Due to the prices of ammo I have set my sights a little lower than i had hoped. I am looking at getting a .22 pistol since ammo is so cheap and I have been thinking about getting a Walther P22.
Does any one know much about them as far as quality and reliability?
I am open to all comments and opinions.
Thanks.
history:
I got on, NIB, about a year and six months to two years ago.
Iv fired about 3,000 rounds through it over that time. Its probably more than that, but iv lost count.
Ammo:
It shoots both bulk box and CCI mini-mags equally well. Out of those thousands of rounds, iv had 5 or 6 failures to fire from bad primers.
I shot a 550 round box of Remington Golder bullets through it in one sitting. After about 2/3's of the box it had a few failure to feeds. Oddly, the failure to feed was always the second round of the magazine, and the remaining rounds would feed fine. It did this for 4 magazines. After that, i used my finger to wipe off the feed ramp and bolt face, and it fired the remainder fo the box with no problems. Remington is DIRTY ammo, and this is the only brand iv had that problem with. When i striped the gun down for cleaning, you would have though that i dunked the gun in a bucket of gold glitter. Fragments of the brass platting were crammed in every possible location.
When i shoot the Federal lead hollow points (the 325 round bulk pack) the P-22 will occasionally fail to strip the next round from the magazine. This has only ever happened with this brand of ammo.
Winchester lead ball and copper plated run without hiccups. Federal copper plated rounds run without hiccups. CCI mini mags run without hicckups.
I use my P-22 in a local PPC league, shooting mini-mags. It has never failed during while shooting in league, and it has been accurate enough to hit the targets with satisfactory results.
Accuracy:
lots of people say that the P-22 is inaccurate. The gun is capable of decent accuracy, but the problem is that it has a mushy trigger. Trigger pull is an important part of accuracy, and the P-22s mushy trigger is very hard to pull without throwing off your aim.
When shooting in double action mode the trigger pull isn't heavy but it is very long. incidentally, the forward travel needed to reset the trigger is small. The first few times i tried to shoot DA I didn't think the trigger was reset, so i let the pressure off of it and re-pulled. It was fine, but it takes a bit of getting used to.
Conclusion:
I personally don't think that a .22 should be as big and heavy as a full sized service pistol. This is why i wont buy a Ruger MKII or a Buckmark.
I purchased my P-22 at a gun show for $230 NIB. 3,000+ rounds later I've never had a failure that wasn't due to crappy ammo, and its still going strong. People can look down their nose at me with their $450, 12" long, 4lb .22 pistols and gloat about their "superior craftsmanship" all they want, but at the end of the day I'm the one with the reliable, lightweight, pocketable gun for 1/2 the price.