Viridian C5L laser sight on a Walther P22

[Dabitur]

I wanted to put a Viridian C5L laser sight on my Walther P22. My local gun shop said they could do it without an adapter. To to this they would have to leave off the retaining bolt that keeps the C5L from sliding forward. I didn't like that idea. They would either have to over-tighten the clamps or leave them loose enough that the laser unit could move.



The C5L is made to mount to pistols with a rounded (convex) trigger guard. The P22 trigger guard is concave. This design creates two contact points on the trigger guard (circled in red) that won't allow the C5L to slide back far enough on the rail for the retaining bolt to slide through the rail's retaining recess (also circled in red).

I work at a machine shop so I asked a machinist if there was anything we could do. We decided to use a hand grinder to remove the 1/16th inch or so of material that was in the way.



As you can see, the grind is noticeable but I don't intend to remove the C5L. With this adjustment the C5L fits securely onto the rail.







This has allowed me to put the finishing touches to my P22 with the addition of the Silencerco Sparrow.

[blkdawg]

thank you so much for posting.. I was just gonna ask if anyone has try one yet.

Do you mind taking a pic of how it looks without laser. A side pic like the first pic you posted will be nice... to see how much i need to shave off also how it looks w/o it since it won't be on my p22 all the time if i decided to get the c5l.

THANKS!

[Dabitur]

I think I have a side picture that I can post. I will look through my files. I am planning to shoot a bit with friends this weekend (everyone loves the silencer/laser combination). If I take the laser off, I will need to re-sight the pistol.

Anyway, you don't need to take off very much. Even with a picture, the best way to measure how much is to put the C5L on the rail and slide it back as far as it will go without forcing it. Then look through the C5L's rail mounting bolt hole and see how far back you need to go to get the hole to align with the notch that is cut in the bottom of the P22's rail.

To bring them into alignment, start by filing off the bottom part of the trigger guard. More of it needs to come off than the top part. The top part doesn't need to have much removed. You can get a sense of how much from the second photo (03b) on the posting. I used a half round bastard file with a medium to fine rasp.

It's a trial and error process. Take a little off (refer to pictures 03b and 06a on the posting for a sense of how much), then slide the C5L on the rails until it's snug and see if the C5L's mounting hole aligns with the P22's rail notch enough for you to put the mounting bolt through. If not, file a little more off. If you notice that the C5L is not sliding all the way back to the bottom of the trigger guard, then you need to take a bit off of the top of the guard.

It was easy to do. Remember if you force the C5L back against the trigger guard you can make it fit, but the concave shape of the trigger guard will cause the C5L to point up. You don't want that. Once you have all of the tools, the process shouldn't take more than 10 minutes.