For many years now, North American Arms has
manufactured revolvers and pistols that are well-crafted, and
built for concealed carry. Their small auto pistols are
reliable, and chambered for their own .25 and .32 NAA
cartridges, and also for the .380 ACP cartridge. The diminutive
five-shot rimfire revolvers ride daily in the pockets of law
enforcement officers as a last-ditch backup to their primary
duty guns. The little revolvers are also popular with those who
choose to go armed, but need something that can always be with
them, everyday, everywhere. They are good, reliable weapons.
Chambered for the .22 Short, Long Rifle, or Magnum cartridges,
these little revolvers hold five cartridges, and weigh around a
quarter pound. NAA also makes a cap-and-ball Mini-revolver call
the Companion. All of these are dandy little revolvers, but a
few months ago, I saw a picture of “The Earl”, which is the
subject of this piece, and I had to get my hands upon one.
Having always been a fan of the cap-and-ball
and cartridge Remington revolvers of the nineteenth century, The
Earl is reminiscent of those fine revolvers, with its fake
loading lever that serves as the base pin retainer. Seldom have
I become so enamored by the appearance of a handgun as I was
when seeing that picture of The Earl.
The Earl was so named in honor of the North
American Arms gunsmith that designed the little revolver, which
seems fitting. I am glad that his name was not “Bubba” or
“Biff”. Earl is a much better name. Anyway, The Earl is
basically a .22 Magnum Mini with a four-inch, octagon barrel and
that under lever to retain the base pin. However, these two
features really change the handling and appearance of the little
revolver. The grips are square-butt laminated wood, and contrast
nicely with the matte and polished surfaces of the stainless
steel revolver. The non-fluted cylinder has five chambers to
hold the .22 magnum cartridges, and has safety notches between
the chambers into which the shooter can place the hammer-mounted
firing pin to safely carry with all five chambers loaded. If
dropped, the hammer would not fall upon a loaded cartridge,
preventing an accidental discharge, which can be embarrassing at
best, and potentially lethal.
Even with the four inch octagon barrel, The
Earl still only weighs in at eight and one-half ounces, and has
an overall length of just seven and three-quarters inches. The
overall height measures three and one-eighth inches. Compared to
any other .22 revolver with a four inch barrel, The Earl is
still a miniature revolver, yet possesses the same power. I have
a lot of respect for the .22 Magnum cartridge. It has killing
power all out of proportion to its size. I find that the .22
magnum penetrates better than does the .38 Special, and that the
superior hollowpoint loads expand well also. The Earl is a
single action revolver, meaning that the hammer must be cocked
manually before each shot. To eject the empty cartridges, the
lever is lowered, the base pin removed, and the cylinder removed
from the frame. The empty cases are poked out with the base pin,
the chambers reloaded, and the cylinder and base pin inserted
into the frame. It is a very simple and reliable system, and The
Earl functioned perfectly during all testing. Every cartridge
fired, and extraction of the fired cases was easy, with no
indication of sticky extraction with any brand of ammo. The
barrel/cylinder gap measures five one-thousandths (.005) of an
inch, and the trigger pull releases crisply with three and
three-quarters pounds of pressure. The Earl shown here came with
an optional .22 Long Rifle cylinder, so I fired both Long Rifle
and Magnum rounds over the chronograph to see how well the
cartridges performed out of The Earl. The chronograph was set at
a distance of ten feet from the muzzle. The air temperature was
sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit, at an elevation of approximately
six hundred feet above sea level. JHP is a jacketed hollowpoint
bullet. LR is .22 Long Rifle ammunition. WMR is .22 Winchester
Magnum Rimfire ammunition. TNT is a plastic-tipped jacketed
bullet. HP is a lead hollowpoint. Velocities are listed in
feet-per-second. Bullet weights are listed in grains.
| Ammunition |
Bullet Weight |
Velocity |
| .22 Magnum Ammo |
|
|
| PMC JHP WMR |
40 |
1154 |
| CCI Maxi-Mag TNT WMR |
30 |
1372 |
| Winchester Dynapoint WMR |
45 |
1037 |
| Federal Game-Shok JHP WMR |
50 |
907.8 |
| CCI Maxi-Mag +V JHP WMR |
30 |
1350 |
| .22 Long Rifle Ammo |
|
|
| CCI Mini-Mag Solid LR |
40 |
867.3 |
| Federal HP LR |
36 |
969.7 |
| Winchester Dynapoint LR |
40 |
838.2 |
| Winchester Wildcat Solid LR |
40 |
868.2 |
| PMC Zapper HP LR |
36 |
956 |
In addition to the bulleted loads, I tried
CCI Maxi-Mag shotshells in The Earl, as I see this little
revolver doing a lot of work for protection from poisonous
snakes. The revolver is light enough and compact enough to
always be in the pocket or a holster while walking in the woods
or working around the homestead. I find that the CCI rimfire
shotshells pattern much better than do their centerfire
counterparts, and I have killed many poisonous snakes using
those rimfire shotshells. From The Earl’s four inch barrel,
the CCI shotshells pattern perfectly at a distance of six feet,
as can be seen in the picture. Even at twelve feet, the pattern
is dense enough to do good work for snake protection. With
bulleted ammunition, accuracy was very surprising from The Earl.
Magnum hollowpoints printed on target exactly where I aimed at a
distance of ten yards, proving that the sights are
well-regulated, at least for my eyes. Even at twenty-five yards,
keeping all shots on a standard human silhouette was easy to do.
I did no formal bench testing with The Earl, as I doubt that
this little revolver will ever be used for target shooting or
small game hunting. At close range, The Earl’s sights are
adequate for such, and it could be pushed into service to
collect game for the pot in an emergency situation, but there
are better tools available for those jobs. However, The Earl
fills a niche that needed filling, bridging the gap between the
other NAA revolvers and the larger six-shot “kit gun” type
revolvers. The Earl weighs half as much, and is much easier to
carry concealed. NAA sells a full-flap belt holster for the
Earl, and it is pictured here. The leather is thin to keep the
weight to a minimum, but it offers good protection for the
revolver. It would be foolish, I suppose, to have the holster to
weigh more than the gun, but I would love to see a tooled Slim
Jim style holster built for The Earl. I find that more often
than not, The Earl just gets slipped into my hip pocket, and I
don’t even notice it being there until needed. In fact, it is
there right now, loaded with two CCI shotshells, and three PMC
Predator hollowpoints.
I don’t know why I like this little gun so
much, but I do. I have a safe full of weapons that are
better-suited to do most of the things that The Earl can do.
However, none are as small, as light, nor as easy to carry, and
The Earl is just eat up with “cool”, for lack of a better
word. It is the definition of efficiency, packing five .22
Magnum cartridges into such a small, lightweight, and
well-crafted package. The Earl is a dandy little revolver, built
of quality materials, and built in the USA.
Check out the entire line of North American
Arms quality revolvers, pistols, and accessories online at www.northamericanarms.com.
For the location of a North American Arms
dealer near you, click on the DEALER FINDER at www.lipseys.com.
To order The Earl online, go to www.galleryofguns.com.
Jeff
Quinn
| For a list of dealers where you can
buy this gun, go to: |
|
To buy this gun online, go to: |
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|
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