .32 auto barrels and firing pin conversion plates. These run about $75ish.

Cobra Firearms 22LR Derringer Build Quality:

The gun is well built, mine has a pewter colored frame with attractive wooden grips. It opens and closes nice and tight. The extractor looks of decent quality, but… having said that… there are issues in it’s operations that I will outline in the “Shooting” section. Overall, the look and fit is good.

Shooting The Cobra Firearms 22LR Derringer:

The one thing about this gun that overwhelms everything else in shooting it… THE TRIGGER BLOWS!

To be entirely fair, it does more than that… it both SUCKS and BLOWS at the same time.

In case I am being in any way unclear, it’s horrible. It’s abhorrent, abominable, appalling, awful, dreadful, ghastly, heinous, hideous, horrendous, horrid, lousy, nasty, shameful, terrible… it’s so bad that there are not enough synonyms in my thesaurus to describe how obnoxiously awful it is.

Cobra Firearms 22LR Derringer: Trigger Is Bad By Design?

The thing is, it’s designed to be this bad. Yeah, that’s the thing. It really is.

Cobra Firearms state that the trigger is heavy as a safety feature. OK, I get that. It’s a safety feature. Frankly, it’s a STUPID safety feature. The trigger is designed to be pulled in a certain way, with the bottom of the trigger being pulled towards the tip of the grip in a downward’s fashion. If you shoot the gun in this strange, non intuitive way, then yes, it fires reliably. However, IMHO, having to specially train yourself to NOT use the trigger techniques you have been training into yourself for years and, instead, do something entirely both counter intuitive and dangerous in a life and death situation (if you were using this gun in self defense) is a STUPID idea. The LAST thing you need to be doing in a conflict situation is additional task loading.

Does that work? Yes. Is it effective against a misfire? I’m not convinced that it isn’t more dangerous than a normal pull due to the fact that it goes against your normal training and shooting patterns.

Spice is entirely unable to pull the trigger with one hand, she does not have the finger strength necessary to do it. She can pull it by placing her other index finger over the top of her trigger finger in a two handed grip and pulling it down, but she cannot do it one handed. That’s ridiculous.

Here’s what you do to shoot the gun. First, half-cock the trigger (a safety mechanism) and engage the cross-bar hammer-lock safety. Next, you pull a lever to open the barrels, which flip up. You load two rounds of .22LR (the gun specifically says .22LR not .22L or shorts or C&B), close the barrels and lock the breech.

To fire, cock the gun, disengage the hammer lock safety, point and pull the trigger (as described above). There is virtually no felt recoil, and the gun sits nicely still in your hand. I found the gun entirely reliable, it went bang every time.

To unload, open the breech by the lever on the side. There is an extractor that theoretically you move to pop the shells out, but I’ve never been able to get mine to move after rounds have fired and the brass has expanded. I personally keep a cleaning rod and just stick it down the barrels and pop the brass out.

One thing I will say about the gun’s build, the extractor is not heavy-duty enough. It’s useless. Perhaps if I were to put 5,000 rounds through the gun it would loosen up enough to work, but that’s a LOT of rounds out of a derringer.

The real problem with shooting the gun under pressure is this. According to the manual, one must pull the hammer back to full cock (it has a stout spring), push the cross-bar safety from right to left with your index finger (which requires finger gymnastics) or with your spare hand, and then pull the trigger in the way specified above.

Furthermore, the best way to fire the gun is to do so by moving the safety off with your non-shooting hand, then gripping the gun in a Weaver grip with your non-shooting index finger on the back of your shooting finger, and using both fingers to pull the trigger which makes it pretty smooth, keeps both hands in safe shooting positions, and it works pretty well.

Accuracy:

Look at the picture below. That target is 7 yards away, and I was able to hit it 8 out of 10 shots. For a “belly gun” it is very accurate. Center of mass at 7 yard should be a 100 percent hit ratio if the shooter doesn’t panic and forget how to pull the trigger.

Verdict On The Cobra Firearms 22LR Derringer:

For a range toy / something to play with? Sure, it’s fun, cheap. For a carry gun? Absolutely not, because if you need to carry a sub-mouse gun carry an NAA Mini Revolver or another type of derringer (preferably something much bigger and with a better trigger).