My experiences with my new Walther P22

[357SIG]

I bought a 3.4" two-toned Walther P22 today. As soon as I got it home, I ran a wet patch down the barrel and wiped the other metal surfaces with another patch to remove the factory grease. I dried it and applied some Rem Oil. Right after that, I took it out to the range with 300 CCI Stingers and a 550 round box of Rem JHP cheapies.

From what I've heard, this pistol does not work well with cheap .22LR rounds, so I started with the Stingers first. I did not have a single misfire, jam or other problem caused by the gun. After 50 rounds, I switched over to the Rem bulk ammo and it fired those without a hitch as well. I must have fired over 200 rounds of the bulk stuff before I went home.

I was very surprised because of all the mixed reviews I saw here and on other gun forums. I must have been lucky to get one that worked well right out-of-the-box. Of course, 250+ rounds is not really enough to say whether or not this is a lemon, but it is a great start. Accuracy was on par with all of my other guns, but I doubt it could match a Ruger MkII or other higher quality .22. I still don't feel like I'm out of the woods yet, but I hope I don't experience any problems down the road.

My comments on this pistol:
*It was a blast to shoot (no pun intended). I've never had so much fun with a .22LR as I did with this one.
*It has the same manual of arms as most modern combat pistols, which makes it easier to teach new shooters.
*It balances perfectly in my hand, just like its bigger brother, the P99.
*Field stripping this gun is much easier than other .22s I've used.
*I had a tendency to activate the magazine release when I fired the gun. A slight change in my grip fixed that problem.

 

[azrael]

I got one and love it...It doesnt seem to like Blazer ammo at all....Other than that it runs fine...we used some walmart value pack the first day and shot like 400 rounds between us...I probably am going to get another.

 

[Night Guy]

I'm satisfied with my P22. It wasn't perfect out of the box. The slide would get hitched up on the hammer on occaison. I took the Dremel to it and relblued the hammer and all's well. I've been shooting mostly MiniMags but I'm gonna try Velocitors and Stingers next. I haven't tried any bulk ammo, but I did try some CCI Standard velocity stuff and it was not very reliable. I have had a few light strikes which required me to pull the trigger again. I payed $240 for it, so even with the minor bobbles I've had, I am pleased with this little plinker. To me, it's just a fun little training tool and the only .22 pistol on the market with full size design and features. I wish more .22 pistols were like it.

 

[Kodiak AK]

Friend has one he is selling for $200 . He says it jams to much . The day he let me shoot it it jamed once in 200 rounds . It doesn't feel right in my hand , and I despise the mag release placment .

 

[mini14jac]

I loved mine initially.
It shot both brands of bulk, and it loved CCI.
I was like a pig in mud.

Right at the 1000rd mark, bad stuff started happening.
A round would fire and eject, slide would close, next round didn't get picked up.

After 8 or 9 rounds, the safety would activate.

Suddenly, it would only shoot CCI, and that with the problems above.

S&W got it back in two weeks.
Safety was fixed.
As long as I shot CCI, the other problems were cleared up.
From then on, it was ammo-picky.

I read on here that the guns are made at a factory that normally makes blank/teargas guns.
Don't know if that's true or not, but I would shoot the dickens out of it, as it only has a 1 year warranty.

 

[357SIG]

New update:

I took the P22 to the range again today and beat the crap out of it. I fired 850-900 rounds through it with great results. This makes a total of 1100+ rounds through the thing in 2 days time without cleaning.

I fired all 850 or so rounds in 1 hour, most of them rapid fire. By the half hour mark, the slide was too hot to hold for anything longer than a quick snap to release it back into battery. First, I dumped the rest of the Federal 36 gr. bulk pack through the gun. After that was gone, I fired another 100 CCI Stingers through it. Finally, I opened up another 550 bulk pack and fired every round to end the session.

There were about 10 misfires, all due to ammo. Each round had a nice clear and deep dent from the firing pin, but did not go off (common with rimfire ammo). All misfired ammo was loaded up again and all of it fired the second time.

Every round went through the pistol without a hitch, until the end of my range session (after about 750 rounds). The pistol was heavily fouled and some of the rounds did not feed into the chamber smoothly. Others fed, but did not catch the extractor. The last 50 rounds went through flawlessly, though.

I got the pistol home and checked it out. It was a filthy mess! The barrel nut seemed to loosen itself during fire, but never came totally off. I believe this is due to the fact that I had not torqued it all the way when I reassembled the gun after the initial cleaning. The threads were heavily fouled with lead, which came out when I tightened the nut back on. The rest of the gun was easy to clean.

I've passed the 1000 round mark with no problems so far. Hopefully, it will keep going.

 

[Doug Add]

I bought one back in April, mainly to teach my 10 year old son pistol technique with a gun he can grip properly. We have shot a few thousand rounds through it, some Mini-Mag, mostly Remington bulk Golden Bullets. Very few difficulties.

This afternoon we went to the range, and along with my BHP and his Ruger 10/22, we shot the P22. A couple hundred rounds through the Walther without a hitch. We had a good time blasting Coke cans all over the place. It really is a fun gun to shoot!

 

[azrael]

The P-22 is one of my "always" guns that I take to the range...now if I can just get me a suppressor for it

It is just to much fun...Thankfully .22lr. is cheap

 

[Doug Add]

now if I can just get me a suppressor for it

You sound like my son. On the way home from the range yesterday I asked, "You know what we should keep in the range bag?"

He answered, "I'm thinking a silencer for the P22!"

 

[jamz]

The jury is still sort of out on mine- I haven't really tried too amny brands of ammo in it. It stovepipes occaisionally, and maybe once every 50 rounds just won't strip a new round out of the magazine because the slide gets hung up on the hammer.

Other than that, I love the features I think the safety is a little useless, though, and the magazine disconnect is a PITA when it comes to having to re-insert a magazine just to lower the hammer), but despite all this, is IS still fun. I've had it for a couple of weeks, and have maybe 7-800 rounds through it so far.

I may try to dremel down the hammer a bit- or is it something I should leave up tp S&W? (I drive right by their factory every week or so).


-James

 

[357SIG]

Did another 250+ rounds today. I used 100 CCI Stingers and roughly 200 Remington JHPs. The gun worked perfectly. No jams, only 2 misfires (due to ammo).

 

[mini14jac]

357SIG you seem to be one of the few people who actually know how to wring out a gun.
So many will say their gun works fine, but when you ask a few questions, you find they've only shot 1/2 box of ammo.

It sounds like you've got a good one.
Maybe they've finally got the problems out of this gun.
I found it hard to believe that S&W would keep selling a gun that had so many problems.

Congrats!

 

[Kodiak AK]

Why do people keep saying Smith and Wesson?

 

[azrael]

smith does the assembly or manufacture...and is also where you send one that is not doing correctly

 

[axeman_g]

question ...

Why do so many people feel that a .22lr should be reliable 100% out of the box. I thought it was understood that of all guns, hand or long, .22lr need to be broken in correctly with high velocity rounds, then find which rounds shoot best in your model.

I have had numerous .22s, a High Standard, a buckmark, a Henry, revolvers. All need wringing out to see which manufacturers and loads shoot the best. And semis all ways needed testing after break in.

I am on my second p22, sold the first in a fit of insanity, and have had a total of 4 failures of any sort in over 1200 rds in first and 250 rounds in new one. Only two of the failures could I say were handgun related, a FTF and a FTE.

P22s are nice little shooters, not the most accurate but definetly shootable. They definetly need to be broken in, just like any other .22 semi.

And my understanding is the all P22s are assembled in Germany by Walther. Mine has German proof marks on all pieces. S&W does not do that.

 

[mini14jac]

Mine was reliable out of the box, with every brand of ammo I tried.
It only developed problems after 1000 rounds.
Kind of reverse break in.

I got my gun in July of 2003. I think they put out a run with bad springs.

The guns are made by Walther, but marketed in the states by S&W.
I think you'll find Smith and Wesson in the owner's manual.
Not sure if any assembly is done here or not.

 

[Aaron]

I sympathize with all the above comments, as I have experienced most of them myself. However, the basic problem is that a rimmed cartridge can never operate as reliably as a rimless. A good quality .25 or .32 auto is virtually free of malfunctions with factory ammo. .22 pistols will always display spotty performance.

 

[BeLikeTrey]

P22

Loved mine to death for the first 2000 rds. Still love the design! just don't like the metallurgy in the slide. after 2000 rds take the slide off and look for burrs forming. especially with the slide lock. Also,do you use the slide lock lever or do you pull the slie back to release? I learned really fast to pull the slide to release instead of the lever. the slide metal wears EASILY. I took a burr off of the slide with a key on my keychain. By the way, the gun DOES have a break down period not a break IN period. But yes, replace the slide with a better metal and you have a sound gun.

 

[JeepDriver]

I had the jaming/feeding problems for a while. I finally narrowed it down to the slide getting caught up on the hammer.

I filed it (the hammer) down a bit to where it will slide over the hammer with out any type of resitance. Since then it has ate everything I've gave it. Mostly Remington 525 bulk pack. It has always like the CCI Velocitors (much better then Stingers)