Walther P22

Well, it's a gun...smallish, .22 caliber, semi-automatic..

What exactly do you want to know?

Accuracy is decent, I wouldn't call it a tack driver, but it's not really supposed to be one in the first place.

I can field strip mine, clean it and reassemble in less than 15 minutes if I'm in a hurry, it's not a terribly complicated pistol.

It does have it's idiosyncracies - they're known for sending their empty brass in all directions, but this can be tuned with a little work. Some will talk a lot of crap about the P22 in general, but I've not found the claims of it being a junk gun to be true at all. Like I said, it's not a super-high-quality raygun-accurate pistol, but for medium range target shooting and plinking, it's awesome.

If you PM me, I'll be glad to send you a .pdf of tips and tricks for the P22 a member on another board made up..has lots of info on general maintenance, as well as ways to troubleshoot and fix any minor problems that might pop up. I paid $305 for mine, with two mags and extra grip inserts, and I love the thing.

P22

My experiences are similar to Kingpin's. Not super accurate - but fun. I also have not had some of the problem others have. Mine seems to feed whatever I stick in the magazine.

I've put a couple thousand rounds through mine and love it. Zero problems as long as I use CCI ammo. Cheap ammo is a crap shoot and tends to not cycle the slide every time. Its light weight, has great ergonomics, is very easy to clean and is accurate enough for anything but serious bullseye target shooting. Being a bit finicky about ammo is the only fault with it that I can list.

Also, it's a very popular gun for those who are into suppressors. If you're into that sort of thing, they're easily modified to accept many different models.

Some examples of silenced-P22 goodness:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xGlZhpZsbh4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7Yk2gxyVyFQ
(the rounds hitting the backstop are louder than the gun firing & cycling in this clip)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2PTD_HEJBJ4

Got one. Love to shoot it. No problems with it. Any more questions?

It feels kind of dinky, like a toy because of the plastic and cheap metal they use. It's fun too shoot though. I've never had any problems with it except rarely it will fail to strip the next round off the magazine. I don't really bother cleaning mine. It's got about 800 rounds through it since I last cleaned it and it runs fine when ever I take it out. I don't like the sights much because the rear ones seem too far apart. I would like to get one of those green lasers for it but they cost as much as the gun!

A big +1 to kingpin008, he's right on. I enjoy it mainly for the fun aspect that it seems to have. Also I've found all the ladies I introduce to target shooting invariably love the P22. Most of the guys want to shoot something bigger, but still like it.

Mine has about 3000-3500 through it easily, and no problems. I field strip and clean it every 500 or so, and aside from a few dud bulk rounds, and the occasional (1 in 200 that isn't a dud) FTF it's pretty awesome. Like repo said, it's got combat sights, which certainly doesn't help it's accuracy. I have a friend that has a silenced one, and with the CB rounds or subsonic rounds, the noise from the backstop is much louder than the gun itself. Weird to hear a very quiet click and then CLANG!

I've found that mine feeds better when it's dirty. Maybe I need to polish it up or something. I love it though. Great for taking up range time when on a budget.

Walther P22 Bible

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=33N4ODB8

Due to my email being screwy and not acting right, I've uploaded the .pdf some of you have been asking me for to a file transfer site. All you have to do is click the link and save it to your computer. There are no viruses, malware, or other bad juju on this site, I use it extensively.

Enjoy the info, all credit goes to 1917-1911M from Rimfire Central dot Com for all his hard work on putting it together.

I am selling mine after purchasing a Ruger MKIII. I didn't care for the sights and it never failed to eject a casing up and into the gap between my glasses and eyebrow, resulting in a unique pattern of red marks on my cheek after each range trip. That being said, i never went to the range without shooting at least half a brick thru it. It just was not accurate enough, nor felt like a durable gun. Good luck with you decision.

it's pretty awesome.

Click to expand...

First time I've heard it described as "pretty awesome"...

I must admit, my P22 didn't impress me at first with its constant misfeeds and jam-ups. Most .22 ammo is *dirty* stuff and this little Walther is a real priss. She likes being clean.

The fit and finish is ok, nothing to rave about. It's quite tiny and has an exposed hammer with a hammer block safety. The safety took some getting used to as the "F" and "S" designations are backward. The main thing is getting ammo that it consistently digests. CCI minimags and Velociter function great as do most other hot loads. Mine detests Federal of all varieties though I've heard folks who say it's the only thing theirs likes. For low price and consistency I've fed mine Remington Golden Bullet brick-packs.

Agree with Chem, these guns are awesome! I have a fetish for shooting my P22 at silhouette targets from about 50 yards, my hit ratio is not half bad either. I have no idea why folks call these guns unreliable, give her some oil and mine runs like a champ.

Not trying to start a fight, but I never understood folks who complain about the P22 being too small, or the sights being ugly or too big, or the safety being odd, or the fit/finish being shoddy. Why did you buy it then? I'll admit, I bought mine sort of on a whim, and was initially a bit put off by the gun, but I also realize that any problem I had with the gun itself as far as design/features goes is my fault. I chose to buy it, knowing what it felt like, what it looked like, and what size it was. it seems to me like some of the complaints being put forth about the P22 are things that could have been avoided at time of purchase, if they were so glaringly off-putting. Yes, there are imperfections with the design, but welcome to owning guns. There will be something wrong with ANY gun you ever buy, and most times there are fairly simple ways to get it working better. I'd bet money that for those out there who are really, honestly having issues with their P22, the .pdf I linked to in an earlier comment will take care of the malfunction.

Once again, not trying to pick a fight..just something that doesn't make sense to me.

I went to the local (well, less than 50 miles away) outdoor range, and spent a while over at the plinking area. No plastic bottles were safe! Lessons learned today? P22 is at home plinking, if you haven't gone plinking with it try that, and see if it doesn't change your mind. And shooting plastic bottles is horribly addictive. I thought the bottles jumping when hit with 22LR was fun, then I shot them with 9mm a few times, holy cow, they fly!

varoadking said:

First time I've heard it described as "pretty awesome"...

Click to expand...

I call it awesome, because it was cheap, functions well, is always a hit with new shooters (especially ladies), and like someone else said, even if I'm going to focus on 9mm stuff or whatever, I always end up putting several hundred through the P22. Heck my fiance and I put 400 or so through it today, after 300 the other day with out cleaning it. Failed once that wasn't a dude round, and all I had to do was nudge the slide a little and it went into battery.

I grease the rails on mine lightly and then put a few drops of oil over top, and a few on the barrel and guide rod. Works great.

I wondered at first if I had gotten lucky as right around when I bought mine there were tons of thread with people bashing them left and right saying what junk they were. But it looks like more people have had success than I initially thought. Accuracy isn't the greatest, which I think is hindered mostly by the sights, but still I can hit plastic bottles (16.7oz variety) at 10 yards 10/10 if I take my time. Good enough for me.

My next 22 pistol will be bought so I can suppress it.
I think I may get the P22 it looks like it was made to add a supperessor. It is easy to get a 0.5''x28 thread barrel for.
One of my friends hates P22 because a guy at work had one blow up when he shot it one day. The slide broke.
I asked and he said the guy never cleaned it and kept it in the back if his pick up truck tool box. "just thrown in with the tools" it would get wet when ever he drove in the rain.
All I could ask is what did he expect?

The P22 is an awful lot of fun.

I've had mine for a few years.

A little on the smallish side, but it fits well in small and medium hands.

It has good ergonomics, and placement of mag release, slide release, safety, hammer, and operation of the slide are similar to that of larger pistols. I mention this because most .22 pistols are distinctly .22-sh in operation. This is not to say that .22 pistols are bad, but the P22 has the basic feel of a centerfire combat pistol, albeit in miniature.

This is a good gun when you are teaching someone to shoot, with the eventual goal of moving them up into a centerfire pistol.

owned done for a few years, and have put over 20,000 rounds through mine, until the slide cracked and would not eject rounds, mine is out of warranty obviously, but I would like to get it fixed, as it is a fun pistol to shoot. I want to replace it w/ a nice ruger single six, or a mkIII

It's a fun, inexpensive first .22 pistol. It's too small for my hands by quite a bit - both in the size of the magwell as well as the length of pull. Brass kicks out every which way, but that should be mostly correctable with a couple slow strokes with a small file on the lower right side of the extractor. Easy to take apart and reassemble (though the first time of each was a bit of a trick, due to it being foreign and me not reading the manual).

Great .22 pistol for someone with small hands, though - like a woman or a child. (And I'm serious about your average male hands probably being too big to comfortably shoot it - thoguh you can get used to it and compromise, as I have).

What can I say? It's a good, cheap pistol that'll last probably 10 thousand rounds (if my use patterns are showing a trend). I've put maybe 5k rounds through mine, and aside from the usual .22lr automatic feeding problems (I've never seen a .22 auto that doesn't have such problems, but maybe I'm unfortunate in that), it's good to go.

I have XXL hands (when I buy work gloves) and I can still hold the gun well.

Went to the range with mine yesterday and had NO fail to feed issues. Two stove-pipes, not sure why. I find it odd since this was the second range session since I've cleaned the thing. Well over 200 rounds through it since cleaning and it seems to work better this way. I'm going to try cleaning the bore and rails and give the slide bottom a wipe-down and see if that causes it to feed badly again. If not, then it's likely the mags liking the crud and I'll leave it there and clean the rest of the gun.

I sold mine. I was dissapointed with the accuracy, and not thrilled that it is actually made by Smith & Wesson. I wanted Walther quality. I was reliable, though, and looks cool. I just need better accuracy, even for plinking.