Hank Williams doesn’t own the only old family tradition. On a sunny summer afternoon, a petite and very capable 12-year-old girl stared down the sights of her brand new birthday-gift Ruger AR-556, and with breathed-out precision, squeezed the trigger. After firing off a volley of successive rounds, with sparkling eyes she smiled big at her shooting mates and said simply, “This is really fun.” 

This was a Life Moment that Kara Windfall was destined to have. For some families, traditions are held in high esteem. For others, carrying on their family’s legacy is a forgotten pastime, much like Sockie and Kick the Can. However, in some traditional American families, honoring those who came before as well as continuing the fight and pursuance of freedom runs as deep as the blood in their veins. And for Kara, she hopes to continue that long-held tradition starting with those first shots with her new semiautomatic rifle. 

Kara’s family military history can be traced back generations. The first recorded account of one of her ancestors (a Polish knight of the highest order and a heroic warrior) in battle was during the 1410 Battle of Grunwald, where Poland and Lithuania came together to defeat the German-Prussian Knights of the Teutonic Order. 

“This was the first account of ‘one of us’ putting it to the bad guys,” said Sidney Windfall, Kara’s father, a native of Western Pennsylvania who works as a communications consultant. He and Kara currently reside in Europe. 

The Windfall family is found in the annals of the American Civil War under the Yankee government and also fighting for America in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and now in the Middle East. 

“Seems like there was a grandfather, dad, uncle, son or cousin in our family tree, with a grin or grimace, who was always ready to roll up their sleeves when the opportunity presented itself,” Sid adds proudly. His own grandfather served as a Navy LST fireman in the South Pacific during WWII. His father was with the 82nd Airborne, while his uncle served in Vietnam as an Air Force intelligence officer. Finally, his cousins were all Army infantrymen during Desert Storm. 

Birthday Tradition 

Another Windfall tradition goes hand-in-hand with their military history. Following after a beagle-breeding grandfather who loved the thrill of the hunt, if a family child shows interest and is responsible enough, he or she will receive a firearm on his or her 12th birthday. “That is when I got mine,” Sid Windfall recalled. “It was a Sears and Roebuck single-shot, hinge-action .410. Most all the others got simple bolt-action .22s.” 

But, back to our current birthday girl’s AR-556 baptismal. 

When it came time to honor his daughter Kara’s 12th birthday, Sid Windfall kept this old family tradition alive by introducing her to her first gun, the Ruger AR-556, on their recent trip back to the United States. “I presented her with her first real rifle, the semiauto Ruger, which we got from ACE Sporting Goods in Washington, Pennsylvania,” Windfall said. “Up until now, her exposure had been limited to Airsoft replicas and pellet guns. Regardless, she knows what a bull’s-eye is and surely knows gun safety.” 

Prior to having this, her first live fire with the AR-556, Kara has had extensive firsthand gun safety and personal instruction in gun handling and use at home in the U.S. and in Europe. Handing over the Ruger AR-556, which Kara promptly named “ARlene” (showing her puckish sense of humor, another family trait), Sid Windfall couldn’t help building off the life lessons his grandpap taught him by passing along some those bull’s-eyes of wisdom to his daughter. 

“Grandpap taught us that once you decide to squeeze that trigger that the bullet ain’t coming back,” said Windfall. “And, check how you feel when you see what game animal you have shot and killed. If you feel hungry, that is good,” he added with a chuckle. 

For her first crack at the shooting range, Windfall said he knew that he needed to find the right instructor to properly tutor Kara on those initial shots. And, that’s where I did my walk on. 

“Grandpap taught us that once you decide to squeeze that trigger that the bullet ain’t coming back. And, check how you feel when you see what game animal you have shot and killed. If you feel hungry, that is good.” 

– Sid Windfall 

Fort Truby 

Sid was my son’s college roommate back in the ‘80s, way back when I was a university professor, book author, magazine editor, writer and a military historian. Plus, many years earlier I had been an Army Combat Intelligence NCO and later a civilian military advisor and instructor. So, for a couple of days, I invited Kara and Sid out to the boonies of Western Pennsylvania (we call it “Pennsyltucky”) and what neighbors and friends call Ft. Truby. 

After a review of the basics by Kara and myself, the shooting began. Lying in the prone position on my very informal shooting range, Kara was the picture of comfort and poise. Outfitted with her shooting ear muffs, protective eyewear and trusty ARlene, the birthday girl was ready to take aim. Kara confidently fired her first round, then many, many more. Kara expertly handled her weapon, hitting the target with precision. She said that proper safety training and respect for firearms made her feel totally in control of her AR-556 rifle. 

“It seems to me a gun is only as dangerous as the person holding it,” she said. Looking at her father, she thanked him for putting his trust in her and instilling her with “some serious responsibility.” “It’s hard to say who had the most fun on that very loud morning,” Sid told us. “We did however expand our family tradition to include lead covered in lipstick.” 

With the Windfalls temporarily residing in gun-unfriendly Europe for now, who knows when Kara will be able to shoot ARlene again. But, if Kara has anything to say about it, it will be sooner, rather than later. An active member of her school’s Paramedic Team and Red 

Cross First Aid Group, she plans to be back in school in the United States. After graduation, she told me that she would attend college and also join the U.S. Army to pursue her dreams of helping the oppressed by her chosen career in medicine. 

And, their respect for and use of firearms will always be there, too. Sid is a long-time NRA member, and Kara signed on as a Junior NRA member. Both pledge to be very dedicated proactive members. 

Kara is a very impressive young lady with a good head on her shoulders. She is ambitious and has clear-cut goals in her life which is evident in everything that she does, including her shooting. She plans to be the next generation of Windfalls to exhibit her love for America through military service and the 2nd Amendment. And, judging by her first shots on target at Ft. Truby, she will succeed with all. 

Dan Shea got it wrong, Robert Bruce got it wrong, Chris Eger got it wrong, Ian Hogg got it wrong and so did Gary Paul Johnson, Jack Krcma, Dick Meadows, Keith Melton, John Minnery, T. C. Smith, Don Walsh and Yours Truly … until Jonathan Liu of the CIA’s office of Public Affairs kindly told me the truth about the mysterious CIA “Deer” Gun, as it has been known since 1962.

“This weapon is actually known as the CIA DEnied ARea Pistol, hence DEAR Pistol. It was designed for distribution to foreign fighters willing to operate behind enemy lines,” Mr. Lui informed me, sharing with me data from the Agency’s own files, including a CIA photograph of their original production DEAR Pistol.

And, it all began with the fabled OSS Liberator.

The World War II Liberator was a small, nifty, behind-the-scenes pistol. It wasn’t meant for the battlefield, though; it was meant for use as a sneaky behind-enemy-lines killer for an ally friendly OSS. About 20 years later and half-way around the world, its successor, the CIA’s Deer Gun, as it has been incorrectly known for over 55 years, hoped to continue that legacy, yet inadvertently created a puzzling reputation of its own.

The DEAR Pistol was conceived as an updated version of the Liberator pistol, a gun built by General Motor’s Guide Lamp Division. Developed for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam conflict, the DEAR Pistol was a very simple, single-shot 9mm pistol designed to sneakily bring better weapons to the U.S.’ South Vietnamese allies fighting against their invasive local Viet Cong and the invading North Vietnamese soldiers. It was designed to be purely one-on-one deadly.

“The idea was to supply this glorified zip gun to our friendlies who weren’t afraid to carry the war close and personal to our enemy,” the late U.S. Army Major Dick Meadows, a true Special Forces icon, explained. “They’d get close, take him down with the Deer Gun, then strip him of everything usable, including his AK47and spare ammo and any material useful for intel purposes.”

The weapon was planned between operational CIA officers and our military. Discussing the project with several gun designers in the late 1950s, the goal was for the gun to be a modern version of the FP-45 Liberator, which had been discharged (an on purpose pun) after WWII.

By 1962, covert operations were already underway in Southeast Asia. According to Major Meadows, “Deep down at Langley, someone must’ve recalled those long-lost Liberators and their previously discussed updated counterparts, the Deer Gun. It was time to get them operational.”

“For some insane reason, much WWII materiel was destroyed in 1946-47. Liberator pistols were torched, melted and crushed into postwar scrap. Very few survived, and there was no inventory when President Kennedy decided to support low-profile, low-intensity counter-guerrilla warfare in Vietnam,” he explained.

The CIA called on the Chief Engineer for American Machine & Foundry (AM & F) special Firearms division, the late Russell J. Moure, a very experienced ordnance veteran who was a principal developer of the mini-gun, who also worked with and for Firearms International and Interarms. The CIA told him to create an effective successor to the Liberator, as they had discussed several years earlier. When the CIA and Moure met in 1962, discussions centered on an idea to create a lighter, smaller, simpler and far cheaper Liberator-type pistol.

Major Meadows explained, “The CIA wanted a simplistic design that was operationally sound, as well as quick and economical to manufacture. The purpose was to supply the pistol to indigenous guerrillas and irregular forces behind enemy lines. Yes, it was also an assassination gun, and it was to be part of what became known as Operation Phoenix.”

The CIA chose AM & F because it was a company well known for recreational products and had only a small, very secretive ordnance section. As author Chris Eger wrote, “Allen Dulles’people wanted someone far off the firearms radar, such as AM & F.”

One of Moure’s engineering colleagues at AM & F, who asked that his name not be used here, added, “Russ (Moure) spent 10,000 words explaining to some CIA guys what was basically a crude, ugly, but damn decent $4.00 zip gun for our Third World allies to kill one of the bad guys each time, usually during a behind-the-lines recon op. Then, to take that guy’s weapon, probably an AK for his own use. … that was the CIA program for this weapon.”

The tiny 9mm pistol with a case aluminum receiver, a screw-out-to-load 2-inch barrel, was made largely of plastic, steel and aluminum parts and would cost the U.S. approximately $3.95 apiece. The DEAR Pistol was made to be small, efficient, cheap and untraceable.

So, how did this mysterious pistol get its name wrong? U.S. Army Sgt Gary Paul Johnston suggested “Deer Gun” was an Agency codename with a sardonic, big game hunting reference. Suppressor designer Don Walsh thought the Deer Gun was named after a WWII OSS operation in Burma, “The Deer Mission.” Turns out, they were wrong, as we have just learned.

The late Vaclav “Jack” Krcma, an ordnance expert, WWII combat vet, CIA contract agent, Interarms field icon and close friend of Moure, marveled at the design of the DEAR Pistol. He had seen some of Moure’s initial actual design work. Krcma stated it was the lightest and smallest 9mm issue pistol ever developed, as well as being “of splendid design and robust construction.”

I knew Jack well, and we discussed the pistol often. He, too, called it the Deer Gun. My guess is that the CIA, in its infinite judgment of mysterious ways and means, just let people refer to it as the Deer Gun … until now.

The CIA examined and tested the prototype. Satisfied with Moure’s design, they ordered 1,000 pistols, issuing AM & F a developmental contract for $300,000. This price was higher than the originally quoted price of under $4.00 per weapon; however, with all developmental special weapons, research, testing and prototype costs had to be recovered. As Jack Krcma noted with alacrity, “In our business, we all know how that works.”

The production DEAR Pistol is 4-1/8 inches high, 5 inches long and weighs 12 ounces. The body is one piece cast aluminum, with a blued steel barrel. The raised grip is cross hatched, and the three rounds that come with each gun are stored in that hollow area. There is no trigger guard, and the sight, as such, is a grooved notch on the receiver top.

To fire the DEAR Pistol, the barrel is unscrewed, a round is loaded, and the barrel is screwed back in. The cone-shaped cocking lever is pulled back, the pistol is then aimed and fired.

However, by 1964, it was clear that Southeast Asia was bound for a major war. With that level of war a set of guidelines and parameters was passed down from the Pentagon flag pole. Their rules of engagement made the DEAR Pistol a low priority.

Diminished significance or not, the first 1,000 pistols made it to active duty in sterile condition. These guns were completely sanitized, meaning there were no serial numbers, no ordnance proofs, no ID markings, no connection to the U.S government. They were packed individually into a plain white, sturdy Styrofoam box accompanied by three rounds of 9mm ammunition which were also sterile. According to author Chris Eger, “the head stamps on the cases of those rounds were marked not with a NATO symbol, but with ‘9mm 42’ to imply that they were possibly WWII vintage bullets of German, Italian or some other origin than American.”

The packaging also contained a four-color, cartoon-style, wordless instruction sheet that visually detailed how to operate the weapon and whom to shoot with it. The instructions depicted a generic guerrilla using a DEAR Pistol to shoot an enemy soldier bearing a Soviet armband, hammer and sickle included. Ironically, that armband is the only identification marking of any kind found on the weapon, its container or the instructions.

According to Krcma, of the weapons delivered to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), approximately 150 were sent for field testing in Southeast Asia. There are no official records available that any of the DEAR Pistols were used beyond controlled, non-combat testing. However, one U.S. military officer relayed a story to me in which he accompanied a patrol of both U.S. and Vietnamese Special Forces in 1963, during which two DEAR Pistols were carried for what he referred to as “active evaluation.”

“We had run a successful ambush and were returning for extraction with four prisoners, three of whom were wounded. The unwounded man noisily resisted restraint. Because the potential for hostile reaction to us being there was very real, our senior man decided to terminate the recalcitrant prisoner.”

“That’s when I saw the Deer Pistol ‘field-tested.’ One shot was fired from a range of two feet into the back of the base of the man’s head. He lurched forward and fell quite dead. We then effected our extraction with the other, very silent prisoners, all officers.”

Thus, by 1964, the DEAR Pistol was officially cleared for field issue. It was listed in the CIA’s special weapons inventory and carried stock number 1395-H00-9108. However, since its change in status, little information has been released about this limited issue weapon. Until now, the CIA has denied requests for materials regarding the DEAR Pistol. AM & F, totally out of the ordnance business for years, refused to provide me any information.

“Over the years, I had seen Deer Guns at one military museum, at a CIA facility and at a few ordnance research facilities,” Jack Krcma told me in 2005. “But, they must have grown legs and walked off, because they aren’t there anymore. Where did they go, and I wonder who has them now?”

There is at least one DEAR Pistol at the CIA Museum, and there is also one at the JFK Museum at Fort Bragg. That has been confirmed.

However, there are some other stories. A DEAR Pistol was reportedly confiscated in Mexico in 1970, before it could be used to assassinate a Cuban official. This account is totally unconfirmed. The Deer Gun was mentioned and accurately described in William Caunitz’s 1985 novel, One Police Plaza.

Of the original 1,000 weapons produced, maybe 10 to 20 remain in circulation, according to the well-known collector, Keith Melton. Eger wrote that one was legally sold at a recent auction for over $22,000. Another was sold legally by Rock Island Auction in 2011 for $25,875. Robert Bruce photographed another one for his 2003 SAR article titled “The CIA’s Deer Gun in Vietnam” (Vol. 6, No. 4). Three of his pictures are with this article, the first color photos and also the first with a person holding the DEAR Pistol.

He told me, “It belonged to a 1st Cav Special Ops vet who was on a recon mission in Vietnam and saw the weapon there. He said he ‘acquired’ it and was able to get it home.”

The remainder have apparently disappeared into collectors’ quiet and private inventories. The DEAR Pistol may not have been successful in combat, but its reputation continues to be successfully enigmatic to this day.

The bulky, big, plastic/metal pistols command a utilitarian following. The classic Kalashnikov boasts military aficionados. But great things also come in small, aesthetically pleasing packages. That’s why I class the Sidewinder as a sub-subcompact or miniature pistol. It’s one of the smallest concealable backup handguns available.

It’s a gun you can carry when and where you can’t carry a gun.

When you Google the .22 Sidewinder, manufactured by North American Arms, you can almost hear the virtual happy verbal applause of fans from various online forums.

“I think that the Sidewinder is the best NAA mini-revolver platform yet, offering more convenience with few negatives,” Randy Wakeman, Guns and Shooting Online senior editor wrote, “…If you are looking for maximum convenience in an extremely small, well-crafted package, the Sidewinder will delight you.”

“I want the Sidewinder like you wouldn’t believe,” online commenter D.J. raved. “NAA made a great revolver and it will retire my Wasp to a show piece.”

Even though it’s not much bigger than a box of 50 .22 cartridges, its name is inspiring. “Sidewinder” is the demarcation for two species of venomous reptiles, at least two military aircraft, a short-range surface-to-air-missile, a baseball pitcher, Dodge and Kia concept cars, three roller coasters, and a handful of diverse musical groups and songs of varying quality. But the design of this pistol is simply unmatched for shooters needing this specific genre of pistol.

The basic specs for the Sidewinder are that it is a five-shot, .22 (both LR and Magnum cylinders available), with a one and a half inch barrel and five inches overall. The height is just less than three inches, width is just over an inch and the unloaded weight is 6.7 ounces. Trigger pull data are in the five to six pound range and most shooters describe the recoil as surprisingly moderate.

The revolver features marbled wood grips and clean lines. But besides being a pretty piece of hardware, why do people like the Sidewinder so much? That’s easy, it is both plain, simple, plus it’s easy to load and unload the five-shot revolver. The “swing-out” style cylinder assembly is similar to most modern revolvers. This miniaturization of a traditional technology is what sets the Sidewinder apart from other smaller handguns. In a typical miniature firearm, first you must pull a pin here, scoop out the cylinder there, and reload. By the time you’ve fumbled the cylinder back into position, taking care not to accidentally pinch off your thumbnail, the Sidewinder has long been ready to shoot. Best of all, the spent shells shake loose easily, or the extractor allows you to pick spent brass out from the side.

Not only is the design simple, clean, functional and totally dependable, but the Sidewinder is also very safe to carry, thanks to NNA’s exclusive safety notch cylinder. It is also a very “easy on the eyes, and great to handle firearm, too,” as Conti Industries & Black Ops Tactical executive Heidi Conti told me. “Plus, with the proper ammo, you’ve got a great little pistol in your power.”

The self-defense effectiveness of the Sidewinder was greatly boosted with the introduction of Hornady’s purposefully designed 45 grain FXT Critical Defense .22 magnum load. It rips out of the barrel at 1000 fps and has penetration of test gel better than most .380 loads. Speer offers a 40 grain Gold Dot load which also has major target punch, real or test, as well.

NAA strongly suggests that you do not use any PMC ammo, long rifle or Magnum, in their pistols due to double discharge possibilities. Extensive testing shows that only PMC ammunition has this hazard with NNA .22 revolvers.

Interestingly, NAA’s General Manager, Ken Friel, told me that some Sidewinder owners have used the CCI Shotshell load in their pistols. The load has 52 grains of #12 shot in each round. When fired at three yard range, the coverage is group is a 9-inch square. I imagine a load of that in the face of a bad guy at that range would stop most any assault.

The pistol’s safety mechanism is ingenious, so there’s a lower risk of accidentally nicking a finger when preparing to fire. What the Sidewinder lacks in stopping power when compared with other, more intimidating calibers, it makes up with more utility. You can slip it into a pocket or a purse much more easily than its larger handgun brethren and be on your way, unseen by our new world’s highly suspicious eyes and all powerful video surveillance.

The accuracy is admirable for its class, too. In his firing tests, J B Wood noted that his Sidewinder performed really well. He reported, “In classic encounter range of 7 yards, it kept all five rounds centered in the black on a Champion VisiShot target.” Likewise, Heidi Conti came away from their Conti Industries range totally impressed with the Sidewinder.

“I tested five shots on a printed groundhog target from fifteen feet away. Three shots punctured the body just below the target spine. The other two hit solidly within the crosshairs, while two of the outer three shots grouped tightly together, as you see in the photo. Not bad for paper varmint disposal duty,” she added with a chuckle.

Most commendably, the recoil won’t knock your hand off-balance, so you can squeeze off a second shot,” she added. Sadly, though, it is a single action revolver, meaning you have to cock it for each shot.

Ms Conti also said, “But, do pay attention to the sight radius when aiming as it is tiny and it doesn’t take much tremor to mess up your aim.”

Yet, as Randall Kari, an LEO with whom I used to work, said, “You don’t hunt deer with it at 50 yards out, but when and where it counts at close range defense, it’ll hit where you aim. It’s a great back up and a very easily concealed defense pistol.”

Part of the Sidewinder’s factual legend is the narcotics agent who did a buy on a Florida beach wearing only a Speedo. No room for a standard piece, so the agent hid his NAA Sidewinder in a drinking cup.

As an aside, for those of you considering a .22 for maximum conceal self-defense, I suggest you read Richard Mann’s article in the June 2013 issue of AMERICAN RIFLEMAN; good reportage there.

Though industry rumored for weeks, the first public hint of the Sidewinder came in March of 2012, when NAA CEO Matthew “Sandy” Chisholm said, “The Sidewinder will be a single-action mini-revolver, solidly built on our stainless steel magnum frame, whose cylinder is mounted on a side-releasing crane, just like most revolvers…an easy loader, too.”

And, just as everything else in our hyper-online lives, the young, traditional Sidewinder is subject to change, too. Even as Ken Friel and I were ending our interviews today, he told me about the new model 4-inch barrel Sidewinder coming to market late summer of 2015.

Phew!

But, as with everything, NAA gets it right and shares that with the rest of us users. Their NAA instruction book includes photos with the detailed printed instructions for loading, unloading and using the Sidewinder. There’s also a video showing the entire process on NAA’s
very elaborate website.

It’s no surprise, then, that the current Sidewinder models remain somewhat back ordered. Yet, you don’t have to stand in a backed up waiting line at major retailers to own the old fashionedly modern Sidewinder. In my case, a quick trip down the road to Bee’s Guns, a truly old school kind of small town real gun shop in Saltsburg, PA made it all happen, thanks to owner Ken Bee and very knowledgeable assistant Jesse Syster. Within the week, my Sidewinder was there.

Fortunately, gun shops aren’t left waiting for a slow boat from overseas for Sidewinders. These stainless steel mini-revolvers and other small pistols manufactured by North American Arms are handcrafted and manufactured in Provo, Utah. And they carry a lifetime warranty.

As Chisholm predicted, NAA’s Sidewinder actually made its debut in 2012 to much hoopla and fanfare, all quite deserved.

North American Arms started as the short-lived Rocky Mountain Arms, and then became a subsidiary of an aerospace manufacturer, that was absorbed by Teleflex.

In the late 1980s, Philadelphia business man Matthew “Sandy” Chisholm III was working in mergers and acquisitions for Teleflex, which owned NAA at the time. The company wanted to get out of the small arms business, but was having a hard time finding a buyer. For one thing, according to Chisholm, the business was profitable, self-sufficient, and Teleflex wasn’t budging on their selling price or terms.

So Chisholm decided to become a small [arms] business owner. He explained, “…I saw first-hand the capabilities of their management team and the opportunities available to the business, given just a modest investment of time, love and money. So, in a ‘Victor Kiam/Remington moment,’ I chose to leave the corporate world and become a small business owner in November of 1991.

“Shortly after the purchase, I built a new home for the business in Provo, where it has remained ever since. I have respect for and confidence in Ken Friel and his team and their ability to responsibly and successfully make the operational decisions regarding our business. I add my value on the legal, accounting and strategic planning issues.

“Things have worked exactly as we planned. And with remarkably few exceptions, both the management team and work force are exactly as they were when we began.”

Others in the field agree. According to NRA Board Member and publisher of SOLDIER OF FORTUNE magazine, Robert K. Brown, “Sandy Chisholm, General Manager Ken Friel and Sales Manager Ken Barlow are, “Three of the truly ‘Top Good Guys’ in the shooting sports Industry.”

Oh, and why did NAA name their tiny revolver The Sidewinder? As Ken Barlow explained, “It’s simple, it is a revolver with a swing out cylinder and someone in a John Wayne western called those guns ‘Sidewinders’.”

Thus, exactly like their expertly designed Sidewinder, North American Arms also has a very smooth and on-target operation.

The Vietnam War, plus the rise of coordinated and connected international terrorism in the 1960s and ’70s, along with films and TV shows glamorizing counter terrorists, spooks, spies, and warriors brought firearms sound suppressors to the attention of the vast media audience. In the real world of hushed killing, the design emphasis of the era was the .22 rimfire pistol.

In addition to being a highly controversial war, the Vietnam conflict was also a test lab for myriad ordnance experimentation, some bizarre, some lethally effective. The Ruger/MAC MKI suppressed pistol was among the latter.

An old favorite among target shooters, hunters and plinkers, the standard Ruger MKI was modified, a sound suppressor was added and the pistol went off to war with Army Special Forces, Navy SEALS, plus the CIA and DEA.

Former Special Forces NCO Fred Miller used the weapon extensively during his two tours in Southeast Asia. He told me, “Our units used the MkI for all sorts of sneaky ops, from dumping guards to out and out assassinations. On one cross-the-fence LRRP mission into (forbidden at the time) Cambodia we used MkI pistols for fresh food when our rations gave out…hunting in the bad guys’ back yard without letting them hear the shooting.”

Developed to replace that aging WWII vet Hi Standard HD pistol as a suppressed small caliber special mission weapon, the Ruger/MAC MkI was developed in the middle ’60s for military testing and combat use.

According to a specification sheet from field tests at Ft. Bragg in 1966, “The RUGER/MAC MkI is an excellent close-range Counter-Insurgency weapon with a very high degree of inherent accuracy and an unusually effective integral suppressor. This pistol was selected first because of the inherent superiority of its basic design system.”

In addition to the Ft. Bragg trials, the MkI was tested by the military at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Rock Island Arsenal, Eglin AFB, Ft. Benning, and by U.S. Navy SEAL units at Coronado. The CIA also evaluated the weapon at its covert facility near Camp Perry.

According to the report from the U.S. Army’s Marksmanship Unit, the suppressed pistols were also tested with telescopic sights. Their evaluation noted, “…with the telescope sight, great advantage is added to field versatility…giving the unit mini-sniper capability.” This paralleled the comments of ordnance expert C.E. Harris who tested the MkI for The National Rifle Association. Harris wrote, “In the field, the ‘scoped Ruger performs more like a rifle than a pistol. It is exceedingly accurate when fired from a supported position.”

Ruger introduced its MkI target model pistol, equipped with a Micro-adjustable sight and a 7-inch tapered barrel, in 1950 to sell for a modest $57.50. The new pistol had a 14-inch twist barrel rather than the one-in-16 of the standard model. According to Ruger, the faster twist provided better accuracy.

The bull-barrel model was produced in 1964 and was the weapon used in the suppressor developmental program. Although the American military bought thousands of the Ruger pistols, until the late Mitchell WerBell III entered the story none had ever been successfully sound suppressed. Working within a design dictate that the suppressor must fit within the parameters of the original pistol’s bull-barrel diameter configuration, WerBell and Gordon Ingram, his resident engineering genius at Military Armament Corporation (MAC), came up with the Ruger/MAC MkI.

Their design is such that the suppressed version looks exactly like the standard bull-barrel MkI built by Ruger. WerBell, a colorful ex-OSS and CIA operative, showed me the prototype MkI at his Powder Springs, Georgia plant in 1971, saying, “Our MkI looks just like the regular bull barrel pistol and doesn’t call attention to itself…ideal criterion for its covert role.”

The overall length of the MkI is 11.6 inches, with a widest measurement of 1.1 inches at the receiver. The barrel length is 6.25 inches total, with the integral suppressor at 5.6 inches. The internal suppressor contained a series of stainless steel screening discs, although later production models used centered metal inserts that improved the unit’s life and efficiency. WerBell’s Ruger/MAC MkI weighed a hefty 41 ounces, yet was very well balanced and handled easily. The majority of the design engineering was the work of Gordon Ingram.

The pistol’s sights are adjustable, as each click of the screw moves the impact of the bullet 3/4 inch at 25 meters. Commenting on the accuracy, ordnance consultant and former MAC historian Donald G. Thomas praised the basic design. He told me, “The sights were critically designed for match-accuracy, yet tough enough for combat operations. It’s a great marriage that meant a lot to the men who used the weapon in the field.”

One satisfied user of the suppressed MkI was a Special Forces sergeant who also worked for the CIA during his three tours between 1968 and 1973. He told me, “It was as accurate a pistol as I’ve ever used, which is damned important when you’re using a small caliber weapon for some of our missions. The muzzle noise from the weapon was nil…the bullet crack was never a real problem in any of my operations.”

These missions included guard dog suppression, suppression of personnel during prisoner snatches, and, assassination of target-specific military and political cadre.

Another retired special operations professional, a Korean War vet who landed at Inchon two days ahead of the main invasion (if that gives you some idea of his value, experience and abilities), carried a Ruger/MAC MkI while working in Cambodia in 1969 as a “paid civilian consultant.” Commenting on his MkI, he told me, “I put a telescope on it when I was out in the woods and it was the equal of, and as useful as, the silenced .22 rifles we had…those little Remington 66s. I used that pistol on targets up to 40 meters with very satisfactory results.” Did he consider the suppressor to be effective? “Well, you could say that I’d bet my life on it.”

Another veteran who ran covert operations, including portions of the famed Phoenix program, employed several professional shooters, and among the favored weapons in their toolbox was the Ruger/MAC MkI. Speaking of his former employees, this Special Forces vet acknowledged, “We did some political hits, whacking doubles, couriers, VC tax collectors, and things like that. My guys put their lives on that MkI, because most of those assignments had to be quiet, like in urban areas. Damn fine weapon, that MkI.”

He legally acquired a civilian MkI several years ago for old times sake for quiet, fun plinking, saying, “About the most lethal thing I do with that fun gun is drop the damned squirrels that dig up my wife’s bulbs in the yard. That suppressed pistol loaded with standard velocity ammo is sweet for hitting the pests without scaring my neighbors. I live in the suburbs and have that fine corporate image I gotta protect, you know.”

In 1985, I tested two MkIs, one with the original MAC suppressor unit that had been opened, repacked and replaced as new, and one with a unit designed by noted suppressor savant, Dr. Philip Dater, for his Automatic Weapons Company. I had three observers behind cover 150 feet from the firing line. At that range, none of the men heard any noise from the muzzle of either weapon, reporting only the hiss of the rounds passing overhead.

When I moved to within 50 feet, they reported a sound like that of a cap pistol from the MAC suppressor and a noticeably quieter signature from the Dater unit. At 25 feet, all three noted the report of both weapons, saying it was like that of a pellet gun for the MAC and like a muted hand-slap for the Dater gun. In more scientific and lab-measured testing, the AWC gun measured between 6 and 8 dB less sound than the original WerBell/Ingram design.

The major drawback of the original MAC suppressor was that its useful life was only 400 to 500 rounds before it began to lose its muffling abilities. As the units were sealed and unable to be repacked easily, the entire weapon was simply destroyed after the suppressor’s quieting abilities died. They were considered as field disposable.

Don Thomas told me that the units were cheaper to produce sealed and that the government wanted them that way. For civilian shooter and collector purchase, with the $200 transfer tax, there had to be a better way. That is how Dr. Phil Dater got into the business. He had one of the original Ruger/MAC MkI units and was not about to toss it out, put up with the hassle of paperwork and spent money to rebuild the suppressor.

Phil explained, “I tore it apart rather harshly, I fear, then rebuilt the unit internally and added some improvements of my own including a removable end cap. Now, I had something I could sell to the civilian market. I called my improved version the RST.”

The Dater unit replaced the standard MAC discs and wipe of the original unit with a special copper screening design. It was a major improvement. Phil laughed when he showed me that “special” high tech copper screening all those years ago. It was made from rolled and twisted strands of ChoreBoy sponges. Ever modest, Phil Dater said simply at the time, “I have the advantage of a lot of improved technology that Mitch didn’t have back in the ’60s when he pioneered that generation of sound suppressors.”

Within a short time, Ruger came out with their MkII pistol to replace the old original. Phil Dater’s modifications and addition of his improved Mk2 suppressor to this new Ruger pistol quickly became one of his most popular products for law enforcement and for civilian collector use.

We were then in the generation of that era’s can makers, e.g., Dater, Ciener, Knight, Walsh, et al, and their high design work. Indeed, the old Ruger MkI itself has been superseded by the MkII, which had its own generation of suppressor designs from those gentlemen previously mentioned.

The last time I saw that old veteran of special missions, the Ruger/MAC Mk1, was while I was on assignment in Central America in 1986. I met one of that generation’s young poop ‘n snoop kids who had a vintage Ruger/MAC Mk1 as part of his kit.

I asked him how he liked the weapon. He smiled and said he hadn’t used it in the field for real, only on the range at their small camp near San Pedro Sula. He added, “But, my dad used one when he was in SF in Vietnam in 1970/71 and told me great stories about it.”

In its service, the Ruger/MAC Mk1 has proved that a good bit of silence will go a long way, even if it has museum status today.

It’s RKI Quiz Time.

1.) What looks like a fat, oversized zip gun?

2.) Although less than 2800 were produced, what handgun killed far more German officers in WWII than the millions of our 1911A1 .45s?

3.)What ancient originals are the UK’s SAS lads still using to “quietly operate” in Northern Ireland?

A. THE WELROD!

That’s not some modern soldering technique, it’s the name of this heavy, ugly, silenced single shot pistol of WWII vintage that has been accountable for the demise of a lot of Britain’s enemies, in war, peace and semi-war. Although primarily a British weapon, the Welrod was also used by our OSS people in WWII.

The OSS description of the 9mm Welrod was delightfully enigmatic, calling it “a silent single shot pistol intended for use by specially trained operators for specific tasks”. According to the British product literature, i.e, their user’s manual, their Welrod is quite the special mission pistol:

This weapon…is silent, reliable in action and easy to conceal. It is accurate up to 30 yards in daylight or 20 yards on a fairly light night, but is most effective when fired in contact with the target.

The last line, gentle reader, means in direct contact with the target, as in an ultra close-up assassination.

Their user manual goes on to instruct, “..with the muzzle directly against the target…there is no question of any special training.”

A colleague of mine with dirty war credentials introduced me to an elderly British Para who knew the Welrod well, having used it during WWII when he was an SOE operative in Yugoslavia, then later when he was with SAS during the unpleasantness in Malaysia.

“It’s a killer’s pistol, nothing very glamorous or exciting. You get in close to your target, tight as you can, and let him have it,” he said with blunt reality.

“The farthest I ever hit with one was 10 meters, but the old Welrod worked fine. People could hear the bang, but it never gave me away. That sound moderator is a good disguiser of where shots come from. Never any ball-ups; it’s a good, simple, workable rig.”

So, what is this over-aged pistol all about? The Welrod is a manually operated single shot, WWII pistol built around a baffled, integral suppressor unit and magazine.

The suppressor itself is a series of self-sealing metal, plus fiber, leather or rubber washers. The non- metallic washers close after each round passes through, effectively delaying the passage of noisy gases. Although the sound reduction system is very effective, somewhere between 25 and 35 dB, the efficiency of the original system deteriorates quickly after twenty shots or so due to the enlargement of the washer holes from the rounds passing through.

The pistol is designed for replacement of the worn-out parts or the entire weapon can be discarded. According to operational stories, though, that latter case is very rare.

“When I was in Northern Ireland in 1980, our section had a Welrod that dated to field use in 1944,” says one former SAS officer. “The original baffles had been replaced by a newer composition material and there’s no way of telling how often that had been done. We used that weapon and it still worked very effectively.”

According to the international ordnance expert, consultant and icon Jack Krcma, who has extensive experience with the Welrod, “On being fired, the gun produces a report about equal to a .22 short being fired from a rifle. This report is followed either by a prolonged hissing sound as the gas escapes through the cork in the suppressor, or by a more rapid, duller hiss when the gas under pressure remains trapped in the suppressor and escapes upon opening the bolt.”

A WWII brainstorm of Winston Churchill’s so-called “Black Toy Box” special warfare scientists, the Welrod was produced both in 9mm and .32 caliber, with the 9mm version known as the Mk I and the smaller model, the Mk II. The physical dimensions of the 9mm Welrod include a 14 3/8-inch length with a weight of 42 1/2 ounces. The suppressor unit is 5 inches long, with a 1 3/8-inch diameter. The weapon has a magazine containing six rounds of 9mm ammo. This pistol’s muzzle velocity is 1000 fps.

The Welrod Mk II is a .32 caliber model with an overall length of 12 1/2 inches and weighing 32 ounces. Its magazine holds five rounds, and the weapon has a muzzle velocity of 920 fps. According to British data, the accuracy of this model is sufficient to give 5-inch groups at ranges up to 10 yards. According to the manual, the recommended operational range is 5 to 7 yards.

There was little about the Welrod that was fancy, Jack Krcma says, “The rifling is five groove with a left hand twist. The unit I first examined had a fixed square notch front sight with luminous centerline and a rear sight with a fixed blade and luminous spot. The standard finish for all Welrods is a Parkerized one.”

Each Welrod’s sights were coated with a radioactive paint for night use, while the silencer’s muzzle endcap was hollowed to a depression to further reduce sound signature when the weapon was fired in direct contact with the target.

The only major external differences between the 9mm and 32 caliber Welrods are the smaller physical size of the .32 and the fact that it does not have a trigger guard. Internally, the two pistols are quite different, though, as the 9mm model has a two-part suppressor barrel section, while the .32 has a single section.

The 9mm original production Welrod’s suppressor contains two rubber baffles, while the .32 model has three. Internally, these are beyond the pistol barrel. The barrel has a series of 20 holes drilled around its periphery, which are positioned in the five rifling grooves and vent to the surrounding expansion chamber. This chamber is separated from the front suppressor section by a baffle that has 12 holes. The suppressor section, extending beyond the barrel muzzle, is 4 inches long and contains a series of intermittently spaced metal and rubber baffles.

The 9mm Welrod suppressor consists of two sections, front and rear. The rear portion contains the gun barrel, which has sixteen bleed holes at its breech end. The gun barrel is surrounded by a tube that, together with the threaded front bushing, forms an expansion chamber for the gases escaping through the bleed holes. The front portion of the pistol barrel is essentially the weapon’s suppressor, attaching to the pistol by means of a threaded bushing. The inside of this suppressor section contains a series of metal, rubber and felt baffles separated by a perforated spool-like steel spacer.

The initial washers for the WWII suppressors were stamped from oil-soaked leather. However, this was soon stopped as tests showed that oil heated by the weapon firing produced smoke. Later washers were made of rubber, cork or of bronze screening.

One of the purposes of the Welrod was to be a weapon that could be issued to indignant local resistance fighters on assassination missions in occupied territories. Thus, the weapon’s basic operation had to be uncomplicated, which is why the Welrod is a simple, bolt action, single shot pistol.

To operate the weapon, you insert a loaded magazine all the way home. Twist the knurled knob at the breech a quarter turn to the left and pull it back. When you push this knob forward it tips a cartridge from the magazine into the chamber. Lock the Welrod’s bolt by turning that knob one quarter to the right. The closing stroke of the bolt also cocks the weapon. After the Welrod is fired, you withdraw the bolt, which extracts and ejects the fired case through the top of the weapon. Repeat the simple process, and that’s how it works.

Generally, a professional will use two hands to fire the Welrod, except for extremely close-in targets. One hand grips the outer silencer tube as far forward as is convenient or comfortable, while the pistol grip is held in the firing hand, just tightly enough to compress the safety catch. For distances beyond 10 yards the manual suggests the operator tuck the outer arm elbow as close to the body as possible.

That’s the what, the why, and the how. The rest is a bit more complicated. The actual ancestry of the Welrod still remains buried in the classified murk of British wartime security, even now, nearly 60 years of history later. Possibly, though, this is because these antique weapons are still killing people, e.g. in northern Ireland.

Efforts to research the genesis of this classic piece of military ordnance mostly arrive from personal contacts rather than official records, which remain “sealed, destroyed, or lost.” In a conversation some years ago with Major Frank W.A. Hobart, a retired British officer and premier ordnance scholar, he told me “The original models were produced in one of our factories near Wells, and since your OSS was going to use them as well as our chaps, someone tagged the American slang word ‘rod’ (meaning gun) on the end of it. Thus, the Welrod.”

The term Welrod also has a genesis with England’s Welwyn Herts Laboratories, where many nasty weapons and gadgets were developed for the SOE. The Welrod’s designer was a British ordnance officer who was assigned the wartime code name of “Major Dolphin.” Neither Frank Hobart nor Jack Krcma knew the real name of this man.

In his well researched book THE PUMBER’S KITCHEN, Don McLean reports, “They (the British) had a Station IX where they established a rather large machine shop for the purpose of carrying out research and small scale production of a number of silent weapons. From this group a notable silent gun was forthcoming, namely the Welrod.”

Jack Krcma also confirmed that Station IX was located in Wells, just as Frank Hobart had said.

The actual tooling, production and assembly of the Welrod pistols was performed under great secrecy at the Birmingham Small Arms Company factory in Small Heath, Birmingham. There are no specific identification marks on the weapons except for a 5 pointed star and small square which indicated the BSA firm. The small marks are located at the rear bottom end of the cylindrical receiver portion along with the weapon’s serial number.

A British military critique of the Welrod during field trails at BSA concluded, “The weapon is excellent…having been designed around the silencer unit it eliminates much of the objectionable noise. It does require two hands for operation as it is a heavy weapon, also it is cumbersome in the reloading, and subsequent shots cannot be taken rapidly.” On the whole, the evaluation was good, concluding, “It is felt that his weapon has a great deal of merit to organizations such as the commando units and the SO(E).”

Although the Welrod was a British weapon, the U.S. did purchase and use some quantity of the pistols. There is no consensus as to when the first Welrod was brought into the States for trials, but there is some evidence it was early Spring of 1943. The Welrod did not appear in official U.S. reports until that Summer, when it was tested in July at H.P White’s Research Laboratory near Aberdeen Proving Ground. An excerpt from the report for that day notes:

Following a delicious lunch of goat, the group adjourned to a firing range and the same weapons used at Aberdeen were demonstrated again.. Major Fairborne (sic) and Commander Bird were most impressed.. The silencer cut the sound down by about 35 dB.

“Fairborne” was the famed British Major W.E. Fairbairn of police and commando reputation who had more than a passing interest in silent weapons. According to the British military historian William Leathers, “Fairbairn was most likely the high ranking British government courier for the weapon… a man who could understand it, use it and probably sell it to your people (the OSS).” Leathers reported that a test Welrod was brought to the USA in April or May of 1943 by “a field grade officer of some repute.” Fairbairn?

The official American record, though, picks up when this British contribution to special warfare weaponry is noted. In the OSS, responsibility for the acquisition of silenced weapons was assigned to Division 19, headed by Dr. Harris M. Chadwell. Dr. Chadwell was Chief of the National Defense Research Committee, the official cover name for the folks who provided the nasty killing weapons.

On 16 August 1943, a meeting of the British liaison and American OSS researchers held at the Maryland Research Laboratory covered silenced weapons, and the Welrod rated high in the minds of all participants. The report concluded, “It was felt that for that special type of mission, it was the best available design and the U.S. should proceed with purchase of production model Welrods rather than trying for a home-built version”.

Most of the operational responsibility for these weapons was held by Vannevar Bush and Stanley Lovell, an OSS legend in his own right. Given the silenced pistol need, Lovell had been working with an old Army friend. Col. R.R. Studler, a noted small arms authority, on silenced weapons procurement. Although Bush, Lovell, and others had been working on obtaining silencer-equipped weapons since early in the war, this was the first official “blessing” for the particular search…a quiet assassination weapon.

A large scale, formal test was made at MRL late that September. According to unofficial reports, the Welrod did very well in the competitive firings and a limited procurement was ordered, as Bush, Chadwell and Lovell had requested weeks earlier. Always the practical engineer, Lovell wrote. “There seems little sense in wasting time or effort as the British obviously have a superior design here…(The Welrod)…Suggest we provide funds for additional experimentation on our .22 silenced pistols and on the submachine gun models.”

In a memo dated 18 September 1943, Dr. Bush wrote, “Welrod very satisfactory as silenced weapon… British have 1000 in production.” He requested immediate procurement of 200, followed by a run of 50 per month by the U.S. Bureau of Ordnance. He asked that these future U.S. produced weapons be modified to .45 ACP. He also noted it would be satisfactory to purchase the modified weapons from the British if production would be more efficient there.

However, as other OSS Division 19 scientists were already at work on several projects involving modified .45 caliber pistols, e.g., “The Bigot,” that modification request was dropped.

On 8 October 1943, the British Security Co-Ordination’s Engineering officer, Maj. W.M. Fox, arranged orders for “hand delivery to Doctors Bush and Chadwell by safe, armed courier” of a copy of “description and operational instruction for the Welrod, which my be of interest and use to you.” The model involved was the .32 caliber MkII, which the OSS was testing.

Chadwell, Bush and Lovell praised the test Welrod and its performance over other units, including three OSS models. They reported, “A completely independent line of investigation has been carried out through Dr. King on silencing guns… You will notice that the Welrod is mentioned on page 3. The model fired at that time was furnished by Colonel Studler of Army Ordnance.”

Indeed, the Welrod was tested, re-tested and continues to be tested, even years later, as seems to be SOP with silenced weapons. In one 1943 test, conducted by Division 19 personnel, under the supervision of Stanley Lovell and Col. Studler, their Welrod recorded a 118 dB pulse. A 1965 test of a rebaffled Welrod by officials at Aberdeen Proving Ground recorded a 115 dB reading, a drop of 35 from the unsilenced model. The lowest figure I have noted was conducted with a rebaffled Welrod Mark I in 1977. The reading was 110 with the 9mm model. The lowest reading I have noted for the .32 caliber Mark II is 103 dB.

According to a U.S. Army report on a Welrod test in 1985, “On one unit was recorded a drop of 30 dB.”

In a less scientific but reliable field test, the effectiveness of the suppressor is such that at 50 meters from the weapon, I could not readily identify the sound as a gunshot when my associate fired the Welrod some 30 feet over my head and down range. Also, we tested a vintage WWII model in 1980, replacing the original packing with as nearly the same baffling material (cork) as we could utilize. The result was a 35 dB drop.

When the Department of the Army scientists tested another totally original Welrod at the Frankford Arsenal in 1968, their report noted a maximum sound pulse of 122 dB, then described the sound signature as “a sharp, snappy crack.”

I asked an OSS veteran who had used a Welrod in Europe about this, and he said the rubber baffles in the Frankford test weapon were probably old and brittle with large blow holes, instead of having a tight wipe fit. “I’d have to describe the operational Welrod of that period (WWII) as having a sound signature more like the primer ignition of a .22 short followed by a slight hiss,” he said.

Back in 1943, when it really mattered to the special mission hungry OSS, the Welrod passed all its official tests easily. The OSS officials concluded that silenced weapons had a definite role in their arsenal. In England, this conclusion was academic, considering that both SOE and the various British Commando units had already been using these silenced pistols in the field for nearly six months.

The only rap the American officers who used the Welrod leveled at it was that it required two hands for ranges over 10 yards, plus the slow, manual reloading. Lovel’s response noted, “Please consider what missions the user of the Welrod is assigned and at what ranges he will be firing. It is not an ordinary combat gun; it has special mission use where some limitations exist to allow for other advantages. Please think this through operationally.” Bush was more pithy when he wrote to Chadwell, “This (the Welrod) is a nice weapon for gangsters. Think about that.” He knew, of course, of its murderous intent.

Because the missions in which silenced weapons are used generally are not the types of action personnel, units, or countries desire to share in the public spotlight, it is rare that cameras, reporters, or other talkative sources are around to record these deadly moments. Action photos of silenced weapons in the field are rare. Only somewhat less rare are the war stories of their use.

“The mortality rate is awesomely high among people who go on the types of mission in which silenced weapons are used,” says former Special Forces NCO Ted Bell, a two-tour Vietnam vet who has done attached service with other organizations and has a personal appreciation for these jobs.

According to the military historian Maj. Frederick Myatt, there are situations, missions, and times when relative silence is not only desirable, but also deadly. As Maj. Myatt writes about WWII, “…special operations people..sometimes need a silenced pistol and it was for their use that the Welrod was produced.”

The men and women who used the Welrod had praise for it. A man who knew many of these users, the last Canadian intelligence operative, John A. Minnery, noted, “The favorite weapon of the day was the silenced Welrod in .32 caliber and 9mm. Both these weapons were quite effective and took their toll in France and the low countries.”

Len Jameson was an SOE officer in Europe during 1944-45 and knew the Welrod well. Now retired in Australia, he writes, “We used crossbows and quieted rifles mostly for sentry work. The Welrod was a fine weapon to send into town with an agent if you wanted to bump off a German officer or a Gestapo bully. Our Resistance allies made good use of the ones we gave them.”

One Jameson story involved the elimination of an informer, whom they took out in a crowded inn in German-occupied France. “We’d given a Welrod to one of our most loyal boys and he smuggled it into the inn at great risk to himself,” Jameson told me. “A bunch of his mates crowded around talking, then bellied up to the bar, surrounding the mouthy mark we were hitting. The lad stuck the Welrod right up into the collaborator’s chest and put a round through his heart. Honest to God, they said nobody heard a sound. They propped the body into a chair and left by ones and twos during the next ten minutes. The Herberts (Germans) didn’t notice anything was wrong for hours.”

Another Welrod pistol, now in the collection of the Nationalmuseet of Denmark, was used by a Danish underground group to liquidate Nazi officials and local collaborators during the war. Code-named Holger Danske, the group was very successful in their use of arms dropped by the British. One of their foremost leaders during the highly dangerous and deadly Welrod missions was Capt. Ole Geisler, an SOE agent who carried the British code name “Axel.” His personal Welrod, a MkII, is on display in the Danish museum today. It took out nearly two dozen German officers and officials in 1944 and 1945.

A former OSS agent, Col. John S. Wood, said he had carried a Welrod in France and used it to eliminate several German officers.

In this line, the OSS supply list is interesting. The “normal” OSS ordnance materials issued to OSS agent William J. Morgan for his assignment behind German lines included the following; A .32 Welrod pistol; an M1911A1 .45 pistol; a .22 caliber silenced HD pistol; an ordinary blackjack; a spring-snapper cosh (blackjack); a lapel dagger; cameras and lots of film; two sleeping bags; a large box of time pencils and other detonating devices; an army blanket; a switchblade knife; a commando knife; a plastic pouch to cover explosives, and condoms to cover the detonators.

According to cogent military officers, Welrods are still on active duty in the continuing dirty little wars. Retired SAS Sergeant Brian Sykes told me, “I know for a fact they were used in Ireland and Korea because I was there and saw them. I know some of our observers in Vietnam had second-generation, locally made Welrods when they went on the black missions with your Special Forces people”.

Yet, according to two sources in Britain, the Welrod has not been operational for years. Noted ordnance research Colin Greenwood wrote in the 80s. “The Welrod is not in use today”. Another source, a weapons expert from the Imperial War Museum in London says, “I don’t think the Welrod has been used ‘officially’ for some considerable time, certainly not in Ireland or the Falklands. It is relatively obsolete compared to recent, more sophisticated weapons.”

By contrast, though, that combat veteran of WWII, the OSS, CIA, and only God knows how many other operations, Jack Krcma notes, “I am certain Welrods saw action in Korea, Malaysia, Ireland, Vietnam and in the Falklands. It is still a very fine, very effective weapon.”

It is also a very rare collector’s item, as few as 30 may still exist outside of museums and special mission armories. According to Krcma, “There are very, very few original Welrods on the market today, even for official collection curators to purchase. The prices will range from $4000 to $25,000 for each weapon”.

With that in mind, did you wonder about the price to produce each Welrod during WWII? Estimates range from $15 to $25 per weapon. Today, that pistol sells for up to $25,000.

That’s not bad price appreciation for an ugly, old pistol.

WELROD BIBLOGRAPHY

I PUBLICATIONS

Foot, M.R.D.
SOE IN FRANCE HMSO, 1966

Huebner, Siegfried F.
SILENCERS FOR HAND FIREARMS
Paladin Press, 1976

Ladd, James and Keith Melton.
CLANDESTINE WARFARE
Guild Publishing, 1988
Lovell, Stanley,
OF SPIES & STRATAGEMS.
Prentice Hall, 1963

McLean, Donald B.
THE PLUMBER’S KITCHEN.
Normount Technical Publications, 1975

Minnery, John A.
FIREARMS SILENCERS, Vol II
Desert Publications, 1981

The Silent Canadians,
THE GUNRUNNERS,
June 1973

Joe Ramos,
AMERICAN TOOLS OF INTRIGUE
Desert Publications,
1980

Myatt, Maj. Frederick,
MODERN SMALL ARMS,
Crescent Books, 1978

Office of Scientific Research & Development Various Technical Reports, Maryland Research Laboratory. Office of Strategic Services, 1943-1945.

Skochko, Leonard W. and Harry A. Greveris,
REPORT R-1898, SILENCERS.
Department of the Army, Frankford Arsenal, 1968

Truby J. David,
QUIET KILLERS,
Paladin Press, 1973
SILENCERS, SNIPERS & Assassins
Paladin Press, 1972

Ward, Donovan M.
THE OTHER BATTLE
Ben Johnson & Co. 1946

II CORRESPONDENCE & INTERVIEWS

Correspondence between American OSS officials and British Security Co-Ordination Unit, September, October and November 1943

Memorandums between Dr. Vannevar Bush and Dr. Harrison Chadwell, Office of Scientific Research and Development, 1943 and 1944

Personal correspondence and interviews with:

Ted Bell, USA
Colin Greenwood, UK
Edward Hine, UK
Maj. Frank W.A. Hobart, UK
Leonard Jameson, Australia
George B. Jarrett, USA
Bob Koch, USA
Jack Krcma, Canada
John A. Minnery, Canada
Joe Ramos, Canada
Donald G. Thomas, USA
Col. John S. Wood, USA

Conceived as the Vietnam generation’s version of World War II’s Liberator pistol, the CIA Deer Gun was a simple, single shot 9mm pistol designed to bring better weapons to our partisans. The late major Dick Meadows, a U.S. Army Special Forces icon, explained the concept to me about 15 years ago.

“The idea was to supply these glorified zip guns to our friendlies who weren’t afraid to carry the war close and personal to the enemy. They’d get close, take him with the Deer Gun, then strip him of everything usable including his AK47”, “Meadows” explained.

This weapon’s genesis was discussed between military and CIA officials, plus several gun designers in the late 1950’s. The goal was a new version of the FP-45 Liberator, designed and produced by the thousands for the same lethal re-supply mission in World War II.

Why not simply re-issue the existing Liberators for Vietnam?

As Dick Meadows explained. “For the same insane reasons that other World War II material was destroyed in 1946/47. Liberator pistols were torched, melted and crushed into postwar scrap. Very few survived and there was no inventory by the time President Kennedy decided to support low profile, low intensity counter-guerrilla warfare in Vietnam.

“The true shame was that nearly a million of these little guns were cranked out in 1942/43 and certainly not all were lost in action or even issued,” Meadows added.

Research by Robert W. Koch documents that the FP-45’s were distributed by the U.S. military via the OSS in Europe, the Middle East and heavily into the CBI theater. Koch notes that nearly 30,000 were provided to the British for their SOE personnel. Gen. Douglas McArthur’s people requested 50,000 Liberators for supply in the Philippines.

Koch reported that one 1942 memo mentions the “desirability” of making up another million units. However, as the tactical nature of the war changed by 1943/44, it was clear the FP-45 would have a limited service life and no further orders were placed. Koch notes that nearly half of the original production never left arsenal storage.

However, by early 1962, with covert operations already hot in SE Asia, someone in Langley must have remembered those long-gone Liberators. That’s when CIA procurers met with the late Russell J. Moure, chief engineer for American Machine & Foundry’s special firearms division in Alexandria, VA. to plan the successor to World War II’s .45 caliber Liberator.

A legend in the paramilitary firearms business, Moure created the classic AMF military suppressor and other ordnance designs for that company and The Company. In addition to the Deer Gun, Russ Moure also designed the highly successful .308 drop-in conversion unit for the M1 rifle, as well as an 81mm semi-auto mortar for the Navy. He was also one of the pioneer developers involved in the mini-gun project.

When the CIA’s armament people met with Moure in 1962, the idea was to design a light, cheap “Liberator” style pistol. The government’s primary tenet for this new weapon was operational simplicity, while the second was that it be cheap and quick to build. The new pistol would supply indigenous guerrillas and irregular forces behind enemy lines.

One of his engineering colleagues at AMF said, “Russ spent 10,000 words explaining to some CIA guys what was basically a crude, ugly, but damn decent $4 zipgun for our Third World allies to kill one of the bad guy soldiers. Then, to take that guy’s weapon, probably an AK, for his own use. That was the CIA program for this weapon.”

Moure’s design was a tiny pistol with a cast aluminum receiver, a screw-out-to-load two inch barrel, plastic parts and budgeted to cost the U.S. $3.95 each. It was designed in 9mm, as that ammunition is far more ubiquitous than the .45 ACP of the World War II weapon.

This new pistol measured five inches in length, 4 1/8” high, 1 1/2” thick and weighed 12 ounces. It had a blued barrel and a bright aluminum handle/receiver unit. The grip was hollow to hold spare ammunition and an ejector rod to punch out the empty casing from the screw-off barrel.

According to ordnance legend Jack Kroma, a close friend of Moure, this was the lightest and smallest 9mm issue pistol ever developed, as well as being “of splendid design and robust construction.”

Jack Kroma also said that some of the Deer Guns were made with rifled barrels and some smoothbore, adding , “I saw quite a few of the Deer Guns when Russ was doing his work. Later, I saw six of the smoothbore models.”

The Deer Gun had no fixed sights and was fired by means of a cocking knob and trigger unit. The only safety was a plastic ring which slipped over the cocking knob, acting as a collar to physically prevent it from falling on the cartridge primer if the weapon were discharged accidentally. This collar also doubled as a front sight, to be slipped off the cocking knob and inserted on the barrel before firing.

After examining and testing Moure’s prototype, the Agency ordered 1000 pistols, issuing AMF a developmental contract for $300,000, quite a bit higher than the original price of under $4.00 per weapon.

These were developmental weapons which meant research and prototype costs had to be recovered. T. L. Smith, a former AMF official, who was on the Deer Gun project with Moure in 1962 explains. “The start-up costs were high, but, if we’d gone into mass production the projected figure of $3.95 could have been met easily”.

However, by 1964, it was evident that Southeast Asia was headed for major war status with clearly delineated covert parameters and rules of engagement which made the Deer Gun concept low priority.

However, the first run of 1000 pistols did go on active duty in totally deniable, sterile condition. There were no serial numbers, no ordnance proofs, no ID markings at all. Each Deer Gun was completely sterile, i.e., “sanitized”, as they say in spookspeak.

Each pistol came packed in a plain white polystyrene box along with three rounds of 9mm ammunition, also sterile, i.e., no headstamp markings. The box also contained a four-color, cartoon-style, wordless instruction sheet that in visual detail instructed the user how to operate the weapon and upon whom.

The cartoon instruction sheet depicted a generic guerrilla using a Deer Gun to shoot an enemy soldier who was wearing a Soviet arm and sickle armband. Ironically, that armband is the only identification marking of any kind found on the weapon, its container or the instructions.

Of the weapons delivered to the DIA, approximately 200 were sent to Southeast Asia for field testing, according to a consensus of sources. Although there is no official record that any were used beyond controlled, non-combat testing one U.S. military officer told me he accompanied a patrol of both U.S. and Vietnamese special forces in which two Deer Guns were carried for “active evaluation” as he put it.

The rest of his story is a tad grisly, but I have no reason to doubt the man’s word. I’ve known him and his honesty for nearly 40 years. Here’s what he told me.

“We had run a successful ambush and were returning for extraction with four prisoners, three of whom were wounded. The unwounded man resisted restraint. Because the potential for hostile reaction to us being there was very real, our senior man decided to terminate the recalcitrant prisoner.

That’s when I saw the Deer Gun ‘field-tested.’ One shot was fired from a range of three feet into the back of the base of the man’s head. He lurched forward and fell, quite dead. We then effected our extraction.”

By 1964, the Deer Gun was listed in the CIA’s special weapons inventory and carried a regular stock number, meaning it was cleared for field issue. That stock number was 1395-H00-9108.

Not much is known about this limited issue because the Agency has denied all FOIA requests for information about the Deer Gun. One case did make a very brief news splash in New York in 1975, when a robbery suspect was caught with what turned out to be a Deer Gun. He said he bought it on the street from some guy who claimed he’d brought it back from Vietnam. The pistol subsequently disappeared from the evidence locker.

There was also mention of an assassination of a Cuban official in Mexico City in 1970, reportedly with a Deer Gun, but, I could not document this.

I have seen only one mention of the Deer Gun specifically in a novel and that was in ONE POLICE PLAZA by the late William Cauntiz. In that fine fictional work published in 1985, Cauntiz names the Deer Gun specifically in a mysterious hit on “the second secretary of the Cuban Mission to the U.N.”

The story line has the hit done by CIA contract ops working to eradicate Castro’s intelligence people in the U.S. and Mexico using the Deer Gun, a very unlikely premise or choice of method or weapon.

Nonetheless, Cauntiz’s description and history of the Deer Gun is brief but generally accurate and the fictional anecdote does fit the factual reports of Deer Gun sightings. So does fiction mirror fact or vice versa?

When I tried to contact Mr. Cauntiz through his publisher, I was told that an interview would be impossible as Mr. Cauntiz is deceased.

There are a few more murky stories, possibly apocryphal about the Deer Gun. Jack Kroma adds with his usual curmudgeonly humor, “I have seen Deer Guns at two military museums and at a few research facilities. But, they must have grown legs and walked off, because they aren’t there anymore. Where did they go and who has them now?”

Of the original 1000 weapons, only 10 to 20 remain in circulation today according to collector Keith Melton. The majority were reportedly destroyed by government order. The rest seem to have just plain disappeared, meaning that they were “recovered” by individuals.

The post Vietnam history of the Deer Gun is no less mysterious than its highly unusual name. Several researchers and experienced military operations people have speculated on the origin of the Deer Gun name. Sgt. Gary Paul Johnston suggests that it is an Agency code name with sardonic reference to a survival weapon. Suppressor designer Don Walsh, a longtime friend of Russ Moure, thinks the weapon was named after a World War II OSS operation, the Deer Mission business in Burma. The genesis of the weapon name appears to be as mysterious as the ultimate fate of the weapons themselves.

Not so for the epilogue of its designer, Russ Moure. After AMF and the war years, he went to work for Firearms International as their chief engineer. Later, he joined Interarms as vice president of engineering. Russ Moure died during the winter of 1986/87 when he stopped to help a stranded female motorist near Washington. He was struck and killed by another vehicle, he was 65 years of age.
(Caution: the Deer Gun when encountered with a smooth bore barel is considered an NFA firearm requiring an registration under Title II as an AOW)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cauntiz, William. ONE POLICE PLAZA, NY: Banam Books, 1985

Koch, Robert W. THE FP-45 LIBERATOR PISTOL. Long Beach: Research, 1976.

Minnery, John A. and Joe Ramos. AMERICAN TOOLS OF INTRIGUE. Cornville, AZ: Desert Publications, 1980

Truby, J. David. ZIPS, PIPES, and PENS. Boulder: Paladin Press 1993

Personal interviews and correspondence with Jack Krcma, International Firearms Consultant; Joe Ramos, Firearms Designer; T.L. Smith, form AMF employee; Don Walsh, Weapons designer; John H. Wright, Central Intelligence Agency; plus former employees of Interarms, Inc. and American Machine & Foundry.