Sean Connery 007 "poster" pistol?

[Green Lantern]

Playing the "From Russia With Love" videogame, I was reminded that I never did find out what kind of autopistol Sean Connery is holding in the box art, as well as other 007 posters/video box art. I think Roger Moore had the same gun in a "Live and Let Die" poster. I know Bond never used the gun, I don't think it's even appeared on film in the 007 series.

Any clue what it is?

EDIT: here's an excellent image of the gun: http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00004CZGI.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

 

[Zero_DgZ]

The one in the logo looks like a Luger. The one in his hand I can't really make out. It looks like a cross between a Luger and a Walther P-38.

 

[Punkermonkey]

Colt Woodsman I believe.

 

[TexasRifleman]

I always thought it was a P38 drawn by someone that didn't know for sure what a P38 looked like.

 

[Deanimator]

It's not a firearm at all.

It's a pellet gun, a Walther, I think.

 

[Tommygunn]

As bizarre as it seems, I read somewhere that in one artwork done for 007, Sean Connery was shown holding a...BB gun. Mainly done 'cause it had sleek lines, I guess.
Bond apparantly started out with a .25ACP Beretta, to have it replaced in an early Sean Connery movie by a .32ACP Walther PPK.
After Connery left, I lost track of what guns they used.

 

[Green Lantern]

Thanks....seems like now I remember hearing it was a BB gun a while back.

Bond kept the PPK up till "Tomorrow Never Dies" when he upgraded to a P99. In the books he currently uses both.

In the John Gardner books, he mostly used an ASP, but also a H&K P7 and VP-70, and an unnamed old Beretta 9mm. Probably others as well.

 

[AJ Dual]

IMO some kind of made-up gun.

It looks like a High-Standard .22 target pistol with Luger toggle-grips pasted onto the top.

For some reason Hollywood seems to think .22 target pistols look like "spy guns", American SOF sometimes made use of suppressed .22's for dog and sentry elimination, and in WWII the OSS and the British counterparts had some small caliber suppressed weapons, but that still dosen't explain the fascination with .22 target pistols for Spy movie posters…

I guess the rakish profile seems to look 'Deadly" or "Serious" somehow, LOL… It's the same mentality that brought us the AWB.

Back in my early 20's when I lived at home, I was re-arranging or cleaning some of my then modest collection. My sister walked into the room, got all wide-eyed and exclaimed, "WHY DO YOU HAVE A SPY GUN?"

I was befuddled? "A spy gun? What the hell's a spy gun?"

She pointed still excited, "THAT ONE!"

She's pointing at my Ruger .22/45 with a bull-barrel. I explain it's a .22 target pistol. As about as small a caliber in a "real gun" as you can go. It could certainly kill someone, but it's mostly good for rabbits, cans, and paper targets…

She tells me that it still "looks" like a "spy gun".

Later on, I noticed Leslie Neilsen is holding a Ruger .22/45 on the movie poster and video cover for his spoof spy movie, "Spy Hard"...

 

[Fosbery]

I believe the pistol he holds on the poster is an airgun. He starts with a .25 ACP Berreta but gets a 7.62mm Walther PPK forced upon him by M because of its superior stopping power and reliability.

 

[Father Knows Best]

Any clue what it is?

Whatever it is, it is small caliber. That barrel is about the thinnest thing I've ever seen -- thinner even than a lightweight .22 barrel.

I'm gonna go with those who suggested it is a BB gun, for two reasons. First, the extremely thin barrel. Second, it looks like there is a pivot of some sort in front of the trigger guard and under the barrel. I'm willing to bet that's so the breach can pivot up for loading a pellet or BB.

 

[Chipperman]

Cuz the PPK has a delivery like a brick through a plate glass window.

 

[Phil DeGraves]

On some of the posters (don't know which ones), it's either a Colt Woodsman or a Browning Challenger (very similar in appearance).

 

[Jim K]

It is an air pistol. I think it is a Walther Luftpistole (LP) 53, but since the picture is a drawing, not a photograph, it is hard to be sure. The barrel tips down to load and the plunger under the barrel is attached to the pump so tipping the barrel also pumps the gun.

Connery, BTW, hated guns and reportedly hated the "007" role; like so many other Hollywood hypocrites, he loved the money, though.

Jim

 

[Dave Markowitz]

It is an air pistol. I think it is a Walther Luftpistole (LP) 53, but since the picture is a drawing, not a photograph, it is hard to be sure. The barrel tips down to load and the plunger under the barrel is attached to the pump so tipping the barrel also pumps the gun.

Winner! It's definitely a Walther LP-53 air pistol.

 

[Cromlech]

For some reason Hollywood seems to think .22 target pistols look like "spy guns", American SOF sometimes made use of suppressed .22's for dog and sentry elimination, and in WWII the OSS and the British counterparts had some small caliber suppressed weapons, but that still dosen't explain the fascination with .22 target pistols for Spy movie posters…

The Welrod? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welrod

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Firearms/Single-Shot-Pistols/Welrod.htm

It was available in .32ACP and 9mm Luger/Parabellum.

 

[Master Blaster]

I just finished reading "Striking Back", its a book about the Israeli response to the 1972 Munich Olympic masacre and the Israeli response. The special unit of the Mossad basically hunted down everyone involved in the attack on the Israeli Olympic team. Some of the terrorists were killed assasination style, the Israelis used Silenced Beretta .22lr target pistols for this task.

 

[Jim K]

Mafia hit men preferred .22 pistols, which they got cheap (one way or another) because they were fairly quiet even without a silencer. The gun was normally dumped after the job was done, but if anyone ever tried a match, the bullet was usually too smashed up to be any good for comparison.

Jim

 

[the 22 junkie]

No Cromlech, I think the 22's hes refering to were made by High Standard. Try looking em up and seeing what it gets ya.

 

[dfaugh]

Well, let's take a little trip in my time machine....

In the original 007 books (written by Ian Fleming) JB carried a Walther PPK (in .380 IIRC)....I was a huge fan of the Ian Fleming books, and the first few movies (which followed the books closely)...I totally lost interest, when they started deviating wildly from the books, and once Sean Connery (whether pro or anti, he's still an awesome actor) stopped doing the movies.

 

[sterling180]

(whether pro or anti, he's still an awesome actor)

Sean Connery,like Daniel Craig,is very much anti-gun,because he was involved with the banning of handguns,from the UK mainland-in 1997.

Its a shame really,because James Bond is very much a pro-gun character and Connery could have been one too,if he wasn't narrow minded,like may of his fellow Scottish countrymen and women.

 

[Boom-stick]

It's a shame that they didn't get JB to use the ASP in the films as he did in some of the books. It's much more sensible gun for a spy to pack than anything he's been issused so far.

 

[akodo]

the story I always heard was that in Ian Flemming's first book, he gave james bond a beretta 25acp, that he wrote some nonsensical 'tricked out custom job' features about it to boot. The one I remember specifically is a 'sharpened firing pin!'

a reader of the book wrote in and sugggested a gun in a more serious caliber. The writer of the letter was european, and my understanding is that over there at about the same era when the 38 special revolver was probably the most common handgun type, midsized semiautos in 32 and 380 were what the europeans had, and that's why the fan suggested a walther PPK, as opposed to a 1911 in 45 or even a Browning Hi-power, as to him those were serious calibers, even though most of us would condemn them as equally as we woudl condemn a 25acp for serious work.

 

[G36-UK]

It looks similar to the old Airsoft Masudaya Buffalo SS2.

Here's a link to a review of it and an old Browning High Power:
Airsoft 7mm pistols

 

[daniel (australia)]

It is a Walther LP 53 air pistol:



According to legend someone was supposed to bring a PPK to the photo shoot, but that gun didn't turn up. As luck would have it though the photographer had his air pistol on hand, so they made do with that.

 

[Green Lantern]

Sweet, thanks for the info!

Yeah, Connery and Richard Dean Anderson are two "antis" that I still can't help but love for their roles as 007, and MacGyver and Gen. O'Neill respectively. One of the first Stargate episodes I saw had RDA's character O'Neill CCWing a Beretta 92 while in town - as seen by his drawing it from the small of his back when he gets home and finds his home broken into...

More 007 lore - actually Bond used the .32 PPK in the book and the movies (as recently as Goldeneye, a Russian refers to it as a 7.65mm.

-"Brick through a plate glass window" comes from the Armorer in the Dr. No movie. I'd bet there are other references to the power of the .32 ACP back in the day. I remember in Fleming's final novel, The Man With The Golden Gun, that Scaramanga says "that's a real stopper, all right." Of course, he may have been sarcastic...

-In the books, "From Russia With Love" came right before "Dr. No" and ended with a cliffhanger. Bond's silenced Beretta caught on his trouser band and he couldn't draw it...thus Klebb was able to nail him with the poisoned spike on her shoe. But in Dr. No we learn that a French agent saved 007 with CPR (I think as novel an idea at the time as Karate was...)

-I remember now 2 of the "features" on 007's Beretta - the aforementioned sharpened firing pin, and a "skeletonized grip" (?)