Astra 600 History
More accurately named the Model 600/43, the creation of this peculiar gun came from a 1943 German military request for approximately 50,000 pistols chambered in 9mm Parabellum. They were based on the Spanish-made Astra Model 400 chambered for the longer 9mm Largo that entered service with the Spanish military in 1921.
The manufacturer Esperanza y Unceta, later Astra-Unceta (1953), was a relatively young Spanish arms manufacturer founded in 1908. The company had its hands in creating a wide range of guns based on others' designs over the years, but the Astra 400 represented a distinctly Spanish creation from designer Pedro Careaga. The Astra 600 was essentially a shorter version chambered for 9mm Parabellum instead of 9mm Largo.
Related: Astra, Llama & Star – Spending Time with Some Spanish Pistols
Now, for those keeping track of the dates here, Germany’s 1943 request for the Astra 600s came shortly before the Allies invaded France. It took time to get manufacturing up and running. This meant that the pistols began arriving to German forces in France shortly before the invasion. In the end, only around 11,000 pistols crossed the Spanish/French border before the German military had to abandon it.
This left the majority of the German order incomplete, even though Nazi Germany had already paid for the guns. So, in an interesting move, the company finished its production order anyway. That eventually led to a total production of somewhere around 60,000 pistols.
(Photo: Paul Peterson/Guns.com)
Most Astra 600 pistols became instant orphans at the end of World War II. This left the company with the troubling challenge of selling nearly 50,000 pistols to anyone who would take them. Since there was a huge glut of guns after WWII already on the market, the Astra 600s trickled out in chunks to various buyers over the next several decades.
Specs & Function
The very odd look of the gun hints at its clever yet simple operating system. Technically, the Astra 400 and 600 are all simple single-action-only blowback firearms that use a very heavy recoil spring and an unlocked breech.
While the barrel is often referred to as “fixed,” that’s only partially true. It remains fixed during the firing process. Unlike a Walther PPK, the Model 600’s barrel has locking lugs that are used to disassemble the gun through the front of the slide.
There’s no tilting or sliding barrel to lock the breech and help cushion the recoil. Instead, the Astra 600 uses a long and heavy recoil spring that rides along the barrel during cycling. The guns are also heavily built with a weight to match that comes in at nearly 2 pounds for an eight-shot semi-auto pistol.
Still, the design is impressive in that it is one of few fixed-barrel pistols that has proven reliable over time when firing the 9mm Parabellum. Most fixed-barrel designs opt for lighter-hitting calibers.
One of the most notable characteristics is the grip safety. I normally hate this feature on guns, but it’s very easy to use and long enough that I’ve never had any issue deactivating it while shooting.
The manual thumb safety doubles as a slide lock for disassembly. Model 600s lack a conventional slide lock/release, and that safety does not function as one when using the gun. The hammer is hidden inside the frame, and there’s a magazine disconnect that prevents the trigger from functioning without a magazine inserted.
Unlike a 1911, the safety automatically moves to the fire position when the slide is pulled to the rear. This ensures users who carry without a round in the chamber – a common military practice back in the day – can still quickly rack the slide when needed.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the basic specs:
- Capacity: 8+1
- Weight: 1.98 pounds (unloaded)
- Length: 8.1 inches
- Barrel Length: 5.3 inches
- Height: 5.2 inches
- Width: 1.3 inches
- Sight Radius: 6.9 inches
- Trigger Pull: 7.2 pounds
This Model 600 has a short trigger take-up of just 0.15 inches with a similarly short reset. It’s stiff but not mushy or creaky. Here’s a quick video to sow how the trigger and magazine disconnect work:
As an old-school military design, the sights are your basic notch and post affair with a simple sighting groove down the top of the slide. The magazine release is on the left heel of the grip. Each magazine holds eight rounds and features a long tab at the bottom. This tab helps with extraction, both from the pistol itself and the original military-style holster. It’s also used for disassembly.
Two strips of deep slide serrations adorn the rear of the slide. These help overcome the heavy recoil spring. Finally, we get to the odd grip. Bent at a nearly 90-degree angle, the grip makes the gun feel a bit odd in the hands. I even find that holding the gun and pointing my finger straight ahead results in the barrel tilting downward. However, it also helps that the high-quality, checkered wood grips are quite controllable.
Range Testing
My first range trip with this gun left me feeling a bit confused. First, you would think an odd grip like this would point and feel weird. It did feel weird, at first, but pointing the gun seemed very natural. If I just presented my hand toward a target, it seemed like the sights lined up for me.
Second, you would also think that a nearly 2-pound 9mm pistol wouldn’t have much recoil. That is not the case, and the Model 600 actually has some snap to it. It’s not a painful snap like some micro pistols, but it is a noticeably snappier pistol for its size than a comparable 1911.
As for reliability, I had no issues across 250 rounds of budget 115-grain Remington Range ammo. I normally put more through a gun, but after zero malfunctions, I didn’t see a need to overly punish an old collectible. For what it’s worth, the Astra 400 and 600 were all well respected for their reliability during their service lives.
Part of that respect was for the guns’ accuracy. Here’s what I got at 30 feet during my first box of 50 rounds:
The sights are as basic as they get, but they seem to do the job well enough. When I really, really slowed myself down and brought the target to 25 feet, here’s how I ended up with three slow shots:
All three of the above targets are as good or better than I see from many new guns with far better sights. So, I give the gun high marks on accuracy and reliability. It is heavy, and I would not want to carry this gun around all day for just 8+1 rounds of 9mm. Still, it’s a cool collectible option, and it got a lot of looks every time I took it out shooting.
I’m not a fan of grip safeties, and I rarely carry a gun with a manual thumb safety. That said, I never even noticed the grip safety at the range. It’s long and has a very short depress to deactivate it.
The thumb safety is a different matter. You have to adjust your grip quite a bit to slide your thumb around the fat grip panels to get to the tiny safety. It is a smooth safety, but I wouldn’t want it on a gun I carried for self-defense purposes.
Pros & Cons
Here’s my short list of the pros and cons of the Astra 600:
Pros:
- Strangely affordable for a low-production, collectible, WWII-era firearm
- Reliable and well built
- Fantastic history
- Enjoyable to shoot
- Interesting design
- Accurate
- Cool factor at the range
- Shoots the common 9mm Parabellum
Cons:
- Heavy weight
- Thumb safety is somewhat hard to reach
- Low 8+1 capacity
- Heel magazine release
- Heavy recoil spring makes it harder to rack the slide
-
Disassembly is not very user-friendly
Final Thoughts
For a gun that was made to a total of somewhere around 60,000 units, I was shocked how low the price is on Astra 600s floating around the used market. I honestly don’t want to send this one home, and I’d love to keep it in my personal collection. It has history on its side, but it also has the character of a sci-fi gun I would have seen on old TV shows and movies growing up.
Since many of them spent their entire lives in storage, they’re well-maintained guns. This particular example is one of the best surplus military firearms I’ve seen in a while that wasn’t hidden behind a glass window with a four-digit price tag.
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