By Jim Dickson | Contributing Writer
I recently took a trip down memory lane, courtesy of the modern version of a classic pistol made famous in a series of spy novels and movies, and remains a classic.
When I took delivery of a sample Walther PPK/S at Reeves Ace hardware in Clayton, Georgia, it brought back a flood of memories of long dead friends who once carried the original PPK.
The Walther PPK was the 1931 compact concealed carry version of the .32 ACP Walther PP which had been intended to be the primary sidearm for police. In those prewar days Europeans thought the .32 ACP was an adequate cartridge for military and police work and many guns were chambered for it. While very popular for civilian carry it was also well liked by those military officers who sought the lightest and most compact carry pistol; men who planned on using the pistol as a close range last resort weapon. Those who carried on the WWI Storm Trooper tradition of using the pistol as one of their primary weapons generally opted for the Luger although some carried the Mauser Military Pistol, two guns exceptionally accurate and fairly accurate at long range.
Walther had pioneered the double action first shot trigger in their automatics with their PP model in 1929 but originally this trigger was invented in response to the fact that it was not until the 1920’s that modern reliability standards for small arms ammunition was adopted. Before then, hangfires and misfires were an all too common part of the shooting scene. When your pistol just goes click instead of boom and there are lots of enemy soldiers with bayonets on their rifles charging at you, and waiting a minute or so to let a hangfire go off is not an option. If it goes off while you are clearing the chamber with your left hand then you are going to be hurt and maybe your gun is also. By being able to keep safely snapping that dud cap you can quickly either get it to fire or know that it is safe to clear the chamber.
When the new Walther PP appeared in 1929, improved quality ammunition was a new thing and there were tons of older poor quality rounds on hand. This made the new trigger a great selling point. If you tried to use it firing double action, and then succeeding shots were fired single action, the huge difference in trigger pulls made normal accuracy virtually impossible for the first two shots, so the pistol was best manually cocked before firing. Drop the little finger under the magazine extension and you have all the leverage you need for fast cocking.
The Walther PPK gained instant worldwide recognition when author Ian Fleming armed James Bond with one in his series of novels later turned into movies. This came about when Ian consulted my old friend, the late British firearms authority Geoffrey Boothroyd about what gun James Bond should carry. Geoffrey said a Walther PPK .32ACP. Ian incorporated Geoffrey into the James Bond novels as Major Boothroyd, armorer to James Bond. This was quite a promotion for Geoffrey who had been a private in the war and was court martialed for shooting down a German plane without orders. In the British army they wanted everyone to go through proper channels even before returning fire in wartime. Makes me glad I’m not British.
The gun that Walther loaned me for review is a stainless steel .380 ACP PPK/S made in their American factory in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The S denotes a slightly longer grip to enable it to be imported after the size restrictions of the Gun Control Act of 1968 back when all of Walther’s pistols were still made in Germany. Personally, I like the slightly longer grip as it fits my hand better.
The caliber is .380 although the gun is still available in .32 ACP. The difference in these two calibers is worthy of note. The .32 ACP has about as much recoil as a .22LR yet packs a great deal more punch. Casual shooters find it about as easy to master as a .22LR and the .32 ACP FMJ has excellent penetration. Europe was not composed of fanatical Moro Jihadists and a .32 was generally enough to kill or quickly make an attacker change his mind, what with all those little holes being poked through them.
The .380 ACP has more power and more recoil and the casual shooter may have difficulty transitioning to a gun that kicks. This is why the .32 ACP is the largest selling centerfire pistol caliber in the world with worldwide sales in excess of all the more powerful rounds.
German designers had been working on a souped up .380 called the 9MM Ultra during the war just as Americans are always wanting to get a little more velocity out of each cartridge.
ammunition.
The Soviets so admired the .380 ACP that in 1951 they adopted the 9MM Makarov round for their military which is just a .380 with the velocity upped about 10% and the case lengthened .7 inches. The Makarov pistol that fired it was heavily influenced by the Walther PP. An estimated 5 million guns have been made for this cartridge making it a significant military pistol caliber. The .380 ACP Walther PPK gives you essentially the same performance in a much more compact and concealable gun.
While Walther still makes the blue finish pistols the sample gun is stainless steel with all of its obvious advantages for concealed carry. Rust can occur all too quickly and easily with a blued gun and many an old pistol bears the pitting of being in a wet holster too long. Stainless steel was first invented as a gun barrel material and I for one would like to see it used for all the metal parts in every gun. I would not stop there though for stainless steel is merely rust resistant and not rust proof. I would like to see the bores hard chrome lined and the rest of the gun given the best modern rust proof surface inside and out for maximum protection and also to get rid of the shine of bright stainless steel. Guns were traditionally blued for preventing a shiny gun standing out as well as some rust protection.
All steel guns can be passed down safely through the generations unlike plastic framed guns whose polymer parts will start to deteriorate in 50-75 years under ideal conditions and much faster if exposed to sunlight and the weather. Talk about planned obsolescence! Aluminum crystalizes with age and weakens. Steel just goes on and on seemingly oblivious to time as long as it is kept oiled and not worn away by too much use. I am still using guns used in the War for Southern Independence 164 years ago. This would not be possible with anything except steel.
This Walther PPK/S is 22.1 ounces empty, overall length 6.1 inches, height 3.8 inches, and width 1 inch. All in all about an ideal size for such a pistol as anything smaller would become much harder to hit with. The barrel length is 3.3 inches and the sight radius is 4.2 inches. There is a loaded chamber indicator directly above the hammer.
The single action trigger pull was 4 ¾ pounds as measured with a Lyman mechanical trigger pull gauge from Brownell’s Gunsmithing Supplies. The double action trigger pull was higher than the gauge could measure as it only goes up to 12 pounds so I rigged up a way to use my 1940’s grocery scales to measure it and got a 17.5 pound double action trigger pull reading.
The magazine release is positioned about the same as on a M1911A1 pistol and the safety is extremely easy to access and operate. It is of the hammer drop type whereby engaging the safety automatically drops the hammer down to the uncocked position. While this is a time proven and popular method used by many different gunmakers, but I have never felt at ease doing this. Some guns with this feature have fired when the safety was put on. After all, as the famous blacksmith E.W. Horn once said “Anything made by man will eventually break.” I prefer to let the hammer down gently with my thumb holding it and the little finger under the magazine extension for leverage and then apply the safety if I want it. With the safety on, the trigger cannot be pulled. With the hammer down I see no need for the safety except perhaps to give it a little extra protection if you are worried about small children playing with it.
Like most German guns, the PPK is very user friendly and easy to field strip and reassemble, quite unlike some designs I could name that cause people to have to take them to a gunsmith in order to get them back together again.
I had 500 rounds of Privi Partizan ammunition to fire consisting of 250 rounds of 94 grain FMJ @ 951 FPS and 250 rounds of 94 grain JHP @ 951 FPS. Privi Partizan is a Serbian ammunition factory that is well respected in Europe and it’s ammunition is now available in the U.S.
The little pistol was accurate and fun to shoot. For such a small pistol it was exceptionally easy to hit with and like all Walther pistols it pointed naturally. First manufactured in 1931 it is still one of the best pocket pistols made. The original 1931 production guns are still going strong and will continue to do so unlike the guns not made with all steel parts when they reach that age.
For someone wanting a small, light, compact gun that is easy to carry and conceal the PPK was and is an excellent choice.
