More Innovation
The bottom half of the gun got the same amount of attention. The hammer was bobbed, and the triggerguard was welded up and reshaped to create a distinctive hook for those using the finger-forward shooting technique since fallen out of favor. The strong side of the guard was narrowed so the shooter could get on the trigger that much faster. This is a safer version of the Fitz modification where the triggerguard is removed entirely.
The sides of the magazine were cut away so the shooter could look through the clear Lexan grip panels and see how many rounds were left in the gun. After all the sharp edges were rounded, the whole package was coated with black Teflon, creating a subdued, rust-resistant presentation.
Since Theodore was, after all, a holster maker, concealment leather was available with such features as hidden magnets to help retain spare magazines. Many of these designs live on in the products of Ken Null, who continues to produce them, also using the Seventrees motto “Unseen in the best places.”
Many handguns in this world are adaptable to a number of different tasks — not the ASP. It was intended for deadly serious business, an image ASP cheekily embraced with their logo of a heartbeat going to flatline. It made enough of an impression to replace 007’s PPK in some of the later James Bond books. It also made an impression on an Ohio gunsmith who thought he could do better — but we’ll get to the Devel story later.
ASP pistols were produced until the late 1980s, around the time the GLOCK 19 was introduced, having pioneered the concept of a concealment pistol chambered for a service cartridge. That’s something we now take for granted. Online production estimates range widely, but these days the ASP is rarely seen — as, in a different sense, it always was. The pistol shown in the accompanying photos is an extremely rare steel-framed model. S&W made fewer than 1,000 steel 39s, so the number of those turned into ASP’s can likewise be expected to be very low.
Like, maybe just the one?
Subscribe To American Handgunner