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A major turning point took place in the history of Walther's model PPK when Ian Fleming and Major Boothroyd consulted to select a firearm to replace James Bond's inadequate .25 Beretta. Their selection of the PPK led to its becoming a household name inextricably linked with 007. The options they had for a highly concealable, high quality, dependable firearm with decent capacity and adequate stopping power were rather limited back then and they were fortunate to have the PPK to chose. In the cinematic DR.NO Bond's Beretta was said to have "had it's day." Today the same can be said of the PPK. The gun is, and always will be, a classic part of the James Bond legend but others have come along since then to eclipse it. If Fleming had never selected the PPK, so that we had no sentimental attachment to it, what gun might we think best for Bond to use? What if Fleming were creating the character of James Bond today and had to choose a firearm for him? What guns might he choose among? And upon which one of them might he decide as best? I'll do my humble best here to guess at how that process might have proceeded. By the way. You'll find a link in this article that will allow you to write to me. Please vote for the gun you think Bond should use. Don't confine yourselves to the guns I've listed below. Feel free to nominate guns that I've left out. I'd also like to read your comments. I'll post the results. So... revolver or semi auto? The chief advantage to the revolver has always been its rock solid dependability. You pull the trigger, it goes "Bang!" The same, unfortunately, could not always be said about some semi-autos of the past. But the improvement over the last few decades in the quality of semi-autos has been so great that dependability need not be an issue. Select one of good quality construction and and use compatible ammo. The flatter silhouette of the semi-auto compared against the revolver with its bulging cylinder, the higher ammo capacity of the semi-auto, along with the ease and speed of reloading make it the obvious choice today. Police forces world wide have felt confident in abandoning their revolvers in favour of semi autos so, with apologies, the contenders will be culled exclusively from the ranks of semi auto handguns. Next, the criteria: The gun must be adequately concealable under a tuxedo jacket, suit or sport coat. The tell tale bulge of a concealed gun could identify Bond to his enemies, and if they didn't get him his tailor surely would for ruining the lines of his Brioni suits! The gun must use a proven operating system for dependability. A Saturday night special may seen cheap, but when it jams you'll find what it's really cost you is your life! No, only the best will do when England, nay, the world, is at stake! The cinematic M reminded Bond that his Beretta jammed on him on his last mission and that, in consequence, he spent months in hospital. M knows the importance of high quality construction and design. To be fair here, in the literary version Bond's Beretta doesn't jam. Bond has rather imprudently chosen to carry his gun without a holster. He's just jammed the thing into the waist band of his pants. As a consequence he can't draw the thing when he has to, because the silencer (suppressor) has caught. You can hardly blame the Beretta for a problem that stems from the lack of a holster. The gun should offer adequate capacity. Bond has never been the "spray and pray" type of shooter. He chooses his shots, come on, give the guy a break. If possible some extra ammo would be nice. However it must not come at the expense of concealability of the firearm. It's easier to carry extra magazines than to lug some huge hand canon around and try to hide its presence from a curious world. These days it isn't an either/or proposition. Today there are guns that offer high capacity in such a small package that you'd swear David Copperfield was involved. The gun must chamber a caliber of adequate stopping power. Caliber. That word is at the heart of the most heated arguments in the world of firearms. Arguments that have generated a lot more heat than light. There are some areas that are at least commonly agreed upon. It's safe to say that there is no longer any reason for Bond to be saddled with a .32 caliber gun when there are packages no larger than the PPK that offer 9mm, .40 and .45 power. Major calibers. Much more in dispute is the best choice among these calibers. .45ACP packs a wallop without the fear of over penetration that the faster traveling 9mm and .40 can suffer from. It's no good to hit the baddie only to have the bullet retain much of it's energy, exit from the baddie and kill Bond's lady love standing behind. SWAT teams have to deal with the issue of over penetration threatening the safety of civilians and so should Bond. Neither do you want to discover that the shot that missed went through the wall and killed someone in the room next door. .45 caliber tends to make a good sized entry wound and no exit wound. That means it's dumped all of its force into the baddie. On the other hand, 9mm is the world s most common caliber. That can be important for Bond, international type of guy that he is. He can not only find reloads almost anywhere he goes, but he also will have the greatest variety of bullet styles and weights to choose among. Both are considerable advantages. There' s something essentially American about .45ACP. 9mm suits Bond's style better. The gun must offer reasonable accuracy. Pistols are not long range, high accuracy weapons. A sniper doesn't select a handgun. A practical range for handgun use is about 7 meters. However, since Bond doesn't carry a rifle most of the time, he needs to get the best accuracy he can from his handgun. Accuracy varies quite a lot within the range of handguns currently available. Without going to a six inch barrel it should be possible to find a concealment gun that has good accuracy despite its short barrel. And last (something that isn't normally of any importance, but is vital in selecting a personal sidearm for James Bond, Agent 007, that gentleman spy with a licence to kill) the gun should have cachet! Fleming had style, and he recognized it in the products he included in his books. Bond's gun cannot be just another gun. The Colt 1911 may be an excellent gun but it's probably the most common design on the market. Dull, duller, dullest. My apologies if I ve offended anyone. Let me mention that I own a 1911 clone, I compete with it, it's my favorite handgun and I love it. But it isn't necessary to remind anyone that I am not James Bond. In his world his gun should be something more than just a good choice. What's needed is a touch of the exotic if possible, without sacrificing performance. Can there be a single gun that satisfies all these criteria? Let's see. In the last couple of years there has been a profusion of new models released to the market whose chief asset is their small size. Guns this size were previously almost exclusively offered in minor calibers such as .22, .22lr, .22WMR, .25ACP, .32 and .380. Of those .380 is the only one that meets the minimum power needs for a personal defence handgun. But now semi-autos of a similar small size are offered in almost all major pistol calibers, including 9mm, .40 cal and even .45ACP! With the ground rules established let's take a look at the candidates. In no particular order they are:
HECKLER & KOCH
USP COMPACT
KAHR
K9
SIG SAUER
P239
PARA ORDNANCE
P-104
WALTHER
P-99
So... The moment is at hand. A hush falls over the auditorium. The envelope please! The best choice of handgun for James Bond? None of them! What? How can that be? Well my friends, there's one more entry I haven't detailed and IT is the gun that is the overall best choice for Her Majesty's Secret Servant, James Bond.
The ASP!
Although developed decades ago, it's still a revolutionary gun today. It is an exclusive, fully dedicated, single purpose combat handgun with a fascinating origin. It has a style and cachet that would have thrilled Fleming. A man named Paris Theodore ran a highly respected custom gunleather business called Seventrees, Ltd. on West 39th St. in New York City. One day the U.S. government approached him to design and custom manufacture a pistol for use by covert operatives worldwide. He was given a set of criteria no one else had yet managed to meet; concealability, eight round capacity, function with all known brands and types of bullet in a given caliber, instant target acquisition, and although the gun had to fire a major caliber round, the design had to somehow reduce felt recoil to the equivalent of firing a tiny .22 caliber round. He took bold aggressive steps, many of which flew in the face or orthodoxy. Some of his ideas have become the new orthodoxy. Others have yet to find general acceptance. But they all came together in this one handgun; the ASP. Holster maker by day, behind the scenes, Paris Theodore would go to work on this less public sideline. He started with a Smith & Wesson Model 39 semi-auto pistol. Over 25% of the original gun was discarded. Paris Theodore's design called for 286 changes, done by hand. So extensive were these changes he didn't call this a "conversion," but rather a "remanufacture." He began by chopping down the size of the slide, barrel and grip of the larger gun to create a concealment sized version. He used a computer (unusual in those days) to properly calculate the lightening cuts to the slide that gave the gun perfect balance in the hand and helped tame recoil. It was he who first come up with the idea of adding finger hook at the front of the trigger guard that allows the index finger of the supporting hand to get a better grip, farther forward on the gun to better control muzzle flip and keep the pistol on target. Of course back then most shooters still shot one handed. Theodore was radical for the time in designing features specifically for a two handed grip. That trigger guard spur became standard on the glut of new gun designs that came along in the 1980's. Next he smoothed and radiused all the curves, dehorned any sharp edges and angles to make a gun that positively would not snag on clothing during a speed draw. He cut of the spur off the hammer completely. Although 9mm is common in the U.S. today, at that time in America .45 caliber was practically a religion. But in the rest of the world it was 9mm that was the most commonly available caliber, and using it let the shooter tap into the worldwide ammo availability and unequaled variety of bullet types, weights and stengths. It also allowed the ASP to have a slimmer grip and a higher magazine capacity.
You've already noticed the grips on the gun. They're transparent Lexan (stronger than Plexiglas and will never yellow, but also much more expensive). Through the grip you can see the side of the magazine has been cut away. Hey, you can actually SEE how much ammo you've got left. FBI tests have proven that in a firefight no one can really count how many rounds have been fired. The brain doesn't work that way. Study after study shows that to be true. So how can you tell if you're about to run dry? Conventional wisdom says you can't. The FBI advises their agents that at the first lull in a shooting engagement they should dump the magazine and load another. That advice means you could be throwing away a considerable portion of your ammo; ammo that you may need later to save your life. Wouldn't it be nice to tell at a glance how much ammo you've got left? Paris Theodore made it possible when nobody else had. Today the Austrian Main Battle Rifle, the Styer AUG, comes standard with translucent polycarbonate magazines that allow the shooter to see the amount of ammo left. Nice that someone else finally followed Paris Theodore's simple, elegant solution he'd come up with decades earlier. Those revolutionary grips are also smooth. Most guns boast about all the checkering they offer to keep the gun from sliding around in the hand. Paris Theodore knew better. Here's why. When drawing the gun quickly in a stress situation it is important not to waste time fumbling for a proper grip. It has to be right the first time. You don't have time to waste adjusting your grip. You could be dead. But that first grab on the gun as you draw it is rarely exactly right. All that checkering really does keep the gun from sliding, just as it s designed to do. But that mean's that wrong grip stays wrong. Now that checkering is working against you. Theodore knew that a well designed gun naturally fits properly in the hand. With smooth grips all you have to do to get the gun to slide into just the right hold is simply squeeze your hand. With no checkering to keep it from moving, a proper grip comes easily. Paris Theodore covered the frame and slide, inside and out, with low-reflection, black Teflon-S. It's very expensive stuff, but it's more corrosion resistant that Stainless Steel, wears better than gun-blueing, makes the gun self-lubricating, cleans easily and skin simply will not stick to it even in the coldest weather. Compared with the Walther PPK, the ASP is slightly larger but actually weighs less. It fires a major caliber compared with the Walther's inadequate 7.65mm yet has the felt recoil of firing a tiny .22 round. The original ASP was hand made to very high standards in extremely small numbers exclusively for men who live the dangerous side of the James Bond lifestyle and it went by the slogan "Unseen in the best places"! No other gun satisfies the criteria for 007's needs and his style as well as the ASP. Bond deserves a gun that's unique, just as he is. If Bond were a gun, he'd be the ASP. Dark, deadly, perfectly suited to his mission. Possessing style, elan and panache. Copyright © 1997, 2002 James McMahon
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although the mechanical recoil reduction system is modified on the compact version by using a flat compression spring in the recoil spring assembly. To improve concealed carry the gun has a specially contoured slide, frame and slide release lever. And the hammer is bobbed to prevent catching on clothing during those lightning draws that Bond will inevitably be making. To protect the metal parts of the gun from corrosion, even in salt water, they are coated in a special HE (hostile environment) finish. Like the Walther P-99, which also has a polymer frame, the USP Compact uses metal magazines, and for the same reason. The strength of the metal allows the grip surrounding it to be kept thinner. Another "plus" in a concealment gun. The magazines offer the option of a small extension at the bottom which allows the pinky somewhere to perch and gives an overall better grip. Though as you'll read with the diminutive Glock entries here, fine accuracy can be had from a grip that allows no more than the index and ring fingers to be used. The USP Compact is built tough and can fire not only +P rounds, but also +P+! The magazine holds 10 rounds, plus one in the chamber.
Model P7M8
and it's a joy. The first 80% of the trigger pull is so silky it's almost not noticeable that you're doing it. The remaining 20% is progressive and smooth with a clean break at about 7 lbs that feels like less. This is one DAO gun that is a pleasure to shoot. It's also a damned accurate one. My first time out with it at 7 meters my shot group was so tight that there were no separate holes, just one ragged hole in the 10 ring. Kahr eschewed the vogue of polymer frames in favour of metal. In fact it's heavier than it looks, but this decision allowed the gun to be more compact. It is no larger than the Walther PPK but offers 9mm instead of Bond's .32. The Walther PPK is a very flat gun, and so is this one at a mere 9/10 of an inch thick! The rubber grips from Hogue were very well chosen and are very soft with a pebbled texture. The mechanism is like a cross between SIG Sauer and Glock with some innovations all its own. Capacity is not the strong point of the K9. It holds just seven rounds in the magazine, plus one in the chamber, but the K9 is built strong to handle +P loads. This gun is noted for feeding all types of ammo faultlessly.
GLOCK
Model 26
rugged standards. The gun has a polymer frame but uses metal magazines that allow the grip to be a slim 1.14 inches, unusually slim for a polymer framed pistol. It is a matter of amazement to me that a grip that slim can hold a whopping 16+1 rounds of 9mm! In terms of capacity this baby blows the others into the weeds! But speaking of this unusual grip, it was designed by world famous Olympic pistol grip maker Moroni of Italy (wouldn't Fleming have loved that detail!). In addition to the ergonomic shape, the grip is variable in size by choosing one of three different scaled back straps that come with the gun. This virtually guarantees that a shooter can find the right sized grip to suit his or her hand. The gun has no hammer that could catch on clothing during a draw. It uses an internal striker. There is a loaded chamber indicator that protrudes when there is a round in the chamber and the gun is ready to fire. The fact that it protrudes means that it can be felt in low light situations where a visual check wouldn't be possible. The P-99 is a Double Action/Single Action (DA/SA) gun. That means that all you have to do to fire the first shot is pull the trigger. But it is a loooong trigger pull, especially on the P-99! After the first shot the slide cycles and automatically cocks the gun for the next shot (Single Action) with a short, lighter weight trigger pull. The single action on the P-99 is excellent. Smooth with no take up. There is an alternative to the long first shot Double Action trigger pull. By retracting the slide just 0.3" you can manually cock the striker. This pistol is designed so that a gun smith can easily convert it to Double Action Only. The P-99's surface is smooth with almost no operating levers. The corners have been radiused, the magazine release is ambidextrous and inset flush with the trigger guard. Unique among striker fired guns the P-99 has a decocking feature. Not a lever, but a panel that you push on the top left side of the slide. This is a gun that will catch a lot of attention. It is the first gun in years that will make Walther a major player again. And that's how it should be from the firm that brought us the P-38 and the PPK.
The ASP isn't new. It doesn't have a polymer frame. It doesn't carry 16 rounds. It isn't a "system" gun offering dedicated suppressors, mounting rails for lasers and flashlights, etc. But it brings together a unique collection of assets that make it the premier covert carry, combat pistol in the world. The ASP is a narrow focus gun for a person who knowingly goes in harm's way; which just happens to be exactly what James Bond does. 
Have a look at the photo. Notice the front sight blade? You don't? That's because there isn't one. None at all. Look at the rear sight. Looks odd, doesn't it? It should. It's a Guttersnipe sight (an Advanced Sighting Plane sight). The tapering bottom and two sides of the gutter appear foreshortened to the shooter as three triangles. When the gun is aimed straight the three triangles all appear the same size. The eye and the brain achieve this instinctively. Armed Forces all over the world rely on a similar principle with the rear peep sight and tall front sight post on the M-16. The eye and brain line things up without conscious effort. No need to match up a front sight post within a V notch rear sight while also adjusting for height.