When I recently listened to the audiobook of Frederick Forsyth’s The Fourth Protocol — primarily out of curiosity about the fictitious Manifesto for the British Revolution — I couldn’t help but notice that the Soviet operator in Britain, when finally cornered, reached for his Sako target pistol, which was set up to use the largest of the three calibers it could chamber.
What calibers were those? Certainly .22 Long Rifle has been the standard for international competition for a long, long time, so what other calibers would it be built for?
Between 1976 and 1988, Sako produced an autoloading match pistol, the “.22-32″, then “.22-32 New Model”, then “Triace”, three versions of the same handgun, slightly modified. It was chambered for .22 Short, .22 Long Rifle and .32 Smith & Wesson Wadcutter, with conversions (barrels, slides and magazines) for each caliber. It is suitable for ISSF (then “UIT”) sport pistol events (Rapid Fire Pistol, Standard Pistol, 25m Pistol, and Centerfire Pistol events).
The .32 is popular in Centerfire Pistol competition, which is not an Olympic event.
.22 Short is the original metallic cartridge, and it has its uses:
The .22 Short was popularly used in shooting galleries at fairs and arcades; several rifle makers produced “gallery” models for .22 Short exclusively. Due to its low recoil and good inherent accuracy, the .22 Short was used for the Olympic 25 meter rapid fire pistol event until 2004, and they were allowed in the shooting part of modern pentathlon competitions before they switched to air pistols.
So the bad guy relied on a huge, hard-to-conceal, crazy-looking, .32-caliber, low-capacity pistol?
I feel like Geoffrey Boothroyd, compelled to write to Ian Fleming about Bond’s choice in firearms.