I always liked the little Beretta tip up barrel autos. Reliable and surprisingly accurate. I had a Minx in .22 short with a 4 inch barrel.
It was accurate enough for hunting but you had to really concentrate as it was easy to miss by just being a little careless with your hold. Also mine shot a bit to the left so I had to compensate.
Still they would be a good choice for concealment tho even for that, the Baby Browning is smaller.
One of the greatest fighters of all time, William Fairbairne liked the little .32 Colt and point shooting. For that matter it was John Browning’s favorite of all his inventions.
For a serious gunfight I guess it would be one of the full sized Glocks in 10mm. I have never shot anyone but from what I have read, the little .32 does a lot better than the .25, almost equal to some of the larger calibers.
Sean Connery’s ‘007’ preferred the Beretta .25.
No less than Frank James carried a hammerless 32 when he was on the lecture circuit later in life and got a death threat.
John Dillinger carried and used one.
Sacco and Vanzetti used 32s quite effectively.
And as for the woeful 25, two points. God only knows how many people in the 70 and 80s were killed with those things.
And this is food for thought... when the Soviets committed that mass murder on Polish officers in the Katyn Forest, the executioner/murderer used a Walther 25 ACP for almost all of them.
He murdered 22,000 men in about 6 weeks. Almost all were a single shot to the neck or head.
If I had a 25 I wouldn’t jump out and try to stop a bank robbery, or take on a squad of Al Qeida frogmen with AKs, But it can and will kill you dead as a hammer right NOW if you do your job.
There is a Liveleak video of some ISIS guys having little boys murder prisoners in some old amusement park. These little boys are maybe 5 years old. One had a 25 ACP and pops a guy in the skull. He was insta-dead. That little thing was no joke.