James Bond and Walther firearms (Page 3 of 4)

I can do that in the city.  Plenty of lamposts there.

ps Ray Mears is great.  I'm seeing him on Sunday.  I've been on many forays with him.

....................................................

I just watched that scene, and I stand corrected.  It is indeed a P5.  I would post a screen shot, but I don't remember if I'm allowed to post a photo from one of the movies.

That's what I thought.  That P5 does look good though.

Here's a link to it: http://s592.photobucket.com/albums/tt3/ … p;newest=1
I hope that's alright.

I was watching CR again the other day and was thinking Bond would look good with Dryden's Ultrastar pistol. It's a nice 9mm and small. Maybe we can see Bond use one. Okay, just wishful thinking...

At least they are nicely made Spanish pistols....

Nelly,

Just for the record, I don'y think anyone really knows for sure what pistol Hitler used on himself, but I read that his personal choice in a handgun was a .25 caliber Walther. Whatever that goon used it was "good riddance".

However, if it was a PPK - maybe oo7 was on the job!!!!

Last edited by 7289 (2nd Feb 2010 14:43)

I always noticed the gun difference during the shootout after Orlov gets away from Bond. Glad to know my hunch was right.

I think tooling up the real-world/new-era Bond is trickier now that the image has changed. Connery was the Bond of the Books and as such the Walther PPK was perfect. But as the parameters have changed, so too must Bond's equipment. Bond is now more of an action-hero (love it or hate it!) and the situations he gets in he now needs more real-world equipment. This was addressed with Brosnan's Bond, and the P99 made perfect sense, given that we are to believe Bond has a penchant for the Brand with the PPK, P5 and even the 7.62 target rifle in TLD.
I'm not personally a fan of the P99, I found it a bit toy-like and the stock/grips a bit short for my hands when I used one (the mag extension of the later PPK's was a touch of genius IMO), but then I'm old school having been issued with Browning Hi-Powers and Walther PP and PPK's in the army. Ten years of those and anything new will seem like a toy. Glocks are everywhere frankly because they're so damn good, but as ASP9mm points out, they're not Bond. Bond needs something a little more individual. Perhaps a future Q could actually build him a complete one-off which we can all speculate the derivitives of for a long time to come...

Well Asp9mm (and others),

I'm not clever enough to harass you like Bondtoys could, but have to disagree with those out there that would take the PPK from Bond and rob him of the last "trait" that his creator endowed upon him.

Prehaps there are better "real world" guns out there for Bond. But remember it was 007 that launched the Walther PPK from the ranks of top of the line but obscure pocket pistols to "iconic status" with other well known firearms like the Colt .45 or the Luger. To replace the PPK in Bond's mit would be just plain wrong.

I personally didn't care that Brosnan carried the P99, it was his tenure - and the absence of the PPK - that caused me to lose interest in the franchise, and actually NOT see DAD in the cinema. When DC took on the role, I found I could live with the P99 (and even purchased one) because his acting and gun handling reinspired my interest in the charecter ( Eva Green really helped alot too!). To discover later that DC had the PPK during the PTS bathroom fight in CR'06 was frosting on the cake.

Now that Bond has returned to the PPK in QOS, I really dread to think he might abandon it again. I could live with the P99 secreted in the Aston DBS, but returning to the PPK is a draw for me, and the series would be poorer for it's absence.

For Bond to be Bond there must be a British Actor wearing a  Rolex, driving an Aston-Martin and packing a PPK (or .25 Beretta) without those "props" one might as well go see Jason Bourne or a Batman flick.

For those of you out there like me who are diehard firearms types, sure there are plently of pistols that work as well or better than the PPK, but this is a Bond film and Bond without a PPK is like John Wayne without his yellow handled Colt .45 and big loop carbine - the end result is just not as "funl".
So, I'm hoping that Bond sticks with the PPK for his personal firearm and continues to make use of "pick-up" handguns like the BHP in CR'06 and the two SIG's in QOS. If you want to insert your favorite pistol into the films, let the villian carry it - Bond can them dispatch the badguy with his super judo skills and turn the gun against it's owner....

But for goodness sake keep those boring Glocks, those evil looking SIGS and yes even those slick custom ASP pistols out of Bond's holster and let the PPK stay where it belong's - If you doubt me, just ask Ian Fleming.....

Asp9mm,

As usual I can't find much to argue about with you, as your observations talley with mine.

Have to say that while I admire the craftsmanship of the Asp pistol, I was never really taken with them "back in the day" when they were expensive but available. A good friend of mine purchased one and I got to spend some time with it. While it was very "slick" - right down to the teflon finish, ultimately it failed to preform for my pal and after an unsucessful trip back to the factory it was sold off. I had the chance to buy it then, but stupidly passed.

I actually owned the P7, but could never deal with the cocking mechanism, IMO it would have been better placed on the back of the grip. I sold it to another friend who used for heavily for years - and won many a combat shoot with it. So while both the Asp and the P7 appear to be fine pistols, my own expierence with the designs has been less than stellar.

Boothroyd's advice to Fleming with respect to Bond's pistols was largely ignored by Fleming. The big .357 Magnum never showed up in Bond's holster and the S&W Centennial, that "brutal, stumpy" revolver made only 1.5 appearances. Had Bond stuck with the S&W he would have been way ahead of the game, for after fading from production in the 1970's the Centnnial design is now considered to be a nearly universal classic and is prehaps in more holsters and pockets here in the USA than any other type of handgun.

I do remember reading Boothroyd recomending the stainless steel Chief's Special as the "ultimate" Bond gun, and certainly Boothroyd would have loved the S&W 640-1 in .357 just as well. But when it comes down to it, Fleming seemed to prefer a small automatic and his preferences spilled over into Bond's charecter, and old oo7 never really strayed  from the pocket semi-auto pistol.

For me that chopped up old Beretta, a reliable and hopelessly underpowered little pistol is the ultimate Bond pistol. Interestingly the Beretta shares some similiarity with a S&W 39 that is cut down and morphed into the Asp, and the striker fired P7.

I must say that like Brosnan, I never warmed to Gardner's oo7 novels. I found the first tolerable, but the choice of pistols ludricrous - a very antique and obscure Browning (not the famous P35) and a Ruger .44 Super Blackhawk fired from a port under the windscreen in a old Saab (or was it a Yugo?). But I am prehaps too conservative and really can't abide Bond novels by anyone other than old IF. I was disgusted to read in "Colonel Sun" that Bond didn't carry in the UK - what piffle! Evidently Amis failed to read "Moonraker" or even "From Russia with Love". I can't envision Bond going anywhere without his Walther or Beretta on his person. Bond is either setting up a target or a target himself, whether he walks about London or is sitting in a beach chair at Beau Desert.

So in the end I'll always be grinding my teeth when someone proposes Bond be armed with some new "wunderpistole", but that's just me. And while Fleming missed the boat with respect to the Centennial, the clever folks who brought us John Steed armed that fictional fellow with the Centennial in his first season with the wonderous Emma Peel. Steed's discreet use of the S&W makes up for Bond's reluctance to embrace the revolver.