“With a delivery like a brick through a plate glass window.” That’s how Major Boothroyd described the .32 ACP as he sold James Bond on his new Walther pistol. That’s quite the description for a subcompact .32 ACP. It might be a little oversold these days when 9mm is the standard and calibers like 10mm and .357 Magnum exist in the defensive world.
To be completely fair, when compared to the .25 ACP, the .32 ACP was a real hot rod cartridge. Throughout Europe, the .32 ACP was a hugely popular cartridge. It was fielded by a multitude of military forces and remained a favored cartridge for years. PPK stands for Police Pistol Criminal, and it was designed for plain clothes criminal investigators.
I recently acquired a made-in-W. Germany PPK/S and wanted to opine why it’s my favorite Walther.
The Walther PPK/S: Better In .32 ACP
The .380 ACP variant of the Walther PPK and PPK/S has always been more popular in the United States. In the United States, we have this unhealthy obsession with the bigger bullet being better even when it’s not. The .380 Walther pistols are known for their recoil, slide bite, and generally uncomfortable experience. This is due to the straight blowback operating system.
All that said, let’s explore the technical aspects of the Walther, particularly its straight blowback system. The breech is not locked, and the only thing that keeps the slide closed until the pressure drops to safe levels is the slide and stiff recoil spring.
This system, while simple, is unforgiving and does nothing to mitigate recoil. Shooting the PPK in .380 ACP, for instance, throws more recoil at you than something like a 9mm SIG P365. The Walther PP series are products of their time.
The design did help keep the gun small back in 1929. The fixed barrel acted as the recoil guide rod, reducing heft and size. Blowback systems are reliable, and their simple nature makes them easy to produce. However, Walther PPK/S has never been an affordable firearm.
With this in mind, the best cartridge for defensive use with a Walther PPK or PPK/S has always been the .32 ACP. The .32 ACP has about half the recoil of the .380 ACP. However, it can still penetrate deep enough to reach vitals, especially from the 3.3-inch PPK/S barrel. It won’t offer much expansion, and I’d probably stick to FMJs to maximize penetration.
In .32 ACP, we get one extra round in the magazine for a total of eight. It’s just one extra round, but I’ll take it as an advantage. There are little things like a half ounce of weight savings and an easier-to-rack design. The recoil spring isn’t as stiff because it simply doesn’t need to be.
“S” is for Sarcasm.
Okay, maybe it’s not. But it might as well be! The PPK/S was designed and built for the American market after we passed the 1968 Gun Control Act. Part of the GCA provided a silly points system for importing firearms. To be imported, a gun had to reach a certain number of points, and those points were supposed to rate the gun’s capability for sporting use.
First, the Second Amendment says nothing about sporting use. Second, in reality, this was a scheme by gun controllers to prevent cheap imports of firearms. They declared these guns Saturday Night Specials and hated the idea of lower-income people being armed. They found a roundabout way to ban the import of guns from overseas.
Walther pistols were never “cheap,” but the designs were still affected nonetheless. The Walther PPK was one point short due to its size. They still wanted to import the gun, so they produced the PPK/S. The PPK/S combines the PPK slide with the PP frame. It’s similar to the Glock 19X, the P365X, and all the other various X models. It turns out Walther should have called it the PPK/X, and they would have been revolutionary.
As a larger guy, the Walther PPK/S fits my hand better. It allows for a full grip on the gun, and my pinky doesn’t pin the magazine in place. I think the X variants of the gun are kind of silly, but the PPK/S works for me.
Let’s Ring Steel
I love the Walther PP, PPK, and PPK/S series, but I don’t shoot them often because they are rather unpleasant. A .32 ACP variant has eluded me for years, and a stroke of luck allowed me to find an old .32 ACP version for an amazing price. I started looking hard after Walther announced a return of the .32 ACP models, but the MSRP of a grand turned me off.
When the PPK/S popped up for $350, I walked away with a massive grin. I grabbed a few different boxes of .32 ACP and hit the range with a lot of excitement. My excitement was justified at the first shot. Gone was the unpleasant, hand-crushing experience I associate with the Walther PPK/S series. The recoil was mild and very comfortable.
The slide barely seems to move before it’s back on target and ready to engage once again. I delivered speedy double taps on a steel gong with nothing but enthusiasm. Against the clock, I could shoot three accurate rounds on target from the low-ready in about 1.5 seconds. The gun’s small sights aren’t the best for quick shooting, but they work well enough.
It seems silly, but I’d love a fiber-optic front sight on this gun. Something small but bright and easy to see. I stepped back to 25 yards and engaged a 10-inch gong. My smile grew as every shot hit the target. The little gun can shoot straight without complaint.
But the Trigger
The single action action trigger is the way to go. It’s ultra-light and very short. The uber-lightweight trigger is fantastic. It’s crisp, clean, and just great. That’s how I achieved 25-yard accuracy with such a small gun. The double action trigger… oh boy. It’s odd and doesn’t feel like other Walther pistols I’ve handled.
It’s just heavy. Super heavy. It’s a finger workout. That heavy wall is also a super short pull with hardly any take-up. Once you get past the wall, the gun fires, but getting past that wall is the challenge. Due to my revolver shooting, I’ve improved with double-action triggers, but this one blows my mind. It doesn’t roll. It just provides a 20-pound pull that’s short and just breaks quickly.
At seven to ten yards, first-shot accuracy is fine. Backing off to 15 yards, it gets tougher. At 25 yards? Yeah right. I’ll manually cock the hammer to a single action. That’s surprisingly easy to do. My thumb can reach up and grab that hammer with ease. The ridges on the hammer engage your thumb and make it easy to pull downward. If I need to decock the gun, the slide-mounted safety and decocker are easy to reach, and I can slap the hammer back to DA when the gun is placed on safe.
The Best Walther
The Walther PPK/S in .32 ACP is my favorite of the Walther PPK series. The grip is just right, the recoil is almost nothing, and I can carry up to nine rounds. By modern standards, nine rounds of .32 ACP isn’t much. The P365 is about the same size and offers ten rounds of 9mm. Still, polymer-frame, ultra-efficient modern handguns will never be as stylish as the PPK/S in .32 ACP.
The post The Walther PPK/S in .32 ACP: The Bond Choice appeared first on The Mag Life.
Read the full article here
