Walther Forums banner

Disappointing Debut

8K views 118 replies 23 participants last post by  delilah 
Walther has the pistol and advises 5--7 business days to examine/repair, as needed.
As stated, ejection and feeding were 100% when the rounds discharged. Some required four, or five DA or SA strikes to detonate. Primers examined on unfired rounds had very tiny pin impressions. This was consistent through two boxes of factory ammo. Unacceptable.
I understand that the PPK/S is an older design. So is the 1911 and Single Action Army. All proven and reliable.
I'll bet Walther fixes mine. I'll advise.
Light primer strikes definitely have nothing to do with bullet weight as @halfmoonclip said. There is either a problem with how far back the sear is being released in DA, or there is an issue with your firing pin/spring.

Our Ft. Smith PPK/S loves hot defensive rounds and functions best with them. They were actually the first things we ran through it when it was new, and it ran without fault. Only weak hardball ammo exhibited any cycling issues, which seemed to have had to do with the cycling being less than completely vigorous.
 
Thanks for the replies so far! I'm at work, so I can't read them in detail yet, but I certainly will this evening.

I did notice one thing: "Weak hammer springs will not get better as time goes on, they only get worse.". That is, do doubt, true. However, I wonder how much the spring plays into this particular equation. After all, there are lots of solid strikes - suggesting to me that the spring tension is there. Of course, there are also lots of light strikes. My tentative conclusion has been that debris from manufacturing/assembly or heavy shipping oil (not long-term use oil) has contaminated the firing mechanism at some unknown location, thus leading to the inconsistent results. But, this is pure theory, as I'm not "allowed" to clean or inspect it. Ugh.
You make some good conclusions about the possibility of debris being responsible for intermittently light strikes. My P938 had a piece of primer blow into the firing pin channel, and it caused intermittent light strikes over the course of the range session until the strikes failed to detonate any primers at all.

Only after cleaning out the debris did the problem get resolved.
I've heard that quality control for the barrels is a bit iffy for PPKs manufactured in recent years, and that once one has a "good" barrel, one should definitely keep it. I don't know if this is truth or entirely a product of the rumor mill, but mine is very accurate - solidly exceeding my expectations. So, given those two factors, I'm hesitant to roll the dice by sending it back. I'd rather a prolonged break-in period (if that even fixes the issue) than risk reducing the accuracy. I'll have to give it more thought (plus read the rest of the replies - thanks again).
The PPK is a very accurate pistol, and that seems to be a common sentiment among owners. Any tales of inconsistent barrel quality most likely are just from a rumor mill.
 
I received an e-mail response from Walther, today. They are sending me a replacement pistol. I telephoned the service department extension, hoping to learn what was wrong with my first-time-fired PPK/S. The tech would only tell me that the pistol was "unrepairable" and that a new one would be sent to my FFL dealer of choice. No details.
I guess, I'm satisfied that Walther has taken this prompt action. I'm also glad that I didn't invest more funds in other brands of ammo, thinking that the problem was due to ammo sensitivity.
The fellow would not tell me if Walther will pick up my dealer's $35 background check/transfer fee.
Such is life.
There must have been some major components out of spec for such a determination to be made. Who knows? Maybe something inside the frame was machined improperly so that it affected the swing of the hammer.
 
I had occasion to send a Ruger Redhawk back to Ruger,they also would not tell what the problem was, just fixed it and sent it back. Maybe this is common among manufacturers.
Mine had an extractor rod that broke inside the cylinder after about 980 rounds, and they just swapped out the whole cylinder and its internals.
 
Good; but the root cause sounds more and more like an incomplete lockup caused by friction, which would naturally get better as the parts wear in. For better or worse, the slide and frame are made in two different countries and joined here. The tolerances are tight. The slightest variation introduces more friction -- and I'm running mine with generous helpings of "Shooter's Choice" red grease (enough that after reassembly and a few racks, the thing looks like it's bleeding before I wipe off the excess).

If it's a tiny bit out of battery, that's distance the firing pin isn't going to cover; if it's wearing in, and so less friction, a proper lockup would then occur more often.
This^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
OP, try tapping the rear of the slide forward with every shot to make sure that this possible out-of-battery issue isn't the cause.
 
Just in, from a 50 round session. Fails-to-fire in the first, fifth and seventh magazine. Only three failures, all DA attempts. Still, it represents 6% of the cartridges loaded, 95 gr Remington FMJs. The failure rate continues to hover around 5%--10%. Any notion that I would run a clean box of ammo was quickly dismissed. The upper three pictured rounds discharged normally, double action. The lower three did not fire. They display typical light primer indentations. They did discharge on a second chambering, DA.
I've now run 250 factory cartridges through this replacement PPK/S. I would not bet my life on its reliability, nor can I continue the testing of this .380 cash register.
The pistol is clean. the action is in proper battery and all ammo used has been new, domestic manufactured.
I'll be on the phone with Customer Service, tomorrow.
View attachment 111653
If you don't hear anything promising from customer service, it might just be better to find a competent gunsmith to work on the pistol. The intermittent nature of these light strikes is curious.
 
Top