Buckle your seatbelts, we're taking the time machine to 1995 to look at a Wonder-Nine

Hmm...I seem to have fallen off your time machine in the fine city of České Budějovice. I believe I will indulge in a real Budweiser beer, take the train to Prague, and arrange to have a CZ-75 imported. They were nearly unobtainable in America before 1993-94.

 

Wonder-Nine was term the gun rags created in the early 80s to describe the double stack DA/SA 9mms hitting the market. The Beretta, Taurus, Sig, HK, S&W, Ruger, etc...

 

When young I had tried a few of the high cap 9s. Never were my thing as I was already a die hard 1911 fanboy. When I met the Current Wife that changed. When the great Clinton ban was going in I wanted one double stack just to have it. Bought a Ruger P89. Butt ugly it seemed to me at the time. Wife who is VERY recoil sensitive would shoot it though, even with +P ammo. After it proved it's self to be willing to just work, no matter what, even with ultra cheap (USA) mags in 15 and 20 round that were on sale for a while. It started to look not so ugly to me. Was Wife's "house pistol" for a very long time. Finally upgraded her to a Ruger American she liked. Still take that old Ruger to the range now and then and it still impresses me for what I paid for the damn thing back then
That "P series trigger" even grew on me over time. Seemed really weird at first and I did not like it but soon got used to it enough that I don't even notice it any more.

 

I bought a Beretta 92 for my 5th gun, I think, after the awful Taurus 83, the Dan Wesson 15-2 that replaced the Taurus, an S&W 28-2, a Browning BDA 380, and then the 92. It was mid 1979, I guess, but I'm terrible on when stuff happened, but it had to be that because I started carrying it at work a few days after I got it, so that made it at least July of '79. I loved it, and was sorry to have to sell it in 1983, when I needed money for other stuff. I've had two more 92FS's, but right now, I only have it's Brazilian cousin, a Taurus PT-92, which is close enough, and I can't really tell the difference while I'm shooting it. I want another 92FS though, the last one I had has been gone 7 years and I miss just looking at the custom grips and grip screws I put on it.

 

Mine is dated 90 and carries no import marks. The story is it was purchased in a Rod and Gun Club in Germany by an GI and imported on a blue (ATF-6) form.

 

"Wonder Nine" is a phrase coined to describe hammer fired pistols that combined a DA/SA trigger with a double stack magazine, chambered for (of course) the 9x19mm. The first "Wonder Nine" was the Smith & Wesson Model 59. It was used by several police departments.

By the time 1995 rolled around, hollow points in Colt 1911s weren't much of a problem and the major gun magazines used color photos almost exclusively. I remember weight of duty handguns being a major topic of discussion in print going back to the 70s. Likely it was being discussed long before that.