Silencers, Shaken Not Stirred: The Suppressed Legacy of James Bond

James Bond is a character that is invoked immediately with a handful of signature tropes or items. Every high school boy getting ready for prom and every groom preparing for their wedding day finds himself humming the iconic theme song as they don black tie apparel. A vodka martini, shaken not stirred, is of course another of these symbols. But perhaps most of all, 007 is forever tied to his Walther PPK, 7.65mm, “with a delivery like a brick through a plate glass window,” and a silencer. Even before Sean Connery appeared on screen first in 1962, Ian Fleming forever connected Bond to the suppressed pistol. At the conclusion of his novel From Russia with Love, Bond nearly dies after the silencer on his Beretta .25 snags on his waistband, preventing him from drawing his pistol. The PPK was selected by Fleming as a successor to the diminutive Beretta because of the author’s own familiarity with silencers during the Second World War. He felt that a character like Bond, even in limited circumstances, would do well to have a pistol capable of mounting a silencer.

Regardless if your first touchpoint with Bond was on the silver screen, the page, or while playing GOLDENEYE 007 on N64, if it was the PPK or PP7, this pistol paired with a silencer is the ultimate Bond aesthetic. Now, thanks to Walther Arms, this can be part of your collection. In 2024 Walther Arms officially announced the first ever .32 ACP SD PPK and PPK/S factory pistols. Now that the Bond gun is ready for a silencer, the question becomes, which suppressor best celebrates the 007 aesthetics?

Bond’s use of suppressed pistols on screen is far less than what the marketing materials would have you believe, in fact, Bond only uses a suppressed sidearm in six films. However, their ubiquitous utilization in posters, artwork, and promotional imagery has effectively made the James Bond theme the unofficial tune of silenced pistols everywhere. Unfortunately for firearms enthusiasts, the silencers shown on screen are mostly prop department pieces with no real world ties. For people eager to produce screen accurate clones, this is an impediment. There are, however, ample suppressors that do have Bond or Walther ties that make excellent companions to these pistols.

The PPK, is too, a perfect silencer host with a real world pedigree. MACV SOG operators in Vietnam found them to be useful tools in the field with a silencer. The fixed barrel design allows for reliable cycling without need for a booster. At the same time James Bond was electrifying audiences on the silver screen with his sartorial selections and silenced Walther, elite Special Operators were fighting the Secret Wars in Laos and Cambodia with the very same tools.

Before the newly released Walther PPK SD was announced, I worked with Allegheny Arms to press in a custom threaded barrel into a 1967 Walther PPK, creating my own suppressor ready 7.65mm. The silencer of choice thus far is perfect in both size and name, the SilencerCo SPECTRE 9. SilencerCo’s brilliant use of the infamous criminal organization from the Fleming novels and EON film series invokes the spirit of Bond, and the lightweight, compact package of the SPECTRE 9 makes it a pleasure to shoot. The silencer’s entire body is entirely constructed from titanium, and is fully welded, at an overall length of 4.76” and a weight of only 3.9oz. The ½ x 28 Alpha direct thread mount is perfect, as a booster is again, unnecessary with the PPK. In a recent video with 1911 Syndicate, Jake and I shot this combination and were wildly impressed with the sound suppression and balance of the package. This silencer will absolutely continue to be the dedicated companion to my threaded PPK pistols and P99. Both pistols are enjoyable to shoot with the silencer without a dramatic increase in size or weight.

In Jeffrey Deaver’s continuation 007 novel, Carte Blanche, James Bond is reimagined for the world of 2012. He’s a GWOT veteran who carries a .40 S&W Walther PPS, who wears OD Green 5.11 Tactical from head to toe while overseas, and prefers Oakley sunglasses while in the field. It is a rather jarring and unexpectedly medley of selections for 007, but very much an accurate portrayal of firearms and tactical culture in that moment in time. The exciting part of Deaver’s selections is the naming of GemTech as a silencer manufacturer. While a model is never specified, the Lunar 45 or Lunar 9 silencers now in production make for reasonably priced, Bond inspired silencers.

James Bond’s own P99, which debuted to the world in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies, was available commercially in a SD variant, with its own B&T Impuls IIA matched silencer. The Impuls IIA is an iconic silencer in its own right, and one that is an excellent choice still today.

While traveling to research my upcoming book with Headstamp Publishing, Licensed Troubleshooter – The Guns of James Bond I had the pleasure of shooting and capturing a Walther PPS with a matching B&T silencer. The silencer and barrel were matched in serial number, both adorned with “007.” B&T is very much the real world Q Branch in the firearms industry, and their silencers are an excellent selection for Bond firearms. After all, they are Walther’s own choice, and very likely the silencers a real 007 would have been issued with a P99.

Another excellent B&T silencer is the Jet, a rubber baffled .32 ACP silencer. With its compact profile and Cold War inspired knurling, it looks absolutely like something directly from a Sean Connery movie. The rubber baffles also harken back to the classic wipe based silencer of the era.

Regardless of your silencer preferences, the fact remains, a suppressed Walther is the ultimate Bond firearm for the collection, and with Walther bringing the PPK and PPK/S to life, now is a perfect time to find the right Bond inspired silencer for your collection with Silencer Shop.