Which walther ppk is the best

Maybe this will be their very first firearm purchase, period. And for whatever reason, the Walther PPK is at the top of their list. If that is you, then, sir or madam, I really need to make sure you know that in the year , the Walther PPK is a horrible choice for any practical purposes.

Today I want to talk about why. Most of the guns Walther makes today are actually fairly highly regarded. They even make a couple I would call exceptionally good. And, like many German-designed firearms, when the PPK first came out, it also fell into that exceptional category. It was a unique, high-quality pistol that filled an important role. But, over the last 90 years, there have been some major advancements in the design and technology that goes into concealable handguns.

Today, we typically associate it with. Long before the PPK made an appearance in any spy films or books, it had already made a major impression on the firearms industry. It had several mechanical and aesthetic design elements that were copied and reused for decades, both by Walther and their competitors.

They were fairly popular for a few years after the war, and the PPK probably would have faded into history shortly after and I would not have had to make this video.

But then, along came some movies about that make-believe womanizing limey spy and demand for the PPK has endured ever since. Unfortunately for American secret agent cosplay enthusiasts, The Gun Control Act of banned the importation of certain small, concealable pistols, including the PPK. The quality of those guns has been hit or miss over the years. For the most part, these new guns are not much different than the originals. They have some minor improvements to make them a little safer and more reliable.

The grip tang or beavertail is a little longer. The drift-adjustable dovetail rear sight has been replaced with a simpler fixed rear sight notch. In all other respects outside of a beauty contest, the Glock 42 completely outclasses the PPK. The PPK has a steel slide and a steel frame. Most pistols these days have an aluminum or a polymer frame. Steel guns are heavy. There are two main options when it comes to magazines and those are flush or with a pinky extension.

The magwell does have enough clearance to allow the mag to readily drop free when the mag release is pressed. To hold and fire the Walther is something special for Bond film aficionados. After reading and watching every offering by Ian Flemming growing up, I knew that I needed to add the Walther to my collection.

When shooting the Walther the pistol fills out the hand nicely, more akin to a full-size handgun. This lends itself to being more accurate especially when using the pinky extension so you have a full purchase on the grip. After chambering a round and disengaging the safety, the trigger pull is noticeably long and heavy to the point of detracting away from the overall experience for me. Luckily the single action makes up for this mostly.

This is due to the straight blowback design of the firearm. After a session of a few hundred rounds sent downrange the meaty web of my hand is sore from the beavertail digging in while experiencing the recoil of the firearm. This is partly due to the high grip on the firearm that the modern shooter has adopted to keep the muzzle down as much as possible and to help impart control over the firearm.

The only hangup I experienced was when inserting a magazine into the magwell under stress. If things are not lined up just right, the magazine caught and I had to end up looking down at the firearm during reloads to ensure that the mag went into the magwell without issue.

Next, you pull the front of the trigger guard down and you can use your index finger to push the now visible locking block to the side.

While still holding the slide to the rear you then lift up from the rearmost portion of the slide. It will rotate up and off the back of the frame of the gun. Next while still keeping pressure on the recoil spring, slowly let the slide go forward and the fixed barrel will pass through the opening of the slide. To reassemble, make sure the trigger guard is still sitting on the underside of the frame, removed from its operational position. Next while still in control of the slide, let it slowly go forward.

Once you have completed all these steps replace the block into the frame of the gun and you are finished. You can easily find a handgun that is the same size and weight that holds up to twice the amount of ammunition.

Almost any offering from Glock , Smith and Wesson, Sig , or any other major manufacturer would be a wiser choice. When compared side by side with my current carry gun the Sig P, the discrepancies are glaring.

The Walther lacks night sights, side stop, modern ergonomics, and capacity that make the P such a nice handgun. Having said all of that I can not deny the allure of the classic Walther design. Should it be carried by secret agents across the globe in ?

It is however a classic gun from a bygone era and should be appreciated for what it is and I plan to keep doing just that. Add Comment. Post Comment. Design Features Rated 3 out of 5. Rated 3 out of 5. Read More Buy Now. Cons Weight Sights Capacity vs Size. If you liked our review we would appreciate a share! Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube. Were the button down behind the trigger guard, I suspect my second finger would be pressing against, or on, it, and release the magazine.

That would not be cool. The takedown assembly. Now hinge the trigger guard down. The front of it will leave the frame. You then pull the slide all the way back, lift up the rear, and then ease it off the frame assembly.

The block on the front top of the trigger guard, the one that disappears into the frame when you ease it up, stops the rearward movement of the slide. With the trigger guard up, the slide stops, and then returns. One trick I learned a long time ago was to gently push the trigger guard to the side once it was down out of the way. That way it would rest on the frame opening, and make pulling the slide off a bit easier. Oh well. The Walther, in all of its iterations, has a tendency to bite the hand that feeds it.

Or rather, run parallel tracks on the web of your hand. To ease that problem, the tang got changed on the new guns, it is a bit bigger and longer, and it keeps your hand away from the edges of the slide. The slide is slick, with no forward serrations. On the right side, the ejection port side, there is an external extractor, while on the right Walther has put the safety lever.

Up is fire, and down is safe, and the act of pressing the lever down also de-cocks the pistol, should it be in a cocked state. Pressed down, it stays down. When the lever is down, pressing the rigger does not produce a loud noise. The hammer strikes the firing pin, in the centerline of the slide, and above the firing pin there is a small pin that protrudes from the back of the slide.

That is the loaded chamber indicator. The PP and PPK were such high-status items that they were notable for being presented engraved, in a display case with magazines and accessories. While rarities on the collectors market, they seem to gravitate towards museums.

I found one such in a military museum in Buenos Aires, of all places. Finely engraved, with ivory grips, and no story as to how it got there. After the war, they were made by the French the plant was in their sector and then again later by the Germans. In the early s, a writer by the name of Ian Fleming, who had been a British intelligence officer in WWII, and then post-war a newspaperman, began writing a series of novels. The protagonist, one James Bond, has gone on to become one of the, if not the most recognizable characters in all of fiction.

I tried reading Fleming, back when I was a voracious fiction reader. However, Sean Connery, in the first three of the six Bond movies he did, was electrifying. In part because he was a cold-blooded killer.

Unfortunately, the character was allowed no idea who caused it to happen to become the smirking, wise-cracking spy that so many seem to love. And the weaponry Bond started with, back in the , was dreadful; a Beretta , chambered in.

He was upgraded to a Walther PP in Dr. Then again, if you are accustomed to the reaction of people being shot with a. Walther offered an upgraded PP, the PP Super, chambered in the 9x18 Ultra not interchangeable with the 9x18 Makarov but when it became clear the 9x19 was going to be the winner, they stopped that. Why did customers marvel?

Simple: a flat, compact, easy to conceal pistol, chambered in. But back then, there was no such thing. Your choices were a. The PPK always got attention, and was always marveled at, but back in the day when the potential customer flipped over the price tag, that was that.

I had the pleasure of having one of each set to me for testing. And the usual lock, owners manual, you know the drill. First, I looked over the blued one. Walther has elected to go with a bead-blast matte finish on the blued pistol. This is in part due to the extra treatment they give it. The blued variant has been given a nitro-carbide finish, we all know the type by the name Melonite, which treatment confers a corrosion resistance as well as a really hard skin.

The stainless model has a brushed and matte finish. Both have the signature Walther wavy top deck on the slide, to give you a visual index as you bring it up for aiming. The blued model has black plastic grips, just like the earlier versions. The stainless has sculpted wooden grips, nicely figured, with a thumb groove and the Walther banner logo above with a checkered panel on the bottom half.

In an interesting departure, the serial number of each is stamped in an inset milled into the frame behind the trigger, but in front of the grip panel. The frame inset also has the serial number in a 2D dot code in that panel. Walther has given the tiny sights an interesting upgrade; spots of red paint at the base of the rear notch, and on the front blade.

The ejection port is oval, it was always plenty big, and never needed to be enlarged, lowered or scalloped. The extractor is robust for the cartridge it is to handle, and does an excellent job of dispatching the empties.

Perhaps too good a job, if you are a reloader. When I test-fired these, the empties ended up 15—20 feet away. On the back of the slide, you have the safety lever on the left side, and the loaded chamber indicator on the upper rear.

The safety locks and blocks the firing pin before it drops the hammer. The loaded chamber indicator is not the least bit subtle.