James Bond is alive and well and living in the south east of Sweden. Or at least his namesake is..He has change his name to  James Bond.
                       

Walther PPK/S

    An aura seems to surround some guns, which often has little bearing on the capabilities of the weapon itself. In the fifties, the popularity of cowboy movies, and T.V. shows brought a resurgence of interest in the legion of obsolete .45 Peacemakers which had been gathering dust in gun shops for decades. In the sixties, a generation of shooters who had grown up watching detective movies in the forties and fifties all wanted a .38 snub-nose like the ones their hard boiled heroes toted. In the seventies gun shops could not keep the S&W M-29 revolver in stock after Dirty Harry turned the gun into a legend.
    The Walther PPK was carried by no less a man than James Bond. With such a sterling endorsement the gun could not help but become an icon. In the actual Ian Flemming novels, James Bond carried a Berretta .25; but for some reason the Walther was thought to be a better choice for the movies. The Bond gun was in 7.65 caliber (32auto), which would not be the choice of most American shooters, due to it's low power levels, and uncertain stopping power.
    As all Bond fans know, this gun was first presented to Sean Connery in Dr. No, by a major who was latter to be developed into the Character Q in the series. This was a bit of an update on the original novel series, set in the thirties, written by Flemming, in which Bond carried a Beretta concealed on his person, and a big 45 in his Bentley. The Bentley was updated to an Aston, the Beretta to a PPK, and the 45 seems to have disappeared all together.
    This gun was used in the first 17 James Bond movies, up until the introduction of the new Walther P-99 as primary armament in Tomorrow Never Dies. as such, the PPK was carried by all five of the "official" James Bonds. I suppose it's retirement was overdue. In 1963, when it was first introduced into the series, the PPK was a cutting edge weapon, with fairly sophisticated features, and a bit of an exotic feel, when compared to the standard revolvers and  army pistols floating around. It also held some of the aura of German weaponry, which was a sort of an acknowledgment of the German war machine of W.W.II. Still, time passes. Pistols today are plastic, have double column magazines, lasers, tritium sites, and all sorts of other refinements. Bond no longer wears a Rolex, Drives an Aston Martin, or carries a PPK.
    Considered to be a German gun, it was also made in France and the U.S. Knock offs were made in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Russia, and there is no shortage of copies and imitations. The gun itself is very old world and refined, much like the character who packed it. Developed in the twenties, it was one of the first double action pistols, and was used by the German police. Production of the PP (Police Pistol) model, with a longer barrel and grip, began in 1929. The Shortened PPK (Police Pistol Short) version was introduced in 1931. The action of the PPK was the basis upon which the latter P-38 was developed. In order to overcome import restrictions, and to help offset German labor costs, which were getting pretty high, the PPK began to be manufactured in the United States in 1978, by Ranger Manufacturing in Gadsen, Alabama. A stainless version was soon offered by the American manufacturer. Present day American production guns are made under license, by Smith and Wesson.
    My gun was made in Germany and imported into the U.S. in the seventies by Interarms. The Walther PPK could not be brought into this country because import restrictions, introduced in the notorious gun control act of 1968, prohibited importation of guns that were under a certain size. Walther solved this problem by mating a PPK slide to a PP frame, which held one more round and made the gun tall enough to be acceptable. This gun was called the PPK/S, and happens to be the model I own. You can see the Interarms mark towards the front of the slide, on the right hand side of the gun. The story of Interarms, in Alexandria Virginia, and their relationship with the U.S. intelligence community is a fascinating tale in it's own right.