Literary James Bond’s Best Pistol: the ASP

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Today Caleb Daniels, author of “Licensed Troubleshooter”, is joining me to talk about one of the best guns used to arm the literary James Bond: the ASP. Designed by one Paris Theodore, the ASP was a heavily modified Smith & Wesson Model 39 intended to incorporate all the best elements of a custom fighting pistol. It had all melted corners, transparent grips, an improved trigger press, reshaped trigger guard, and many other changes. Only a few hundred ASPs were made, and it was the perfect gun for continuation author John Gardner to put in James Bond’s hands in the 1980s.

You can see my full video on the ASP here:

29 Comments

    • There were many trials to make an easier sight for handgun then classic. It’s one of them – future times theres new one: SIG-Sauer 365 SAS. Similar to S&W from your article it has single point to focues on the surface of gun.

  1. There’s at least one ASP-alike out there that used the Model 59 as a base, instead of the 39. Which was probably even more “forgotten”, come to think of it.

    No idea on the provenance, as I only got to see and handle it in passing, and the owner was extremely reticent about where the hell he’d gotten it or how much he’d paid for it. Lovely little gun, though…

    I think these and the various sorts of sub-compacted Browning Hi-Powers are some fascinating pistols, when you consider “might-have-beens”. It’s also interesting to observe how these ideas became mainstream through things like the 3913 and the Glock 26…

    • I think the 59-based ASP-like was a Deval? Defel? Something like that. IIRC Ian had a video on it like a decade ago

        • That is it precisely, thank you.
          I have to say, the part of me that dreams up detective stories that I never could write has had me wondering for years what the equivalent kind of work performed on a Smith 1006 would look like, maybe the ultimate G&A magazine protagonist sidearm

      • No, what I saw wasn’t a Devel… Those didn’t come with the Guttersnipe. This one did, which was what confused the crap out of me. The guy at the pawn shop didn’t know anything about it; someone’s next-of-kin had brought it in, and knew nothing about it. All I can tell you about the pistol at this remove was that a.) the pawn shop owner knew it was worth money, more than I could afford, and b.) that it looked like a Model 59-based ASP. I couldn’t find any markings on it, at all; the Devels usually had the lightening cuts on the slide; this one was just melted as per the usual on the ASP.

        Whoever did the work, it was very well-done. If I’d have had the requisite funds to hand, it would have left with me.

        • Very interesting, must have been a one-off custom job. I think there’s actually a decent chance it might have come from Mr. Theodore’s shop, since I’m sure that if someone went to him with a 59 and asked for the full ASP job on it he’d have done it, though Lord only knows what the cost’d have been

          • I honestly don’t know. The guy at the pawnshop observed me looking his pistols over, brought it, said it was “on consignment” but didn’t know anything about it, supposedly. Wouldn’t let me contact the actual owner in order to find out what it was, went further and told me it was an estate sale deal…

            I got the distinct impression he wasn’t being quite honest about the whole thing, and I surmised that maybe it was a pawn he wasn’t supposed to be selling, just yet… I didn’t have the money he wanted for it, anyway, which at the time was damned high even for an ASP.

            It was a very well-done clone of an ASP on a Model 59 frame, whatever the hell it was. You could tell a lot of quality work had been done to it… But, it was emphatically not one of the Devels. No lightening cuts in the slide, wasn’t finished in nickel, was finished in a very nicely done black Teflon (so I thought, anyway…) and was fully “melted”.

            I want to say he wanted $700.00 for it to leave with me that day, and I just didn’t have it. I was just killing time, anyway, not really seriously looking for anything. Seriously “off” vibes with that pawnshop owner/manager, in any event.

      • Used? Ah yes, used. Unlike the guns the Americans will soon surrender to their hand-picked DEI new President. Quote Solzhenitsyn, ‘Every man has a myriad of lame excuses not to risk himself.’ Go on lads, play imaginary guns just like 007! It’s safer.

  2. So just how do you use the the gutter snipe aiming system? Neither Ian or Caleb sorted this out.

    Get a bench rest that clamps the gun in place. Fire a few rounds. Move your head around until the sight picture is on the point of impact. Tell everybody else what the sight picture looked like.

    • I found the guttersnipe sight to actually work pretty well, TBH. Not a sight for match shooting, granted, but when you used it as a “both eyes open” sight for doing things like IPSC, it was quick to acquire, and allowed for minute-of-dinnerplate accuracy.

      I think a lot of people tried using it as though it were a standard sight, and found that the typical sighting technique for normal iron sights created problems for them. The friend of mine who had one of the ASP pistols equipped with them that I got to fire never could get good results with them, so he went to the Devel version of this same idea. The other one I shot, the owner had no problem shooting better than I could with them. I think it’s a “YMMV” thing, in that some people’s eyesight and so forth just doesn’t do well with this style of sight.

      • I got to thinking last night about the idea of “instinctive shooting”. Maybe people are trying to use the gutter system like traditional iron sights when it was not intended for that purpose. Maybe the idea is more of a “get the right feel as to where to aim”.

        Somebody needs to do research on any documentation left by the creator. I can’t believe that he would have come up with this variant system without telling someone why.

        • You can very easily rabbit-hole on Paris Theodore and all of his works. When you come up for air hours afterwards, don’t blame anyone else for your lost time.

          The Guttersnipe was a concept he came up with in connection with what he called the QUELL Shooting System, which was something based on the idea of non-dominant eye/direct brain something-something-something. I never got into the weirdness inherent to all that, just read about it in passing, and then there was the Guttersnipe itself, which I tried, sorta-kinda liked, and abandoned for actual working night sights from Trijicon. No matter what they come up with, the utility of an iron sight setup with inherent night capability is superior to any flaky ideas about how sight works in the human brain…

          The whole thing was very esoteric and cultish. I liked the examples of the ASP I saw, I liked the Guttersnipe, but not enough that I was willing to save my money and buy into the hype.

          There’s probably some literature out there, somewhere, but a cursory search isn’t turning it up for me.

          • Weird mind-over-matter theories might be valid, but few people would ever be able to implement them. This is like the early 1800’s breach loading long arms. Yes they worked, even if more expensive and finicky than standard muzzleloaders. But few farmboys, who got sucked into the military, were able to use the breach loaders to their full advantage. So back to giving everyone muzzleloaders.

  3. ASP pistol + an overwhelming awe for Glaser safety slugs = someone who used Spygame by French & Lapin as a reference source

  4. Interesting. S&W themselves were quite slow off the mark and IIRC never did a compact or bobbed hammer version of the 39 series but went straight to the 59 based 469 & 669 in the 1980’s. No translucent grips or gutter snipe sight but the rear sight can be drifted for windage and across the receiver they’re only marginally wider than the slide.

  5. Judging by the night sight settings on the example shown in Ian’s video the correct sightline is halfway up the rear notch with the front notch on target. This should give the eye equal yellow stripes on the side and the bottom. A little practice should make this equilaterization instinctive. Having never handled a pistol, let alone fired one this is merely a geometrical conclusion from observation of the video.
    A quick trial shoot will determine whether my deduction is correct or not.

    • Instinctive shooting was the “revolver vs semiauto” back in the day, with Jelly Bryce, Bill Jordan, Rex Applegate being examples when Modern Pistol technique by Jeff Cooper at al. with its Weaver stance (now isosceles) and use of sights.

      Fashion by any other name? Or, different technique options meant for different ranges & skill level?

  6. Were the ASPs meant to use Glasers exclusively? While they were specified in the Bond novel with the ASP, Illinois State Police used the 115gr +P+ HP & were an early adopter of the S&W39. The CIA’s unlimited budget & HM Secret Service (fictional book use) may have been different than the designer intended?

    • I don’t recall that the ASP literature really ever said that there was a specific load you had to use, just that they said that the ASP pistols were made to be better with then-current HP loads than the stock Model 39…

      In that era, Glaser Safety Slugs were rara avis indeed; I don’t think I ever saw any “in the wild” and for sale until late into the 1980s, and since mail-order ammo wasn’t a thing back then…? Very, very hard to find. I had a friend who wanted to see what all the fuss was about, ordered some through the local gunshop and it was long enough of a lead time to come in that he ordered it, left for a tour to Korea some six months later, returned stateside, and about another six months after that, he’s calling me asking me to go pick it up for him and hold on to it until he got back from a military school he was at. It was all over the magazines, but finding it? LOL…

      • I actually had 50 rounds of Glaser Blue 9 x 19mm courtesy of my agency ordering them for testing. (The company was much quicker off the mark supplying LEO with samples than they were delivering to civilian users.)

        That was followed by 25 rounds of Glaser Silver, the LEO-specific round that supposedly would penetrate a TL I/II vest.

        The flattened “nose” of the Blue meant it simply would not feed through most 9mm pistols. If we’d had the S&W 547 revolver at the time, I suppose it would have been a nearly ideal combination with Glaser Blue, since revolvers don’t generally give a crap about bullet nose shapes or etc.

        (The .44 Special version [extremely rare] in a Charter Arms .44 Bulldog figured in the 1986 movie Manhunter directed by Michael “Miami Vice” Mann and starring William “CSI” Petersen.)

        The Silver fed fairly consistently in most self-loaders due to its more FMJ-like profile and, I suspect, a heavier powder charge. I know it had more blast, flash, and recoil than Blue, and cycled the S&W M59 (test) and Walther P.38 (control) I was using more consistently.

        Neither load would cycle a Hungarian-made “Firebird” (commercial TT33 in 9 x 19mm) under any circumstances. Federal 9BP 115-gr JHP would, but I’ve never found a 9 x 19mm self-loader that those wouldn’t cycle correctly. (I used them in all my 9 x 19mms for years.)

        As for terminal effect, in standard ballistic gelatin they behaved much like 5.56 x 45mm M193 ball. That is, rather like a load of no. 7 birdshot in a .410 shotgun shell impacting at close range; the classic “rathole” avulsion.

        No, Silver definitely would not penetrate a vest. It tended to break up in the outer to middle layers and embed shot in the inner layer. Blue wouldn’t do even that much.

        My report conclude that at $4/round for Blue (yes, that 50 rounds would have cost $200 OTC) and $10/round for Silver ($250, LEO only) neither one was worth having.

        Federal 9BP was $15/50 rounds back then, anybody could buy a box, and when they hit they made about the same-size cavity as the Speer .45 ACP 200-grain JHP. Or IOW, not much smaller that the M193 or Glasers.

        Yes. we ended up using Federal in 9mm and Speer in .45. Nobody seemed to be bothered by that.

        clear ether

        eon

        • If I remember right, the use-case for Glasers started out with the proposition that Air Marshal officers needed something that would put down a hijacker with expediency, and lacked the ability to really damage an airframe from the inside at altitude…

          That being the case, the market was limited, the utility constrained by the realities of it all. You were never going to get a mass-market Glaser going because there were cheaper alternatives available.

          Thing that always made me go “Hmmmm…” was the question of “OK, we just fired a cloud of Teflon-infused oil into a human torso… Health effects?”

          I mean, OK… Air Marshal vs. hijacker? Who cares? Average Joe Citizen vs. anyone else? I could see some serious civil liabilities opening up, there… “Not being satisfied with merely shooting his victim, our assailant here determined to poison them, as well…”

          Which is another reason that my-friend-the-lawyer always advised his clients not to leave living parties laying about the place, if you were ever required to defend yourself. Far harder to bring civil suit from the grave…

          I’ve never really liked lawyers, but I do listen to them when they proffer advice.

    • I was shown a box of ex-IL SP Federal BP9s,sold off as out-of-date. I think ISP started out, like the FBI, with Winchester Silvertips. I was also shown a beautiful ex-Detroit PD 39 in mint condition; it was almost a shame to chop and Teflon them into ASPs.

      • LDC… What, precisely, is a “Federal BP9”?

        Only thing I’m coming up with is a Bersa BP9 with that as a search string; I’m pretty sure you’re talking ammo, there?

        In any event, the way I learned the lore about the Model 39 and ammo was that it really did not like early 9mm HP loads. It worked best with FMJ; the Illinois State Police adopted it, wanted to move to HP rounds sometime in the early 1970s, and that required a bunch of work be done to develop 9mm HP loadings that would function reliably in it. Smith & Wesson did a bunch of “in-flight” modifications to the Model 39 and 59 as time went on, and later iterations of the design worked better with HP rounds than the early ones; they also reworked the Illinois State Police fleet to match. At some point, the improvements in the ammo and the improvements in the pistol met, and sufficient reliability and “put-down” power requirements were met.

        Early adopters of the pistol/ammo combo were not really best pleased with the whole situation, from what I remember. Once they got everything working, then it was accepted… As usual, the early adopter got the bird, and did much of the development work.

        I wanna say that the early developer on all of this was Super Vel, and that their work pushed the envelope for others to take advantage of commercializing.

        Unfortunately, not a well-documented historical arena.

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