New Springs, New Walther Problems.

I have a couple of very nice old Walthers. A West German PPK/S .380 and a Pre-War (Zella-Mehlis) PP in .32. I went out and got new Wolff recoil springs and since, I've had some fairly regular failures to feed all the way with full mags. The rounds are on their way in but they've hung up. After the mag is down to 4 or 5, it runs fine.

Can I work under the assumption that the new springs are stiff and the slide is not going all the way back due to the combination of spring pressure AND pressure from beneath? Neither gave me much trouble before the spring change and of course I am thinking of changing back. Neither is an EDC at this point but I'd like to consider the PPK/S for same.

Mizar said:

Sounds like the slide is overrunning the magazine spring and causing a 3 point jam - once the magazine gets downloaded and starts to push the rounds up faster the problem disappears, right? Try a new magazine spring and see if the problem goes away.

Click to expand...

Well I've got brand spanking new Mecgar mags. 7 rounders for the .380 PPK/S and 8 rounders for the .32 PP. I found the old springs and I am going to just put them back in and see if that makes a difference. If so, I will sit tight there. I frankly do not recall this problem prior to the spring change so I am confident that is the source of the problem.

These remarks have been extremely helpful and I appreciate them. One of the biggest problems I have is that range officers get mighty nervous when you start taking guns apart and swapping out springs at the range for comparison testing. Muzzle discipline is difficult and whatnot. What I really need to be able to do is take different springs and mags and try the combinations right there, swapping back and forth to see what works best.