I was talking to some Millennial the other day and used the term “Wonder Nine”; he looked at me with his head tilted to one side like a confused dog. This guy was alive during the Reagan administration but likely in diapers for a portion of Reagan’s first term. I explained that the term “Wonder Nine” was coined to describe the plethora of high capacity, double action, semi-auto pistols chambered in 9mm Luger that flooded the market in the 1980’s. If you were aware of the firearms scene in the 1980’s, it was an incredible explosion of firearm’s development. The actual guns were interesting but it was the large scale developmental step that was critical. Sort of like reaching the pinnacle of piston engine aircraft design right before we moved onto jets. It was a cool time to watch what was going on in the handgun world.
Prior to the 1980’s, full size handguns used for serious social work could be broken down into two categories: Double action revolvers and single action/single stack semi-auto pistols.
Obviously, full sized double action pistols existed prior to the 1980’s and were deployed in significant numbers. For example the Illinois State Police started issuing the S&W Model 39 in 1968. However the overall trend in the U.S. at the beginning of the 1980’s was for DA revolvers OR a single stack/single action pistol. That trend was broken in the “Wonder Nine” years and it was broken in a big kind of way.
Most of the development in the Wonder Nine era consisted of expanding existing technology. Double column pistol magazines existed but were generally seen in single action pistols such as the Browning Hi-Power.
Double action pistols such as the Walther P-38 and S&W Model 39 had been available for decades.
It was the combination of those existing technologies that took off during the era.
There was also some innovation in the Wonder Nine era that broke with tradition and helped move everything forward. H&K had developed the first polymer pistol frame with the VP-70 but Glock took that concept and really ran with it. There’s no doubt that Glock was a game changer.
SIG used a stamped and folded steel shell with a separate breach block to form the slide for the P220. That allowed for a lightweight, durable slide that was inexpensive to produce rapidly. That technology was utilized in the P225 (P5) and P226 as well. Speaking of SIG, the de-cocking lever used on SIG Sauer pistols was a departure from the traditional safeties used. Perhaps the biggest contribution by SIG was the method used to lock the barrel to the slide. SIG pioneered the use of a squared off ejection port that acted as the locking lug for the square cross section barrel. Yep, that now ubiquitous method of locking the barrel to the slide with the forward edge of the ejection port was a SIG design! Prior to that, most Browning short recoil designs used one or two rounded cuts inside the slide to mate with corresponding lugs on the barrel just forward of the chamber. The SIG method gave birth to ugly square cross section slides but it’s far less expensive to produce.
Beretta took its existing designs to a new level and added features such as a firing pin block, a slide mounted de-cocking safety and a reversible magazine release in the traditional 1911 location. Those changes helped Beretta win the U.S. Military contract for the first new pistol in 75 years.
S&W saw the writing on the wall and produced the second generation semi-auto pistols followed by the third gen pistols. For a while it looked like S&W was releasing one new gun per week!
The Ruger P-85 was a little late to the game but was a good value when it did arrive.
Taurus made the PT-99 that was almost a copy of the Beretta 92 but with a frame mounted safety and a few other minor differences.
H&K had the exotic P7M13, which was a double stack version of the P7M8 pistol. The New Jersey State Police issued that unique gun for some time.
The CZ-75 was still behind the iron curtain but a few examples made it to the west. There were some copies of the CZ that helped to spread that great design to the free world before the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the time came, the CZ was well received.
By the time the 1990’s arrived there had been a quantum leap forward in the U.S. handgun market. Law enforcement had embraced the semi-auto pistol and the reign of the DA revolver was on the decline. The U.S. military had adopted the Beretta M9. The civilian market consumed every “Wonder Nine” that was offered and the demand only increased.
Not all of the Wonder Nine era pistols survive in production to this day but the era was a quantum leap forward in a market that had remained fairly stagnant for decades.
It may be a little too soon to realize the incredible magnitude of the transitions that took place but those changes were significant. It was an AMAZING time in the history of firearms.