Actually, in the novels his original weapon was the Beretta 418.MinishArcticFox said:Bond uses a Walther becuase its compact and easy to conceal but it you were a secret agent what pistol would you use?
He used this up until Dr. No when it was replaced by the Walther PPK because the Beretta misfired at the end of his last mission.
Interestingly, the previous novel was From Russia With Love, but the movies reversed the order of these novels for some reason.
As for which weapon I would use, I would use the Webley-Fosbery Self-Cocking Automatic Revolver, ironically also used by Sean Connery in the film Zardoz.
This is not a practical choice. The gun is probably unwieldy and unsuitable for spy operations. But I think it's cool because it uses the recoil of discharging a round to slide the entire top portion and thus cock the gun to ready the next round. It never went into wide use because the clip-loading automatic handgun was invented at around the same time, making automatic revolvers seem quaint and underpowered what with only eight shots versus the twenty in some clips.
but i think it looks cool and that's all that matters to me. So I would make a poor secret agent.