Astra 400 ..Anybody ? Anybody ?

The Astra 1921 / 400's are good, tough guns.  That said, I hope I never need parts for mine.  I imagine they could be as hard to get parts for as Star pistols, as both companies went out of business in the late '90's.

I've never fired a 9mm Largo round in my Astras.   I've been shooting 9mm Para ammo in mine for years using replacement F.A.C. 9mm Para barrels from Korea (regretfully, no longer available).  The barrels look a little funny as they are threaded.

The inside of my Largo barrels look like the inside of sewer pipes.  I don't know why, maybe the Spanish used only corrosive ammo and there was no effort to clean them.
You can shoot 9mm Para ammo in original 9mm Largo barrels, but it will come out with a pregnant bulge near the case head, that would be difficult if not impossible to size for reloading.  I never tried.   Also, repeated shooting the shorter 9mm Para ammo could put unnecessary stresses on the extractor, causing premature failure.

All barrels should be marked 9mm / 38 for 9mm Largo / .38 Auto (NOT .38 Super or .38 Super Auto).  .38 Super (essentially a +P .38 Auto) should never be fired in an Astra 400.  Near as I can gather from reading, some early units were manufactured that would not accept the thicker rim of the .38 Auto, but must have been recalled and modified to accept the thicker .38 Auto rim.  I don't know what the modification was.  On my 9mm Largo Star Super, I had the extractor “thinned” to create a larger gap between the extractor and face of the slide to accept .38 Super rims (loaded to 9mm Para velocities).  Recently I picked up a spare Star Super extractor in case I have problems down the road.      I just wish I could find a slide stop for my Star Super B.

I occasionally shoot some .38 Super brass downloaded to 9mm Para velocities and pressures (I found an ice cream pail of .38 Super brass that I had primmed a couple decades ago, and figure I may as well shoot it up).  For convenience, I use the same powder charge from my 9mm Para loads in my .38 Auto loads  for my Star Super and Astra 400's.  After I bought the 9mm Para F.A.C. barrels I saw little need for the .38 Super brass.   While the Astras take more effort to pull the slide back (and I can't stick the slide behind my knee and grip it with my leg to rack the slide back like you can with a 1911 style pistol) one doesn't need to be Magilla Gorilla to rack the slide on an Astra (I've heard some terrible overblown claims about how difficult they are to rack the slide back).  You just need to know it takes more effort.   Both the Astra 400 and Star Super (and Super B) are fine guns.  I occasionally get a “What is that?” question about the Astra.