Do you remember my Curios & Relics Cabinet? I dropped the price on that. I also found a project that I, for some inexplicable reason, abandoned. Think of this as Part II to that project. I am thinking of doing another but with famous types of knives. These are the so-called "Wondernines"--a generation of high-performance, high-capacity, ultra-accurate guns chambered in 9x19 Parabellum (FOR WAR) that started towards the end of WWII and stretched into the late 90s when tactical tupperware took over the firearms scene. I have these arranged in no particular order. The goal was simply to make for an attractive and impressive pistol display. So how about a promo pic?
To start out Row One we have a 92FS De Luxe, nickel plated with ivory grips and a 6" barrel. The 92FS bears the dubious distinction of replacing the 1911 as the United States Armed Forces' service pistol but you might recognise this one from a certain anime involving pirates and mercenaries. The CZ-75 is next. It borrowed heavily from the Hi-Power's design but introduced a plethora of improvements. This is the gun IWI looked to when designing their Jericho 941 (that later evolved into the Desert Eagle via their partnership with Magnum Research). Then we have the S&W 5906 PPC, a stretched-out, accurised version of the eponymous Police sidearm that features fully adjustable target sights. The Browning P-35 is next. It is a simplified version of the Gran Puissance (known as the Hi-Power in Francophobic countries). It was J.M.B.'s last design and was finished posthumously in Herstal, Belgium by Fabrique Nationale. It was the first commercially successful self-loading pistol to have a magazine which held more than ten rounds.
Next is Row Two with the so-called "2011" Combat Master--a modular, double stack take on the classic 1911 design. A true "race gun" (like race cars, yep, it's a thing!) it is really only suited for competition shooting due to its somewhat delicate nature. There is the Walther P4. The P4 is a simplified and improved P38--the gun that replaced the Heer's aging and expensive Luger P08. The Pardini GT9 is kind of an odd duck as Pardini is primarily known for their shotguns. Italian target pistols are typically .32 ACP (7.65 Browning, often called "the One True Calibre" by hoplophiles) if not .22LR. This gun was too weird and too expensive not to make its way into the cabinet!
Then in Row Three there is a G17L. This is a tacticool pistol that you can take everywhere the 2011 Combat Master cannot go. Believe it or not, Gaston Glock did not invent the polymer pistol--the first was the Hk VP70 which is next on the list. Did the Austrian designer do it better than the boys who founded CETME? It is arguable. Then there is an all stainless Para-Ordinance 1911. This Canadian company kicked off the "1911, but with double-stack magazines" fad in the 1980s. You would expect an American company to have come up with that but, no, it was the Canadians.
The next pistol in Row Four is just as expensive as our Pardini but twice as beautiful. It is a Sig X6 which is a stretched P226 with a presentation grade finish and frostwood grips. Switzerland makes amazing things. The Star 30 is a bit more pedestrian but was one of Star Bonifacio Echeverria's first original designs. The M28, M29 and M30 paved the way for the much-loved M43 "Firestar" pistol introduced in 1991. The Steyr GB does something few pistols do (the Laugo Alien and Desert Eagle are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head) in that it is gas operated. Pretty neat, right? It borrows the operating system of the Barnitzke Maschinepistol. Occupying the last slot is a Walther P88 Champion. This compensated pistol with target sights is the daddy to James Bond's famous P99 and the diminutive PK380 as well as the 2/3 size P22 which is, in its own right, an eponymous (and much imitated) target pistol from the turn of the century.
And so we have an exhaustive list of all the guns in the cabinet. If I could have fit more in there then I would have. You could devote a whole cabinet to Beretta 92 variants or even the S&W 5900 series. I had to be picky to pare the list down to just fourteen guns. I hope you like it, I am happy to have it. Just like my previous entry all of the guns are already scaled to size and three dimensional.
Try it before you buy it!
♥ Izzy