Ah, the Jason Bourne movies. They showed the world what a modern international spy movie could be after Pierce Brosnan’s increasingly goofy run as James Bond ended with Die Another Day in 2002. That same year, The Bourne Identity hit theaters, and people started saying it had permanently changed action thrillers. For a good while, it did.
It was a serious espionage movie wrapped around a mystery whose hero didn’t rely on nonexistent gadgets and luck to survive, but on tradecraft embedded so deeply in his mind that it became reflexive even when his memory turned to Swiss cheese after being shot and floating in the ocean for a while.
Bourne doesn’t have a go-to weapon like Bond’s PPK because he’s constantly on the run and usually has to utilize weapons of opportunity, be they firearms, pens or a rolled-up magazine. He uses a plethora of firearms throughout the four movies in which he appears — yeah, we know there are five, but Bourne isn’t really in The Bourne Legacy. We’ll still get to that one anyway.
Since most of the series takes place in and was filmed in Europe and Eastern Europe, there are plenty of European-centric firearms throughout the franchise. Expect a lot of SIG Sauer, Walther, CZ and Glock pistols.
But first, did you know the 2002 movie wasn’t the first time Robert Ludlum’s opening Bourne novel was brought to the screen? The Bourne Identity (1988) hit the small screen as a two-part miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith. It’s worth a look if you’re a big fan of the series, and you can watch it on YouTube. If you know the Matt Damon version pretty well, it’s fun to see how different productions depicted the same scenes and characters.
What Gun Does Jason Bourne Use?
Unlike James Bond, Jason Bourne doesn’t have a true signature sidearm. His defining trait is that he can pick up almost anything and immediately turn it into an effective weapon.
Still, several handguns show up repeatedly throughout the series, particularly SIG Sauer and Glock pistols. The SIG Sauer P225 appears in multiple Bourne films, and by the time we get to Jason Bourne in 2016, he spends much of the movie carrying a SIG Sauer P226R.
Okay, settle in, take some Dramamine to get through the shaky cam of it all, and let’s check out the guns of the Jason Bourne movies.
Jason Bourne Guns at a Glance:
- The Bourne Identity: SIG Sauer P225, SIG Pro SP 2009, Walther P5 Compact, Glock 19, side-by-side shotgun
- The Bourne Supremacy: Beretta 92SB, Beretta 92FS, SIG Sauer P225, Walther PP, Keppeler & Fritz KS II-style rifle
- The Bourne Ultimatum: SIG Pro SP2022, Beretta 92FS, Glock 17
- The Bourne Legacy: Beretta 92FS, Glock 19, SIG Sauer P229, SIG P229R, Walther P99, Smith & Wesson Model 10, Nemesis Arms Vanquish-style rifle
- Jason Bourne: SIG Sauer P226R, SIG P225, Glock 17, Glock 19, Heckler & Koch USP, Brügger & Thomet GL-06
The Bourne Identity (2002)
Director: Doug Liman
Starring: Matt Damon, Franka Potente
In this first installment, audiences were introduced to Jason Bourne (Damon) as some kind of super spy who is pulled out of the water by a fishing boat. All he has are a couple of bullets in him, a bad case of amnesia and a tiny laser emitter with a bank account number embedded in his hip. So begins the saga.
SIGs are big in this first film, and since this flick and its sequel mostly take place in Europe, you’ll be seeing a lot of SIG Sauers, HKs and Walthers.
SIG Sauer P225
In one of the more memorable scenes, Bourne is rousted by police after being found sleeping on a bench. We get a look at his skill level for the first time as he swiftly knocks them both out and snatches one of their pistols, a SIG Sauer P225, which he deftly disassembles — without ejecting the magazine, by the way — and leaves in the snow before running off.
The SIG P225 is a compact version of the venerable P220. German police forces changed their handgun standards in the 1970s, and several companies, including SIG, HK, Mauser and Walther, developed new guns they hoped would be adopted.
What came out of it were the Walther P5, HK P7 and SIG P225, which was designated the P6 when adopted for German police use. It became widely used by police forces across the country because it was reliable and comparatively affordable.
SIG Pro SP 2009
When Bourne follows the account number in his hip to a bank in Zurich, he is given access to a safe-deposit box full of all kinds of cool spy stuff, including numerous fake passports for different identities, cash and a pistol.
The gun is pretty rare these days and has been out of production for years: a SIG Pro SP 2009.
The SIG Pro line was the company’s first polymer-framed handgun and was an early adopter of features such as a built-in accessory rail and interchangeable grips. The line was chambered in several popular law-enforcement cartridges, including .40 S&W and .357 SIG, while the SP 2009 was chambered in 9mm.
Walther P5 Compact
When the Professor (Clive Owen) comes after Bourne at the farmhouse and Bourne deals with him, he takes the assassin’s Walther P5 Compact pistol and carries it with him into the Treadstone safehouse in Paris.
While there, he grabs a Taurus PT945 from another assassin and uses both guns to make the highly memorable and extremely impossible shot as he’s falling down the stairwell.
The P5 was Walther’s contender for a new German police sidearm, but it didn’t gain the traction the SIG P225 did. The P5 was highly advanced for its time, incorporating an aluminum-alloy frame and a new trigger mechanism.
It’s a DA/SA, recoil-operated, locking-breech pistol largely based on the legendary Walther P38. Like the P38, the barrel of the P5 doesn’t tilt like a Browning design but instead moves straight back by about 5mm. The controls are extremely simple: The slide lock also functions as a decocker.
Coincidentally, Roger Moore carried a Walther P5 instead of the PPK for one of his turns as James Bond in Octopussy (1983).
Glock 19
When Bourne finally begins uncovering some of his memories and recalls the mission that ended with him in the water, a flashback reveals he carried a Glock 19 fitted with a laser sight to assassinate Wombosi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), though we only see it briefly and in the dark.
Side-by-Side Shotgun
Bourne doesn’t really truck with long guns unless he absolutely has to.
In this flick, he takes on another Treadstone assassin who is armed to the teeth with a SIG Sauer SG 550-series rifle, two pistols and the element of surprise at a rural farmhouse.
Bourne takes him on with a 12-gauge double-barrel side-by-side shotgun he finds in the house. It’s difficult to identify a shotgun like that without seeing the markings, but it’s hammerless, has a boxlock action and wears a classic stock.
It’s definitely one of the more awesome shotgun scenes in an action movie.
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Director: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Brian Cox, Joan Allen, Karl Urban
The first Bourne sequel came in 2004 and finds our hero in hiding with Marie and working to restore more of his memory until Marie is murdered and Bourne jumps back into the mix, discovering someone has been pinning assassinations on him.
From there, he cuts a swath through bad guys while working his way toward the people responsible.
Beretta 92SB and 92FS
In the beginning of the movie, we see that Bourne keeps a Beretta 92SB pistol as his SHTF weapon, stored in the glove box of his SUV in India. We see him perform a press check before the vehicle goes off a bridge into a river.
After Marie is killed, Bourne picks up a different Beretta 92FS pistol along with his other gear as he clears out of their home.
SIG Sauer P225
Once Bourne arrives in Naples, he steals a SIG Sauer P225 pistol from a U.S. Consulate agent and uses it through much of the rest of the movie.
You get a good look at it in action when he confronts a Treadstone assassin and when he gets into a shootout with Kirill while driving a stolen taxi.
Throughout the movie, Bourne is plagued by flashbacks of what we learn was his first assassination assignment for Treadstone. He’s using a P225 there as well.
The SIG P225 is a compact 9mm version of the widely popular P220. Like the Walther P5 above, this gun was created in response to new German police sidearm standards established in the mid-1970s.
Walther PP
At some point, Bourne gets his hands on a Walther PP pistol and presents it to corrupt CIA Deputy Director Ward Abbott (Brian Cox), not so subtly suggesting that he take the easy way out.
Keppeler & Fritz KS II Mockup
When Bourne calls Pam Landy (Joan Allen) at CIA headquarters in Berlin while watching her through a Zeiss Victory Diavari scope, he’s using a custom-built bullpup rifle made to resemble the extremely rare Keppeler & Fritz KS II.
At first glance, it looks like it might be some variant of the ultra-rare and expensive Walther WA 2000 sniper rifle. It isn’t, but visually, it’s in the same neighborhood.
The real KS II is an extremely rare German-made bullpup bolt-action sniper rifle, with only a small number produced during the 1990s. So you can forgive the filmmakers for not tracking down a real one.
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Director: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Matt Damon, Joan Allen, Edgar Ramirez
The second sequel in the series picks up essentially where the last one left off and eventually sees Bourne in New York City trying to uncover the remaining pieces of Treadstone and his own past.
SIG Pro SP2022
Before he gets to NYC, Bourne spends some time in Moscow in a sequence that takes place just after the car chase in Supremacy. There, he uses a SIG Pro SP2022 pistol, most notably when he faces off with Russian police in a pharmacy.
Considering the sequence’s placement in the timeline, it probably should have been a SIG P225, but what are you going to do?
Later, he is carrying the SP2022 in his waistband in New York. How he got the gun there—or how he obtained another one—is a mystery.
The gun later changes to a Glock 19 while he questions Dr. Hirsch.
Beretta 92FS
The CIA sends agents to apprehend journalist Simon Ross at Waterloo Station, and one of them carries a Beretta 92FS.
Bourne briefly uses one, too, although he takes that pistol from a police officer in Morocco. Dude does get around.
Glock 17
When Bourne finally gets to New York, he finds a lot of people carrying Glock 17s, including one of the agents he hunts down at Sewell & Marbury.
Of course, Bourne gets his hands on one and uses it for much of the rest of the movie, although in some scenes it switches back and forth with the SIG Pro in continuity errors, most notably when he’s pointing the gun at Dr. Hirsch’s head.
The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Director: Tony Gilroy
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Scott Glenn
This entry is sort of a departure, made when all indications were that Matt Damon was finished with the character and the series.
It’s set in the same universe and involves some of the same secret-assassin machinations, but it focuses on a different generation of operatives created by a more advanced program linked to Treadstone.
The protagonist is Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), and the events of the movie actually take place during the timeframe of The Bourne Ultimatum.
Much like the original, Cross is running from assassins sent by his former handlers to eliminate him and everyone like him in the wake of the chaos caused by Bourne.
Unlike Bourne, Aaron Cross uses a bunch of different firearms, including a Beretta 92FS, Glock 19, SIG Sauer P229, SIG P229R, Walther P99 and Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver.
Like Bourne, Cross digs exotic sniper rifles.
In Alaska, we see him use a rifle based on the Nemesis Arms Vanquish takedown sniper rifle. In some shots, the minimalist rifle has a bolt handle, while in others it appears to be firing in semi-auto and the bolt handle has vanished.
But Cross assembling the rifle in the snow makes for a cool scene.
Jason Bourne (2016)
Director: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel
When the paycheck came calling, Matt Damon answered and jumped back into the skin of Jason Bourne for one more sequel, helmed by the same director who made the previous two films with him.
This time, the movie completely abandons even the pretense of being based on one of Robert Ludlum’s original Bourne novels.
Bourne comes out of hiding after nearly a decade has passed since the events of Ultimatum, this time because of a plot connecting the CIA to a huge social media company.
Jason Bourne is the fifth installment in the Bourne film franchise and marks the return of both Damon and director Paul Greengrass.
The film follows Bourne as he once again digs into his past while becoming entangled in a CIA operation involving the social media company Deep Dream. The cast includes Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel, Alicia Vikander and returning cast member Julia Stiles.
The world of Bourne would also be revisited in 2019 with the USA Network original series Treadstone.
SIG P226R
For the first time, Bourne seems to have something approaching a preferred sidearm and carries a SIG Sauer P226R throughout much of the movie.
The pistol is also carried by a number of other characters.
It wouldn’t be a Bourne movie without flashbacks, and in those scenes Bourne is seen using a SIG P225, Glock 17 and Glock 19.
Heckler & Koch USP
Bourne gets into it with several CIA operatives during a protest in Greece who are carrying H&K USP pistols.
As you’d expect, Bourne takes one and uses it for a time.
Brügger & Thomet GL-06 Launcher
During the same Greek protest sequence, Bourne acquires and uses a Brügger & Thomet GL-06 40mm grenade launcher while riding a motorcycle in a particularly metal scene.
Jason Bourne may never have had a signature sidearm, but that’s part of what made the franchise different. From compact SIGs and Glocks to obscure sniper rifles and whatever else happened to be within reach, Bourne’s real weapon was always his ability to use whatever he could get his hands on.
