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January 20, 2023
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Ben, the translucent magazine windows put me in mind of Paris Theodore’s ASP, his extremely modified Model 39 of the Seventies that pre-dated [and likely influenced] all the subcompact nine millimeter autos. His Seventrees company offered some very advanced holster designs for the time.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
December 27, 2024
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well – that is an interesting concept
Dan #67288
November 7, 2015
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S&W also built a compact little double-stack 9 called the 469. It was a bit chunkier than today’s compact mini 9minimeters but very dependable, or so I may have heard. Or maybe not. 
Mike
January 20, 2023
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The metal finish was Teflon and the one-piece sight was called a “guttersnipe” — Kimber tried something like that sight once and it didn’t sell. Only about 2000 ASP pistols were made and most were by contract to government agencies. They are highly collectible. Theodore had some sort of connection with CIA and his pistol and holsters were said to be popular within the agency. Theodore was so associated with espionage that the later James Bond novels written by John Gardner swapped Bond’s PPK for an ASP.
Remember that, at the time, there really wasn’t a 9mm para as small as the steel-framed PPK available and that was, at most, a 380. Walther did for a brief time offer a P38 Kurtz but that was pretty much the field. In context, the ASP addressed a real need. It was too expensive, so when Smith & Wesson started paying attention and shrank the 39 into the subcompact 439, and SIG-Sauer offered the P225, the ASP became a collectible.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
January 20, 2023
Online
TXGunNut said
S&W also built a compact little double-stack 9 called the 469. It was a bit chunkier than today’s compact mini 9minimeters but very dependable, or so I may have heard. Or maybe not.
Mike
They were. For a time — before Gaston Glock, that is — Smith & Wesson bid fair to dominate American law enforcement’s gradual acceptance of the automatic pistol. A whole lot of investigators I saw go for the subcompact smith nine millimeters.
There were exceptions. I remember a conversation I had with Deputy Al Maddox after he recovered from his gunfight with Don Cherry in that motel room in 1969. Cherry wounded Maddox and killed his partner, Deputy Eddie Walthers. Maddox had been armed, as many plainclothes officers were then, with a 5-shot snubby when he and Walthers tried to execute their capias warrant. Al said he ran it dry and, although he’d shot Cherry in the chest at point blank range, the woman Cherry was with beat him over the head with the room telephone and she and Cherry escaped. As soon as he got out of the hospital and returned to duty, Al said he bought a Browning P-35 and carried it cocked and locked, along with two spare 14-round magazines. He was not about to run dry ever again.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
July 6, 2025
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Chuck said
1911 and 1911 A 1 grips are similar to these 1911 grips in shape.
Correct, but niche/competition sectors like Bullseye and custom smiths spawned some oddball grip designs, especially in the late 70’s/early 80’s. The nub that sticks up on the left stock is actually an original feature, intended to protect the plunger tube, but yeah; thumb shelves, palm swells and pinky rests all found their way onto “the least expensive” part of the 1911.
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