Walther P22 Gun Review

The Walther P22. Lets Check It Out. (Available Here)

 

The celebration of the Walther P22. This is the world’s best-selling .22 rimfire pistol. The Walther P22 is just hard to put down.

The Walther P22 is celebrating its 10th year. Based really closely to Walther’s P99, this is the little brother in .22, and it’s pretty much about 75% of the P99 in actual size. Now, this gun has been safety checked.

This is a semi-automatic .22 long-rifle rimfire pistol that’s double-action, single-action. It has blowback design. It’s a polymer frame with a zinc alloy slide.

The barrel is just under three and a half inches at 3.42 inches, and it does come in a target model that is a five-inch model. It weighs just over a pound at 1.1 pounds. Now, to celebrate the 10th anniversary, Walther introduced their Q model this year, and it’s just a little bit different.

The slide is a little more squared off. The grip is a little bit different. There are a couple of design features, but pretty much, once you put one of these in your hand, it just melts into your hand.

That’s one of the things about the Walther pistols is they are extremely ergonomic, and if you don’t like a certain type grip, there are inserts that can be replaced for this grip to change the size. The grip on this pistol just says ergonomic, and then with extra back straps to be able to fit to your hand and your personal shooting preference, no wonder the Walther P22 has been so popular. Front and rear slide serrations.

The trigger guard is squared off, has serrations on the front, even has a small notch here for your finger for gloved hands. Has ambidextrous controls, the safety, both sides, ambidextrous slide release, which is pretty unorthodox for most of your pistols. The H&K has a similar design.

Hit the lever, bring the magazine out. What I really like about these paddle levers is that I can get it either with my right thumb or my index finger. Even though it’s ambidextrous, it gives you some advantages, whether you’re right or left handed.

Now, the magazine is a steel magazine. It holds 10 in one, has a polymer base plate. One of the things about the magazine system is they’ve had three different issued magazines with the Walther P22.

There are serial numbers right here on the magazine itself, and you can check your magazine to see, but if at the end of the magazine, it has an A, that was the first replacement. If it has a B, that’s the second replacement. If it doesn’t have any numbers, there was a recall on these magazines because the first ones really didn’t function that well with the P22.

It got kind of a bad reputation right up front because of reliability, and that had everything to do with the magazines. It only comes with one magazine, which I really like for pistols to have a couple of magazines, but these magazines run about $30 to $35 according to where you can find them. Here you have a button that you just pull down.

It’s not too strenuous on the finger. Here you have all 10 rounds showing right through the magazine. Even though Walther recommends high velocity ammunition, I typically shoot bulk ammunition through this, Federal Box, or different type bulk ammunition, and it functions fantastically.

I have very few issues with this little pistol. Now I find that even these bulk packs work great with these pistols. One thing that I did notice, though, a buddy of mine had a nickel slide, and it seemed to be even slicker and would have no problems.

Honestly, I’ve not had any problems with this Blued model. It does have a magazine disconnect, and without the magazine in it, you’re going to get no action whatsoever. The hammer will also come back, but it won’t actuate the hammer.

So we’re going to go ahead and continue with the magazine in place. Here is your safety, up for fire, down is your safe, and what the down does, and you can watch, there’s a hammer block right here. So up, no block, down, hammer block.

And this is going to keep the hammer, even though you can pull the trigger, it will be somewhat off of the firing pin. And one thing that a lot of people were realizing is that they had the safety on and were wondering why the pistol didn’t fire. With it on safety, you can still cock and the hammer will come back.

You need to make sure that the safety is in the upward position. There’s also an internal lock that you can use a key to lock this pistol down for security reasons. I personally don’t like these, I think that’s a really big liability, but if you really want to lock this pistol down, take it, lock it, and store it, and it’ll be rendered inoperable.

The round indicator is right here behind the barrel. Here we see that it’s unloaded, and now if you look down in, you can tell that there is a cartridge in the chamber. So there are a number of safety features on this gun, especially for a .22, that make this really a safe option.

It has a Picatinny accessory rail, and in fact, Walther actually makes a laser that fits directly on this pistol for this pistol. And I did a previous review using the laser on a P22 that had one of the nickel slides, which is really nice. And the slide does come in those two colors, it comes in this blue, or it comes in a nickel.

Now this model is called their military version, and to be honest with you, the only reason is because of the OD frame, otherwise it’s like every other P22. The target model itself has a compensator with a weight on the end, and the barrel is five inches long. And the target model is great if you really want to get into some accuracy.

There are 22 different combinations that you can get. The sights themselves are a polymer three dot, and they actually are pretty high profile for a small pistol, but they’re pretty snag proof. A lot of people actually use this as a concealed carry or a car gun.

And even though I’m not a big fan of .22 for self defense, it can be effective if your shots are placed right. And the other thing is, the recoil is super mild. This is a pleasurable gun to shoot at the range.

It does have a last round bolt hole open, which I really like. But I have found that sometimes if I’m using some lesser expensive .22 ammunition, that the bolt won’t always hold open. But predominantly it does.

Now this is a double single action semi-automatic pistol. And that means that when I pull the trigger, it actuates the hammer. And double action is about 11 pounds.

It’s very smooth though, all the way out. After the first round is fired, the slide will go to the rear position, and then your hammer will be in the rear position. And this is single action.

And the single action is pretty crisp. There’s a little bit of take up, but not much. Gets you to your point, and then the hammer drops.

That’s about a four pound trigger. Now the Walther .22 is about three fourths of the size of a Walther P99, which it was designed after. But two immediate things that you’re going to notice that the P22 has is an external safety and the external hammer.

Now one of the ways to be able to find the date of your pistol is you have your proof marks and then you’ll have a couple of letters. And on this I have an A and a D. And these correspond with A equals zero, B equals one, C two, and so on. With this model, it’s an A for zero and a D for three.

So this P22 was actually made in 2003, the first year that the P22s were made. Now when I first purchased this pistol, there was Walther logo and P22 on the slide itself. But after placing it in a holster a number of times, it just disappeared altogether.

I’m not really sure what they were using to put that logo on, but here you can see that there is no indication of any markings other than the one stamped into the slide itself. And one interesting thing to note is that Smith & Wesson is a partner with Walther and Smith & Wesson is marked on the slide. But the Walther P22 is made in Germany.

The Walther P22 is a great little pistol and as I’ve said, it is the most popular selling .22 rimfire pistol in the world. That speaks for itself. Be strong, be of good courage, God bless America, long live the Republic.