POTD: The Detonics Pocket 9 – The Last Gun from the Explosives Guys

Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have a small 9mm with an outsized backstory. This is the Detonics Pocket 9, and to get it you have to get Detonics. The company was founded in Seattle around 1976 by a couple of explosives engineers, Pat Yates and Sid Woodcock, with money man Chuck Lyford. They named the gun company after the explosives outfit they came out of, which is about as on-brand as a name gets.

Detonics made its name with the CombatMaster, the first mass-produced subcompact 1911 in .45 ACP. Before that gun, a chopped-down .45 was a custom job some gunsmith built one at a time. Detonics turned the pocket .45 into a catalog item years before “concealed carry” was a household phrase, and Jeff Cooper called it about the finest defensive handgun going.

The Pocket 9, made in 1985 and 1986, was the company stepping away from the 1911. It’s a small double-action blowback 9mm, single stack, six rounds, smaller than a Walther PPK. The trouble was timing. Detonics was already sliding toward bankruptcy, and it went broke in 1986. Only around 1,760 Pocket 9s left the building before the lights went out, which makes this little 9mm one of the last things the original Detonics ever built.

Most of our POTDs utilize images from our friends at Rock Island Auction Company, the premier firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse their current auctions – who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!

“Detonics Model Pocket 9 Semi-Automatic Pistol with Box.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/5032/797/detonics-model-pocket-9-semiautomatic-pistol-with-box. Accessed 3 July 2026.

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