Beretta 418 Pictures
45Wheelgun
Columbus, OhioPosts: 9MI6 Agent
I just picked up a Beretta 418 to add to my Bond Gun collection. Had to keep the AR-7 ( http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/35254/new-to-me-armalite-ar7/ ) company...while I look for the perfect PPK.
This is a 1948 manufacture Beretta 418. It is the light weight alloy frame version. This variant was available late in the production life of the 418. I have not seen this variant mentioned in any of the Bond Gun articles I have read. In Mr. Steele's excellent article http://jamesbond.ajb007.co.uk/handguns-of-james-bond/, he points out that Bond replaced the gun multiple times with the last being in 1953. I would think given the opportunity Bond would have chosen the lightest version of the 418 available at the time.
The gun I purchased is in rather nice shape for a 63 year old pocket pistol. I would rate it a solid 90%, others might grade it as high as 95%. I have not had it to the range yet, but I'll have a range report for you when I get a chance to shoot it. I think I'll leave the grips on for the time being.
This is a 1948 manufacture Beretta 418. It is the light weight alloy frame version. This variant was available late in the production life of the 418. I have not seen this variant mentioned in any of the Bond Gun articles I have read. In Mr. Steele's excellent article http://jamesbond.ajb007.co.uk/handguns-of-james-bond/, he points out that Bond replaced the gun multiple times with the last being in 1953. I would think given the opportunity Bond would have chosen the lightest version of the 418 available at the time.
The gun I purchased is in rather nice shape for a 63 year old pocket pistol. I would rate it a solid 90%, others might grade it as high as 95%. I have not had it to the range yet, but I'll have a range report for you when I get a chance to shoot it. I think I'll leave the grips on for the time being.
Comments
DG
"People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." Richard Grenier after George Orwell, Washington Times 1993.
That could be the "shiney new Beretta" that "M" gave to Bond at the end of Moonraker....
I don't really recommend going the whole route Bondifiying the Beretta, as you have to file down the front sight, and "saw" the barrel. Removing the stocks allows the trigger bar to slip out of place and overide the sear. It's not very safe.
When you see oo7 coming to work on your handgun with his hacksaw, file and roll of tape - run the other way!
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Here in the US, as some certainly know, we have something called the 1934 National Firearms Act. What that does is effectively ban automatic weapons, short-barreled shotguns (under 18"), short-barreled rifles (under 16"), AOW's, etc. Well, place special emphasis on the word "effectively," because you can get around it by putting in enough paperwork, transfer tax money, etc. So one guy I know in MI got permission to cut down a rather-ruinous condition side-by-side shotgun so as to get a replica of the one in "Mad Max." Unfortunately, instead of having an accomplished gunsmith cut the gun down, he did so himself so it would look more like Mad Max himself had cut the gun down. Translation: plenty of sharp edges on the grip. I think after about five or six shots, his hand was all bloody and he'd succeeded in splitting what was left of the stock. Fortunately, since the receiver was registered as a short-barreled shotgun, he got to have a gunsmith who knew what he was doing shorten a stock for him and he's had zero problems since then. The lesson here is to consult a gunsmith before going ahead with any plans to severely modify your gun, unless you REALLY, REALLY know what you're doing.
Having said that, I don't see how this gun could have been modified as written by Ian Fleming. Filing the sight, removing the grips and taping it are straight forward enough, but cutting the barrel poses several issues.
1. Just shortening the barrel would not effect the overall size of the gun, as all but the last 1/8" is covered by the slide. I suppose he could have only cut it 1/8" shorter, but that hardly seems worth it. In order to have the 1/8" shorten the overall size you would have to shorten the guide rod 1/8" as well.
2. If you cut both the barrel and the slide you could shorten the overall size of the gun. You would also have to shorten the guide rod and find a recoil spring that was shorter and tensioned correctly to cycle the action with the shorter lighter slide. It would be a nightmare to try to make the gun cycle reliably.
3. If you were able to make #2 work, the structural integrity of the slide would come into question. The design of the Beretta 418 slide has a large "window" on the top of the slide and you would be removing most of the metal and structure in front of the window.
Of course Q Branch would have the worlds finest gunsmiths who could make this all seem like child's play. But even if they produced it for Bond and overcame the engineering challenges , I'm not sure exactly what he would have gained from it, the gun is small and light to begin with.
Welcome to the wonderfull world of Ian Fleming's imagination!
DG
"People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." Richard Grenier after George Orwell, Washington Times 1993.
Fleming as Donald Grant said, had quite the imagination. That said, IF in referring to a "sawn" barrel usually means a short or "snub nosed" barrel. IF is not always specific enough to give the reader an indication if the "sawn" barrel in question was customized with a saw or manufactured that way.
In the case of the Beretta, it would appear that in reality IF had a faulty memory of just what a Beretta .25 looked like. No doubt he imagined the barrel protruded from the slide and had a front sight mounted at the muzzle. Bond's gun barrel was sawn to make it more compact. Like many "quick draw" artists Bond filed off the front sight on his pistol to allow it to come out of the holster faster. The loss of the front sight never hampered oo7, he always "shot from the hip" and never, ever missed.
One can also speculate that Bond's Beretta may have also been "sawn" or shortened in order to thread it for a silencer. For such a device to be mounted to the end of the barrel, the muzzle it would have to be squared off, then threaded. IF does stated that Bond's Beretta had a silencer that screwed "into" the muzzle.
It would not make alot of sense to try to shorten the slide on such a tiny pistol. As 45Wheelgun stated, it would be a "nightmare".
With respect to the grips. I doubt that Fleming thought much about the grip safety. I believe Bond removed the stocks to make the thin gun even thinner, the tape was added to give him a non-slip grip so he had something to hang on to. Removal of the stocks allows the trigger bar to slide off the sear, Bond was lucky that he never drew his pistol on a foe and pulled the trigger only to be greeted with ......silence! Of course the trigger bar could be held in place with the addition of a flat spring, and while Fleming never mentioned this modifaction, Bond no doubt added this alteration to his Beretta.
I would also point out that "Q Branch" did not work on Bond's Beretta, as described in "Diamonds Are Forever", oo7 did his own "gunsmithing". It seems the choice of the Beretta was Bond's own. I suspect that if "the Service" had gunsmiths they would be horrified at Bond's choice of equalizer ( a la Major Boothroyd). Also please note that when oo7 practices at HQ, as in the beginning of "Moonraker" he uses a Colt Detective Special, and not his "trusty" Beretta.
In the end though, to my mind the Beretta, because it is such an absurd choice as a sidearm for the world's most famous gentleman agent with a license to kill, will always remain the iconic Bond pistol.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Fleming originally intended to use a Beretta for the painted cover of "From Russia with Love".
However after checking around London, he could not find one he could loan to the artist, Richard Chopping.
It was at this point Fleming contacted Geoffery Boothroyd - who lived in Glasgow and had him send down a customized S&W revolver (with a sawn barrel) that Boothroyd had made up to study combat shooting. Chopping painted the cover using Boothroyd's .38 S&W, as a model.
During the time that Chopping was painting, there was a murder in Scotland and the Police came to Boothroyd to check the status of his revolver. Embarassed, Boothroyd had to explain that he had given it to Fleming who was in London. Loaning a firearm was not allowed under the law of the day, and Fleming recieved a visit from the police as well.
Fleming explained the nature of the loan to the police, showed them that he had two pistols of his own, a Colt Official Police General Donovan of the OSS had given him during the war, and the Browning .25 Fleming had been issued during the war. The police went away satisfied ( I'm sure Fleming's connections helped ) and Chopping was able to complete the art work.
No doubt, had Fleming been able to locate a .25 Beretta for the cover of his thriller, it would not have been sawn, filed or had a skeleton grip and its butt taped.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Then why would Fleming write that switching to Walther PPK would bring such a marked increase in stopping power?
That Beretta is of .32 caliber (7.65mm Browning) and has a barrel length of 93mm, while the Walther PPK is of that very same caliber and has a shorter barrel of 83mm. Even though there is only 10mm difference, that difference translates to greater muzzle velocity, and greater stopping power in advantage of the Beretta!
Makes absolutely no sense.....
-Mr Arlington Beech
Bond "Thrillers" are just that, they are NOT primers for espionage work or handgun combat.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
into the Bond character, he just changed his bowtie to a knitted tie, his Colt Official Police to a Colt Police Positive and his Browning
.25 to a Beretta .25 (I think at first it was a "Biretta .28" in the initial draft of Casino Royale). Fleming was lazy with
guns in the novels: Bond always "verified it was loaded" and "put the safety up". As to the "sawn barrel" thing, he initially carried
the Beretta to dinner and a card game,instead of the Police Positive, and it maybe the "sawn barrel" crept into his gun vocabulary. At that time there were a lot of Colts with sawn barrels( I have one and have seen several Police Positives so configured).
As to the suggestion that Fleming may have been thinking of the .32 Beretta M1935, Scotland Yard did have wartime .32 Berettas for issue at the time Fleming was writing.
That is a nice 418 you've got there. Look forward to a range report.
Regards,
Tecolote
Oh yes, the "sawn barrel", the so called "belly gun". Usually the modifications included also the cutting off of the trigger guard and hammer spur. Usually applied on double action revolvers. Favourite with the hand gun fighters of the post ww2 era before the perfection of the semiautomatic pistol.
Anyways, the combination of a .25 Beretta, a .38 da revolver and a .45 pistol (long barrel) is not that daft, if you break it down. .25 Beretta that have on you, is way better than that .45 colt you have in your car, on some parking lot, 3 miles away. When you end up in a gun fight.
Anyways, my beef was not that Fleming made no sense, it was more that if he meant that Bond's Beretta was a .32 it would make no sense. Fleming knew even before Major B. contacted him, that that .25 Beretta was not a particularly effective handgun, he wrote so himself. Just read Live and Let Die, Bond is in a bind in that shootout with the Robber, not because of Robbers bolt action rifle, but because of the distance, inside a warehouse, a small ware house! That is why Fleming gave Bond 3 handguns to choose from, according to the tactical evaluation of the hardware needed. And as it often happens, convenience, made Bond carry that .25 Beretta more than any other gun.
Oh and in the Spy Who Loved Me, Bond has two guns with him; .38 revolver, and a heavy semiautomatic pistol, I'll go on a limb here and make guess that it is a .45 colt, just because they are in U.S. and Canada in that novel. A perfect combo if there ever was one!
-Mr Arlington Beech
http://jamesbond.ajb007.co.uk/handguns-of-james-bond/
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Not if the barrel is thick enough to be over-bored before adding the thread. That is clearly stated in the article and a valid way of converting a barrel for a suppressor. It's not as well used a method as the extended threaded barrel as you have to have a very thick barrel to start with, but it isn't rare at all, or dangerous if done correctly. The 418's barrel is thick enough for this method to be used.
Reference to the .32 Beretta in Pearson's book was a typo. He clearly meant the .25 Beretta. And he certainly never mentioned the 35 at all. Fleming is quite clear about which calibre gun Bond used in his books and he never faltered in any way from that calibre or description. Fleming was familiar with this small pistol and the use of a taped grip safety. There is no reference at all in private communication, public articles or in any of the books that points to the 1935 Beretta being used. The calibre is wrong, the description is different, it has no grip safety.
Fleming referred to magazine extensions as 'spurs'. He makes no mention of this on Bond's Beretta, but he does so on the PPK. It's been long established exactly which Beretta Fleming was talking about. It certainly wasn't the 35.
Beretta .32 in his "biography" of Bond.
Considering that he practices in Moonraker with a Colt Detective Special and not his Beretta,Bond does get into a fair number of
gunfights with the latter:LALD,DAF,FRWL....
Regards,
Tecolote
Now that is a pretty harsh estimate! The only issue that I have with the article, which is one of the better ones about anything Bond that I have ever read, is a minor one. The reasons given for pinning, taping or othervise disabeling the grip safety in 1911 pattern guns were a bit off the mark. The gripsafety became an issue of reliability with the pin-, ispc- and practical sports shooting, when the so called "high thumb grip" became prevalent among the shooters. With the high grip the axis of the bore lies lower and closer to the axis of the shooting arm which gives more control over the recoile and enables faster follow-up shots to be fired. But the grip that this produces is not sufficient to press down the old pattern flat grip safety. Nowadays this problem has been addressed with what is known as the speed bump grip safeties in model 1911 handguns, mainly because any sort of tampering with safetydevices in firearms is viewed with high level of alarm.
-Mr Arlington Beech
"How did he die" "Your contact, not well" ~ DC in CR
Beautiful. :x
-Mr Arlington Beech
The article was dealing with the Bond's pistols as written by Ian Fleming. He died in 1963 - long before IPSC, and beavertail grip safeties. I think it would be confusing to add information that was not relevant.
In retrospect, the reference to the 1911 may not have been needed. It is quite possible that Fleming wasn't even aware of the Beretta's grip safety when he described the butt of Bond's Beretta as having been wrapped with tape. I.F. did have an FN - Browning .25, so on some level he must have been aware of the grip safety - but we'll never know the answer to that question. I'd put my money on the tape being added solely to make the "skeleton butt" less slippery.
Regards the silencer, ASP9mm explained things perfectly. Remember this was an article about Ian Fleming's literary Bond - not about how to best add a silencer to a pistol barrel. The article shows what handguns Bond had, and the modifactions as described by Fleming. None of the work done to the Beretta does anything to enhance the actual utility of the pistol. "Sharpening" the firing pin is dangerous, as is removing the grip panels, which allows the trigger bar to slip off the sear. Threading the silencer "into" the muzzle as Fleming described can be done to the Beretta, as shown in the article. It isn't necessarily the best way to do it.
Thanks for allowing the opportunity to write again on Bond's handguns ....
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
I still have to take issue about silenced model 318/418s. The barrel is just (using the metric conversion) 10m.m. outer diameter. Deduct the bore 6.35m.m. means 3.65m.m. remaining. Say even only 1m.m. spare and an INTERNAL threaded bore of of say 7m.m. x 1.25 thread means..... well work it out for yourself. I wouldn’t stand within ten yards of someone firing such a conversion.
On a lighter note, it is really good to see people posting pictures of their excellent old preserved Berettas so I have included my late 418 for your perusal.
Quite right.
-Mr Arlington Beech
I think everyone is in agreement that the Beretta as used by Bond is a miserable "gat", inspite of the fact that it's a cute little handgun.
I agree that the threads are thin on the threaded barrel, but it will work ... for how long??? The point in making up the Bond Beretta was so illustrate that what Fleming described could be done - not that it's the best way to do it.
Those with a bit of real world firearms expierence certainly have a right to turn a downward thumb on Fleming's choices. I appreciate them because they represent Fleming's imagination and expierence. While his choice to re-arm Bond, after Boothroyd's objections is laudable, I actually prefer the "sawn" Beretta with the "skeleton butt", after all it's fiction and all in good fun - fictional firearms don't have to make any real world sense at all. It's a big tribute to Fleming that we take it so seriously!
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
I actually am reluctant to put this image here, because some guy with a crappy James Bond website stole the picture and posted it as his own. He even knicked a joke in my article about the firing pin, but I suppose that not everyone on the inter-web is a ******** pirate!
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
-Mr Arlington Beech
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond