Meet Taylor from PT’s Roxy’s, one of the author’s favorite St. Louis area Clubs, as the Roxy’s Bomb Girl posing with the James Bond Walther PPK
With James Bond now well past his prime it might be wise for him to turn to younger women such as Taylor at PT’s Roxys in Brooklyn, Illinois, who not only has got what it takes to wake James up from the many deep fogs ever since he turned sixty. But is also gravely concerned that his choice of weaponry is too antiquated for him to measure up to his better armed 21st century opponents. The guns of our Roxys Topless Club Bond girl, the subject of this review, are the Walther PPK, the Kahr P 9 and the Seecamp 32 A.C.P.
In Ian Flemming’s early Bond novels, 007 is woefully under equipped with a 25-caliber Beretta automatic,
a small semi auto which is useful if it is at all, at only point blank range, and even at that offers very poor stopping power against anything larger than a baby rabbit. Q, James Bond’s chief armorer for the British Secret Service, insists that Bond replace his pathetic .25 Beretta with the much more powerful PPK in 7.65 mm. For the rest of his career in Ian Fleming’s novels, Bond goes about his daily business of shooting the bad guys with his signature pistol. The James Bond Walther PPK. The reader and later the audience in the 007 movies is assured that Bond is adequately armed for whatever awaits him.
The James Bond Walther PPK is a svelte lightweight pocket pistol engineered by the German Walther Arms Company in the 1930’s, which started as the model PP, but was shortened to a handier sized version, the PPK.
The James Bond PPK broke new ground in modern pistol design because it was double action. That is, a bullet could be chambered into the breech, after which one could push a lever that set the trigger in a position so that the gun could not be fired without undertaking a long hard trigger squeeze.
Double action refers to a single squeeze of the trigger that both cocks and fires the pistol. Although later pistol designs such as the Kahr would replace the external hammer with internal striker mechanisms. With the PPK one could also elect to pull the hammer back and fire the piece with an easy pull in single action mode which one accomplishes by pulling the trigger, thus tripping the hammer, which has already been cocked by the shooter, upon the cartridge’s primer. The gun’s inherent design is very safe since it cannot possibly go off unless the shooter pulls the trigger.
During and after World War II, the German military chose the much more powerful 9mm Parabellum for its service pistols for the most part.
The much smaller and lighter PP and PPK models were sometimes used by officers but were more commonly used by the German police, particularly by the Gestapo and other undercover policemen.
A few years ago there were two designs of the PPK on the commercial market. There was the original PPK from Germany in calibers .22, 7.65 mm, and .380 auto. And the slightly larger American PPK/S. PPK’s are no longer manufactured in Germany. Recently Smith and Wesson became the sole manufacturer and distributor of the PPK/S in the U.S. through a licensing agreement with Walther. Smith and Wesson does not produce the more compact PPK and its PPK/S is currently available in 380 auto only. Prior to Smith and Wesson’s involvement, a company called Interarms imported German made Walthers and subcontracted their manufacture here in the U.S. through a company in Alabama
But quality was not up to German standards and Interarms wound up going belly up. Luckily mine is a pristine German-made PPK in .380 auto, which has a lustrous aftermarket black chrome finish, considered to be more durable than the pistol’s original bluing.
The opinion of “gun experts” on the 380 auto’s man-stopping ability is divided into two camps.
Some consider the .380 auto to be the absolute minimum as a reliable stopper for self-defense whereas many consider it to be inadequate.
But nearly everyone who has even a modicum of knowledge about guns deems Bond’s first pistol, his beloved .25 Beretta, to be worse than a .22 as a stopper. Keep in mind though that Bond’s PPK was chambered in 7.65 mm or what is also known as .32 A.C.P., not 380 auto, a bullet that develops roughly 30 percent more muzzle energy than the .32.
In spite of its deficiencies as a reliable man stopper, the PPK made quite a name for itself for many years. Its lines are trim and seductive, which is probably why Flemming chose the PPK for his suave James Bond character. Its sleek lines combined with relatively low weight made it ideal for concealed carry. Quality of manufacture ensured a reliable weapon that its owner could be proud to carry. And if mine is any indication of most PPK’s, its trigger in single action mode is smooth and light compared to most double action semi autos regardless of caliber.
The James Bond Walther PPK is a beautiful gun, but the question is, can James Bond do better as he tackles the 21st century?
Two likely contenders for Bond’s weapon of choice are the Seecamp .32 and the Kahr P-9.
The Kahr P-9 is virtually the same size as the PPK, yet its Polymer frame allows it to weigh in at just 17.7 ounces to the PPK’s 21. Of supreme importance is the P-9’s chambering in 9 mm which depending on ammo develops anywhere from 350 to 450 foot-pounds of muzzle energy to the .380 Walther’s 200.
But Bond didn’t use a PPK in .380, using instead the even less powerful .32 A.C.P., which develops around 150 foot-pounds at the muzzle.
Which brings up the Seecamp in .32 A.C.P. Seecamp is a small family run operation that has decided not to crank up its production to meet public demand for its excellent little weapon. One can easily wait up to one and a half years for a Seecamp in .32 caliber. I’ve seen them only once at gun shows and I immediately snapped one up. I’ve encountered them much more often in .25 auto, which would leave one as poorly armed as James Bond at the start of his career, who should have been called James Bum for carrying the .25 Beretta in the first place. Only 4 and 1/8th inches long and weighing just 10.5 ounces, the Seecamp is virtually the same size and weight as Bond’s hapless Beretta.
Hailed as the absolute finest small last-ditch close defense pistol ever produced, the principle behind the Seecamp design is that even the most powerful handgun is useless unless its owner has it available when the moment of truth arrives.
The Seecamp is so small and unobtrusive, one could carry it to the beach in his swim trunks, hardly noticing it or being noticed carrying it. It doesn’t have sights,
Which can snag in a pocket. It fires in double action mode only, which means a hard long trigger pull, which makes it very safe to carry. There are no external safeties to complicate things or snag in a jacket or pants pocket.
And although the .32 A.C.P. is not a .45 or a .357 magnum it’s still the same cartridge that Fleming arms Bond with his PPK. The Seecamp is designed around a single hollow point bullet, the 60 grain Winchester Silvertip, which the company guarantees as the only cartridge the Seecamp can fire reliably and this bullet hits more than twice as hard as any .22 or .25 automatic.
Due to its short sighting radius and absence of sights the Seecamp cannot begin to shoot with either the PPK or the Kahr P-9.
Its strong suit is it’s the utmost in conceivability, a fact dramatized when two police officers once searched my pickup truck for weapons. I had my Seecamp rolled up in my pajamas lying on the floor of the truck. The police officers never found the Seecamp.
The Seecamp is therefore a specialized weapon one has no excuse for not carrying along when one is uncomfortable with carrying larger handguns. So how does the 9-mm Kahr stack up against the PPK?
The PPK at first appears to be a much more finely machined pistol than the much more powerful Kahr P-9. Moreover, its sexy lines are prettier than the blocky Kahr.
My Kahr has a parkerized slide riding on a polymer (plastic) frame whereas the Walther’s black chrome finish is impeccable. Worse, the Kahr fires in double action only which would seem to favor the Walther with its smooth light single action option at the range. But the Kahr shoots the piss out of the PPK. One would think the PPK shoots well for a pocket pistol until one shoots the Kahr.
Although the Kahr is double action only, Kahr’s double action pistols are the smoothest around. The Kahr also benefits from excellent white high contrast sights that line up quickly and efficiently. In fact, the Kahr is so good, it’s competitive with many big name full sized pistols, guns considered far easier to shoot accurately because of their heft and longer sight radius. It’s the kind of pistol a shooter can shoot well at twenty-five yards, a distance considered to be outside the range of nearly all pocket pistols.
Although it’s only been in existence for a few years, Kahr Arms sales have made it one of the forerunners in modern pistol design. Its P-9 9 mm pistol is roughly the same size as a PPK, yet weighs significantly less.
Kahr technology has ensured that it’s stone reliable and if the P-9 isn’t small enough for an over the hill Bond, who might be tempted to go back to his pitiful 25 caliber Beretta, Kahr has recently introduced an even smaller and lighter version of its P-9.
But face it, Bond’s getting old, and rumor has it that he’s going for even younger and more beautiful women. With girls as attractive as our Roxys Bomb girl around, it is likely that we will find Bond going around more scantily clad than ever. If James Bond ever clamors for that .25 Beretta again, there’s the Seecamp, at the same size and weight, which is much safer to carry, and just as powerful as his old PPK.
What you have just read about the James Bond Walther PPK is an amended chapter from Jack’s ground breaking book Extreme Guns and Babes for an Adult World . Read more about it here. Then go to the Jack Corbett Bookstore where you can find all his books.
