“May I suggest that Mr. Bond be armed with a revolver?” (1956)

https://lettersofnote.com/2011/06/01/may-i-suggest-that-mr-bond-be-armed-with-a-revolver/

by smacktoward • 6 years ago

165 85 6 years ago

caconym_2• 6 years ago

This is wonderful.

Details matter in fiction. It's a delicate balance to weave it in without obsessing over it to the detriment of other elements, but you need that texture to anchor the consumer's perspective in a place that seems real.

Lots of modern media fail miserably at this, e.g. many of the recent films by J.J. Abrams. I guess it's harder when the product is designed by a committee of people who don't really care in the same kind of way that Mr. Fleming clearly did.

nicolas_t• 6 years ago

I don't know if it's only because it's a committee or because the person at the top J.J. Abrams doesn't care at all about it (it's also why he has kept overusing lensflare in a lot of his "movies")

Talanes2• 6 years ago

Exactly, when you're working at his level the resources and knowledge pool to hire people to obsess over the details. It's either a matter of ego, or he just doesn't value that sort of detail.

goatinaboat• 6 years ago

Abrams cares about realism and continuity to the extent that in his universes you can see events happening on one planet from another with the naked eye

ztjio4• 6 years ago

If you haven't read the original novels, they are an absolute treat. Very refreshing. There is great detail, but, almost never more than you absolutely need. It is used to set the pace, so, in the slower moments there will be some fluff details. Ultimately it makes for short novels, really novellas by today's standard. And frankly I love them all the more for that. It's easy to finish one in a single sitting.

jetrink• 6 years ago

That sounds like exactly the type of escapism that I need right now. Are the novels meant to be read in order? If not, do you have one or two that would be good to start with?

mysterydip• 6 years ago

How do you feel about the ones written post-Fleming? I have a couple compilations from Raymond Benson but have not found time to finish them yet. Was curious how the Bond others wrote compared, as I haven't read the originals yet.

caconym_2• 6 years ago

I never have, but now I'm putting them on my list. Thanks for the recommendation.

RandomBacon• 6 years ago

Interesting. Revolvers would be good for a spy as they don't eject shell casings, however they are quite loud, which led me to ponder: are there suppressors for revolvers?

I did a quick search, and the first result was very interesting!

https://www.guns.com/news/2019/08/08/gun-question-can-you-pu...

Edit: more interesting pictures https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/06/15/why-cant-revo...

SamPatt• 6 years ago

Suppressors don't make any weapon quiet enough to be useful for hiding the sound of firing up close, as movies portray spies doing.

It's more about protecting your own hearing.

avhon12• 6 years ago

There are exceptions to every generalization, and this exception is pretty cool. The Welrod MkIIA is a semiautomatic pistol, designed for covert operations and assassinations, that is genuinely movie-quiet.

Ian McCollum (Forgotten Weapons) has an excellent video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d12AjvEsaHg

"When it's properly set up, this is as close as you get to an actual `silent gun`. You can, by all accounts, be within about 15 feet of this thing and not recognize that a firearm has discharged."

hutzlibu• 6 years ago

In the game Rainbow Six, there was the description of the MP5SD a mp with integrated silencer and it was said, that it is only as loud as a click from a pen. I always believed that, because the game had a focus on realism, but 120+ DB is more close to reality and a bit louder.

fasthandle• 6 years ago

Spies should carry crossbows more. They're pretty quiet.

zepvz• 6 years ago

While suppressors do not make the weapon quiet, the firearm could be outfitted with subsonic ammunition which by itself is very nearly silent[1] even with larger rifle calibers[2]. Though to be fair the ballistics on subsonic ammunition doesn't even compare to supersonic ammunition which is why they see little practical use. But for a 007 type character who normally engages in very close range that should make complete sense.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fb8CLXll9I

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTdMr8tdL4I

ganzuul• 6 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagant_M1895

It pushes the cylinder forward against the barrel and the casing is longer than the bullet, entering the barrel to form a seal.

chewz• 6 years ago

Silent But Deadly: Welrod Mk IIA

https://youtu.be/d12AjvEsaHg

MR73 Sniper Revolver in .357 Magnum

https://youtu.be/P1zEUGck8NE

Forgotten Weapons is great YT channel...

chiph• 6 years ago

I've shot a Manurhin MR73 (not the 8" model featured, but a 4" one) and it's a really nice revolver. The action is smoother than a S&W but not as good as a Python. However the Manurhin will likely last longer than either.

So far as suppressing a revolver, the cylinder gap lets gases escape so it's not as quiet as it could be. An exception is the Nagant M1895 which another poster mentioned. It's ammunition will seal the gap to prevent the escape of gases. However it's truly horrendous trigger pull (12 lbs/5.5 kg for single action, 20 lbs/9.1 kg for double action) means that even James Bond would have difficulty in using it.

To give you an idea of how bad that is, find a 12 lb object in your house, suspend it from a string, then attempt to lift it by just curling your index finger.

rangibaby• 6 years ago

The “hush puppy” pistol had a lock to stop the slide moving at all.

pps433• 6 years ago

are there suppressors for revolvers?

There is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTs-38_Stechkin_silent_revolve...

ebg13• 6 years ago

It would have been nice if they'd included the original letter and not just the first paragraph of it.

avhon12• 6 years ago

The article starts with a scan of the entire letter. You need to enable javascript for the image to load.

sapphire_tomb• 6 years ago

No, the article starts with a scan of the reply.

chriselles• 6 years ago

Interesting read.

The Walther PP series was a good future focused “fashionista” choice for Bond in film.

But I do think for the Bond character from the book, as well as the reality of the 50’s-60’s period, a small revolver would haves suited for both close range discrete carry self-defence, as well as offensive assassination.

From a more gritty/realistic viewpoint, targeted killings in a number of places around the world in the period often relied on revolvers due to their simplicity and reliability.

Ammunition failure was more common then, revolvers allowed the user the ability to sequence thru a stoppage/misfire.

Close combat stoppage drills then for semi-automatic pistols were not nearly as refined as today.

dingaling• 6 years ago

The Walther PP series was a good future focused “fashionista” choice for Bond in film.

Interesting opinion given that the PP dates from 1929! And of course the simplified PPK was a favourite of the Gestapo.

mellavora2• 6 years ago

Yes, the PP series were police guns, and the Gestapo were police.

It was also one of the first double-action semi-automatic pistol, making it popular with police forces the world over in the years after WWII, including (at least according to one source) the CIA

MAJ BOOTHROYD Walther PPK. 7.65mm with a delivery like a brick through a plate-glass window. Takes a Brausch silencer, with little reduction in muzzle velocity. The American CIA swear by them.

ztjio4• 6 years ago

In Doctor No (the novel,) Bond does end up with a revolver, albeit not meant to be his small gun.

“There’s only one gun for that, sir,’ said Major Boothroyd stolidly. ‘Smith & Wesson Centennial Airweight. Revolver. .38 calibre. Hammerless, so it won’t catch in clothing. Overall length of six and a half inches and it only weighs thirteen ounces. To keep down the weight, the cylinder holds only five cartridges. But by the time they’re gone,’ Major Boothroyd allowed himself a wintry smile, ‘somebody’s been killed. Fires the .38 S & W Special. Very accurate cartridge indeed. With standard loading it has a muzzle velocity of eight hundred and sixty feet per second and muzzle energy of two hundred and sixty foot-pounds. There are various barrel lengths, three and a half inch, five inch…”

Excerpt From: Fleming, Ian. “Doctor No.” Penguin Books Ltd (UK), 2009-07-19T11:22:25.

pps433• 6 years ago

Revolvers may look simple, but they have lots of small internal parts. More than a typical semi-auto.

And they are not reliable in practice. Especially considering that most semi-auto malfunctions can be cleared in a second with tap-rack, but revolver malfunction tend to lock it up for good.

Merad• 6 years ago

And they are not reliable in practice.

I'm curious what you mean by this. I agree that when a revolver experiences a mechanical malfunction it's usually serious and the gun is probably done until a gunsmith takes it apart. But that type of malfunction is extremely rare.

linksnapzz• 6 years ago

IIRC, in the later (non-Fleming) books, MI6 forces Bond to trade his PPK for an HK VP70 after a critical misfire.

Also, in the same book, it is revealed that Bond keeps a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver(!) in the glove box of his modified Saab 900(!!)

namdnay• 6 years ago

I had a Saab 900 turbo, I loved it! Now I can say I drove a Bond Car

semi-extrinsic• 6 years ago

The 900 turbo was a genuine cool car back then. Among famous owners you find tennis legend and fashion icon Bjorn Borg (left in this picture):

https://images.svd.se/v2/images/272d7d06-9b1e-4825-a13e-1f26...

sgt2• 6 years ago

Speaking of Saab 900 Turbo. I saw one the other day when re-watching the movie Heat (1995), visible during the infamous street battle. Well worth a watch, if not just for the Saab.

Rebelgecko• 6 years ago

It's adorable that Ian Fleming responds as if James Bond is a real person

dfcowell• 6 years ago

I’ve found this to be a common trait amongst most authors I reach out to when commenting on the specifics of their work.

Talanes2• 6 years ago

And then you have Alan Moore, who takes it a step further and actually sees his characters.

quelltext2• 6 years ago

Really? Often they say things like "he prefers...", etc. in some sense speaking for their character not hypothetically but as if they were close to a real person that "does" things rather than "would do".

However pretending to be personally acquainted with the character is a step higher, I feel. How common is that?

quelltext2• 6 years ago

What surprised me most is that he presented himself as the biographer of James Bond, as if he were real. I wasn't aware of that history.

ztjio4• 6 years ago

It's a writer's technique somewhat similar to method actors who take on the character's persona as their own for the duration of a play or filming. It's almost like attempting to evoke in yourself a synthetic form of dissociative identity disorder to allow a "real" personality to live and grown independently of you while you interact with and guide it towards the outcome you're hoping for.

Pretty much as far from "kill your darlings" as one can get, tbh.

TeMPOraL2• 6 years ago

Pretty much as far from "kill your darlings" as one can get, tbh.

Forking your own thinking process to have a secondary personality execute in parallel sounds as close to "killing your darlings" as possible, given that personality would presumably have their own favorite expressions and tropes.

ak39• 6 years ago

At first read, I really thought Ian Fleming was being sarcastic in his letter!

rbanffy• 6 years ago

If a spy needs to be armed, they already failed.

touktouk• 6 years ago

Would that mean that any assassination done with a weapon is a failure?

brazzy• 6 years ago

No, it would mean that spies don't do assassinations.

The primary job of a spy is to gather classified information, ideally without anyone noticing. Dead bodies tend to be noticed.

TeMPOraL2• 6 years ago

I would think the primary job of a spy is to be a manager (a handler) of a bunch of traitors (including unwitting ones) in the enemy country. Any eventual assassinations would be best done through the hands of one of those subordinates.

maxerickson• 6 years ago

In the new series, at the beginning of Casino Royale Bond literally 'earns' his 00 by killing 2 people.

He's not a spy, he's a thug, and the movies aren't really confused about that.

User232• 6 years ago

Neither are the books. James Bond is a killer who found a respectable job.

dredmorbius• 6 years ago

Wet ops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetwork

themodelplumber• 6 years ago

This could depend on the motivations of their contact. If they need to impress e.g. warlords in order to manipulate, there is a good chance they will arrive armed. This is after all their ticket to the access they need, and they may only have one chance. Access operations are tailored to fit the target.

closeparen• 6 years ago

CIA, KGB, Mossad, etc. have long and colorful histories of doing much more than writing reports.

The contemporary CIA has its own drone assassination program in-house. They’re not all flown by the Air Force.

I think it’s fair to call a member of an intelligence agency’s foreign service a “spy” even if their job is more covert action than intelligence gathering.

cafard• 6 years ago

There was something I read--probably via HN--some years ago that suggested that the PPK wasn't that satisfactory an arm.

noir_lord• 6 years ago

When Princess Anne was nearly kidnapped her bodyguards Walther PPK jammed at an unfortunate moment.

After that it was withdrawn from service, in the bond novels that followed they pulled it an replaced it with something else (FN1903 iirc).

mellavora2• 6 years ago

I can hit bullseyes at 25m with mine fairly reliably. The first trigger pull is a bit hard (if it isn't cocked), but after that it is smooth. Reliable way to safely lower the trigger is also a bonus. Quality and finish are as good as any of my pythons. Field stripping is super easy, the trigger guard is a lever which lets you just pull the slide right off.

What's not to love?

gravitas• 6 years ago

The article has an update pointing at a BBC article with a video interview: "Time Out - The Guns of James Bond" https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/time-out--the-guns-of-james-bo...

The video above can't be played in my country (BBC restrictions), I found a copy of it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJuEs3aMvOk

exabrial2• 6 years ago

The ppk is an amazingly reliable firearm. Because it's a blowback design, it's very immune to limp wrist failures, in contrast to most semi-automatic pistols that delay ejection until chamber pressures go down. This limits you to .38ACP but the trade-off is increased reliability while maintaining a small package. These firearms can also be miniaturized, for instance, my Bersa Thunder cc fits into my front pocket and is quite a nice EDC (we have constitutional concealed carry in Kansas).

sithadmin• 6 years ago

This limits you to .38ACP

FWIW, I don't think PPKs have ever been chambered for .38ACP; most PPKs these days are chambered in .380 Auto, though there are older variants chambered for .32ACP, a modern variant chambered for .22LR, and a few other oddball variants that use other cartridges.

exabrial2• 6 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't .380 Auto and .380 ACP the exact same round?

RickJWagner• 6 years ago

Perhaps Bond could spend a day or two with Dirty Harry. Calahan could show him a thing or two about revolvers.

“May I suggest that Mr. Bond be armed with a revolver?” (1956)

Related Stories