Walther PK380

It's probably a great pistol. Just looks a little like a toy to me.

I don't know much about them, but it has the name Walther behind it. IMO, the PK380 seems a bit large for a .380 pistol, but like DR 2 B said; probably a great pistol. LM

It is an Umarex product, just like the P22. It was not designed or built by Walther.

I'd strongly suggest checking out the PK380 section of the Walther forum to see what the reported experiences are with this pistol. I'd stay away from it.

I bought one for my wife. It fits her hands very well. Not being a blowback .380 makes it much easier to retract the slide. My wife has absolutely no trouble loading/unloading it. She tried many pistols at various gun shows and shops, and never was comfortable with one if she could not work the slide. The recoil is very, very light, which is another plus for her. I have not had any luck getting it to feed Remington JHPs, but it feeds ball, gold dots, and my minimum charge ball reloads flawlessly.
The downsides of the PK 380 to me are; no slide stop and the plastic key that is required for takedown. The pistol ships with one magazine ( additional ones are $40.00) and you have to insert an empty mag to lock the slide back. I find this very annoying. To break the pistol down, you have to insert a small forked plastic key and turn a small slot about 180 degrees. I have only taken it down a handful of times and the key and slot are showing definate wear.

It is an Umarex product, just like the P22. It was not designed or built by Walther.

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This is the most important thing to consider.

The PK380 is not representative of the extremely high quality that you get with a real Walther pistol (such as P99, PPS, & PPQ) manufactured at the Walther factory in Ulm, Germany.

The PK380 is made by Umarex at the Umarex factory in Cologne. Don't be fooled by the "Carl Walther, Ulm" rollmark on the slide. That is pure marketing BS (Umarex owns a stake in Walther and has taken to using the Walther name quite liberally for marketing reasons). The proofmark on the pistol (shield with 3 crowns) confirms it comes from Umarex. Umarex, of course, is better know for airsoft toys and cheap potmetal rimfires.

My wife has one & loves it. She's got small hands & it fits her perfectly. Locked breech, so much softer shooting than blow-back designs. Always goes bang & more than accurate enough for SD distances.

For small, lightweight & inexpensive, it gets the job done. We've got no complaints.

Not a true Walther, but the biggest complaint has been the muzzle end of the barrel gets cosmetically battered by the slide in some of the PK380's. It stops at a point and doesn't affect anything.

Biggest negative is the safety being slide mounted. Just not a fan of that.

I'm probably going to get one for my mom. She had an injury in her left wrist several years ago that never healed properly, and she can't rack most slides. (Yes, really, we have tried all techniques, she just can't do it.) I have handled a PK-380 and it is a very easy rack. For what she will be using it for, it's a lot better than nothing.

Some folks have had wonderful luck with this pistol; others, not so much. It's another crapshoot from Umarex, with the Walther banner attached to provide a signal of quality that, sadly, is lacking. At least the slide isn't made of pot metal, ala the P22.

Have one; it is the worst firearm I have purchased, and is getting traded in on a Bersa Thunder ASAP. First thing I noticed was the lack of a slide release, which is fine if the clip has ammo in it, but if the clip is empty I find that I have to push down on the mag follower to get the slide to close. Second issue was at the range firing the thing; lots of hammer drops and no boom. Primers weren't even touched. Safety on, safety off and nothing.Third issue was accuracy; had a difficult time hitting a target at 15 yards that my 4043 would have torn to pieces.

my wife and I bought one as her first pistol, suited her fine. Too small for my hands though. Accuracy was fine with it, disliked the lack of the manual slide lock. Hers had a problem with Hydrashocks though. Fired all fine, but had sporatic ejection. Most ejected fine, almost never ejected the last last shot in the mag though. Could have been the mag, but I never really messed around with it. She ended up trading it for a 12gauge because she thought it looked cooler

The one I had was a POS.

Nice shooting pistol that I really liked but had a fail to extract problem with spent cases. Started out as just an occasional problem that got progressively worse until it wouldn't make it through a whole mag without several fail to extracts.

What's worse is that it would totally jam up the pistol with the spent case stuck about half way out of the chamber. The only way to clear it was to drop the mag and then rack the spent case out.

Called S&W the US distributor, they sent me a shipping tag and within two weeks almost to the day they sent it back with a note saying everything was in spec and they had changed the extractor and a spring. No mention of which spring exactly.

Took it to the range and on the first mag it failed to extract a case. Next mag same thing twice. I was pissed!

Called them and vented on the poor sap who answered the call. They sent me another shipping tag. Same thing two weeks to the day, and same slip about being in spec and a new extractor and "spring".

Worked great the first couple of range trips, then started to occasionally do it all over again and once again got progressively worse until it wouldn't make it through a whole mag.

And no it wasn't a dirty chamber I cleaned the damn thing religiously, and even tried not cleaning it, no effect either way.


I traded the clunker off to a guy that thought he could make it work. He couldn't and the last I heard he sold it to a pawnshop.



No way I would ever recommend one and would advise anyone who will listen to avoid them like the plague.