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Thursday, October 10, 2024

The Silent Guns of the American Spy

Our story begins with the formation of the O.S.S. The Office of Strategic Services.....the forerunner of the C.I.A.

By the time WWII came about war tactics had changed. Military Intelligence and espionage were now as important as battlefield tactics, perhaps more so.

This was the birth of the spy, the covert, secret agents that would deliver coded messages, perform scouting and intelligence gathering, inject subterfuge and even carry out assassinations.

The United States wanted to be on the cutting edge of this new type of warfare, a decision was made to mimic the British intelligence agency MI6, which unofficially had been in operation since 1909.

The Office of Strategic Services was created on Saturday June 13th, 1942.

Spy schools were set up stateside in places like Shangri La (Camp David), Camp Green Top (Sabillasville, MD) and also in neutral, foreign lands like Egypt and French Algeria. These spy schools would teach hand to hand combat, weapons techniques and among other things, photography.

Getting back to our story, one of the missions of the O.S.S. was to develop tools to help the spies carry out missions in secret, just like James Bond's Q branch of MI6.

One of those tools was a suppressed .22 semi-auto pistol. The pistol chosen was a Hi-Standard HD pistol, already in service of the Army.

The geniuses at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murry Hill, New Jersey were given the task of making the HD pistol silent, the modified pistols were given the name HDM.

By replacing the barrel with a very thin, ported version, layers of metal screen material were wrapped around and then encased in an outer shield that threaded on, keeping the guns dimensions as small as possible.


Bell labs delivered around 2600 of the pistols beginning in 1944.




Side notes:
Roughly ten or so of the HDM are known to exist in private collections, one might wonder how many more there are "off the books". The two pistols given to President Roosevelt and Admiral Nimitz are supposedly MIA.

There is one HDM pistol in a museum that has an interesting story, it is the one issued to Gary Powers, the U2 pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union on May 1st, 1960. The museum in Red Square proudly displays the captured pistol. In case you didn't know the U2 program was overseen by the C.I.A.



The O.S.S. was "disbanded" (on paper only) on September 20, 1945, the following January the C.I.A. took its place.

Fast forward to 1966, the CIA was looking to replace the ageing and/or missing HDM pistols. This time they chose the Ruger Mark I pistol, specifically the bull barrel model that went into production two years earlier.




Military Armament Corporation was given the task of building the new suppressed weapon.





The barrel shroud closely matched the diameter of the receiver and was just 3/4" longer than the factory bull barrel. An attempt to prevent the gun from looking out of place or get attention.




The reports back from the military trials and field were very positive, by all respects the guns were accurate and performed their duty as designed.

The true number of the MAC Mark I pistols is not known, rumor has it that many were made "sterile" (without serial numbers) for the C.I.A.
One might wonder if the ATF was involved or had foreknowledge of these "sterile" pistols and where are they today.

While the guns were not designed to be serviceable, some have had their internal screens replaced with steel or copper wool.


Around the same time Military Armament was working on the Mark II project, Aircraft Armament Inc, working with Army personnel at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, began work on a special revolver for the "Tunnel Rat" teams in Vietnam.

These revolvers, named Quiet Special Purpose Revolvers, started life as a Smith & Wesson model 29, sans sights, with magna grips and a 1 3/8" smooth bore barrel. The bore was 10mm/.40 cal.






The cylinders were bored out to .528" to accept a special cartridge that would contain the explosion, propulsion of the shot wad was air pressure from a piston being driven forward inside the special cartridge, see the graphic below.


Because the explosion was completely contained, there was no muzzle blast and associated report. That is not to say the guns were silent, just much, much quieter than a typical revolver.



We are told by several sources that the feedback from the field was positive, although no official reports have ever been released.

The program ended in late 1971, however rumor has it the C.I.A. "black book teams" continued to use the revolvers for "wet work" (CIA slang for assassinations). Thus, the reason for me to include this gun in this article. There is no telling how many assassinations or "suicides" this revolver was used in by the spooks.

Read more here.

More recently there was a stainless Mark II suppressed pistol designed for the Navy SEALs by AWC suppressors. The gun was stainless and designed to be used with water as part of the sound insulation. While quiet on its own, two tablespoons of water provide that Hollywood "pew-pew" report.

The pistol was given the name AWC-Amphibian for that reason, and the fact that it was designed for the Navy SEALs.





These are still available and AWC has actually introduced a new and improved version called the Amphibian II, they are built on the Mark IV pistol and come in your choice of 4 colors, see it here.

 


Another modern replacement option is available from Maxim Defense their version is based on the Mark IV- 22/45 polymer frame.


Tactical Solutions also offers an integrally suppress upper for your Mark IV 22/45

After doing all the research I have come to appreciate the James Bond series of movies even more. I was always a fan, but knowing the silly gadgets provided to 007 by his Quartermaster were not just real, but actually worked, makes the movies more enjoyable, despite the fake karate chops and corny one liners.

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