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This is what the pistol looked like after 2,000 rounds. What I fired was five hundred or so Federal bulk mixed 40 grs followed by one of those bucket of bullets Remington golden bullets. BTW, all the RGB's fired. I had two problems with the pistol. It fired reliably but the securely clamped on stabilizer worked forward as shown. I've always had this issue with the stabilizer...old and new models. Yes, it is clamped onto the barrel sleeve....hard. Then, with no cleaning or lubricating the chamber was beginning to get quite dirty and a few of the later rounds would not fully seat unless the rear of the slide was tapped. Continued shooting sometimes seemed to clear the chamber but in the last 200 to 300 rounds this began to show up. A simple cleaning would have solved the problem but I was busy shooting.
About the pistol. This one started life as a 3.4" 2007 model. It has 40K or 50K rounds on the original frame. Somewhere along the line a 5" barrel showed up with Q style stabilizer. Then I cleaned it, removed the O ring and let someone shoot it. The slide broke on the first shot. Then a new Q slide showed up. Put that on 12K rounds ago and found out the 5" barrel is considerably more accurate. So back to the 2007 frame and grip. I use dry, powdered moly as a lubricant and the rails and grooves are still at new pistol measurements. I'm on the third mainspring and second sear spring. The mag disconnect has been removed as has the hammer strut. Removing the strut loses the DA function but allows the trigger to reset in 3/16". With the strut in there the trigger has to move considerably forward to reset. So it is now a SA pistol with an over travel stop and pre travel stop. The bottom of the trigger is resting against the pre travel stop as pictured up top. Target shooting pistol. This is the only P22 I have with a stock hammer face and it causes no problems.
Because the stabilizer walked out a bit the end of it got plenty of lead deposits and they are hard to remove unless you thread in a proper sized, sharp drill bit from the rear and carefully turn it by hand. I polished on it with a brass brush until I got tired of that and ran out of elbow grease. Next time the drill bit will come out right away. No, I don't remember the size, larger than 1/2" as I recall.
The muzzle got a bit dirtier than usual due to being recessed but this debris was easily wiped off and the barrel was clean.
In 2K rounds of bulk the guts got pretty dirty but the dirt really brushes off easily with no oil being used. Note the stock hammer face. On the 5" pistol I've had no issues with the small tip catching the slide. Would it be smoother slightly re-profiled...yep, but I have to test a stock one once in a while. The primary hooks have been lowered 30% or more and the sear undercut and the angle of the hook changed to an almost negative engagement according to my opinion. There are no tools for this and no factory drawings of the stock pistol that you can get your hands on. Of note on the new QD, the primary hooks have been lowered 30% or more also but for I believe a different reason. (so the decocker will work) Anyway, this work gives a 2.25 lb trigger with no creep.
Since I have lost many a post I learned long ago to post it then edit to add the rest. Going back and forth between here and Imgur sometimes doesn't allow me back. It is good not to lose a thread. So where was I...oh, a captive QD recoil spring assembly showed up one day too so I drilled out the muzzle hole to 1/4" and installed it. Here it is after 2,000 rounds. That rubber thing is what is left of the O ring. It was still doing its job....but barely. A bit too much for it on a hot day and with no lube. When installing one of these just place the O ring right in the middle of the assembly before reinstalling the slide.
This is a pretty old frame insert and set of grips. 40 or 50K shots fired...I don't count anymore. There is a bit of wear on the left side plate where the hardened pin rubbed a bit on the original slide and somehow a really old ejector got in there...one from way back when I was testing this and that in an effort to benefit ejection direction. It even has indentations in it from a diamond when I was checking out parts for Rockwell hardness. Still works fine though. But what is interesting in this shot to me is the marks on the trigger bar ears. As you can see I lay the ears back to match the angle of the ramps under the slide and this shows that the face of the ears is fully engaging the ramps. This is optimal for preventing wear under the slide where the ears are hit. You can also see how little of the ear is actually engaged by the narrow ramps. Looking closely you can see that the primary hooks have been lowered to match the top of the sear even though everything is pretty dirty.
Just for comparison, above is the current look of the stock, lowered primary hooks on the QD pistols. This is better.
And while we are on it, here is how high the original hook height was in comparison to the top of the sear.
And here is one of my efforts at lowering the hook height to match the sear. I will then square up the hook face and change the angle of engagement slightly and finish the undercut the bottom of the sear nose for a clean release. If you look closely, I've already removed some material. Very easy to do...I just have to make sure I keep the material removal even on both sear arms. This pistol has two sear legs, two sear arms and two hammer hooks. While work here needs to be neat and even all of the parts allow a bit of movement which allows them to self align.
The benefit of the trigger bar ears not having a sharp front edge can be seen in the lack of swaging of the zinc ramps after approximately 12,000 cycles of this slide. There isn't any beating up of the metal at all. Too bad Walther won't take a couple of minutes and simply slant the trigger bar ears to fit better against the ramps. We've discussed this issue since day one.
And for those of you that might not know what I mean by the trigger bar ears swaging the ramps under the slide...here is a picture of the damage. And these ears had had the front edge rounded off, just not laid back to match the ramp angle.
This photo isn't from this shoot but shows what the top of the breech block and firing pin would look like if removed from the slide. To clean I usually spray Gunscrubber or similar down the firing pin channel while working the firing pin back and forth. Blow it out with compressed air. Spray it with Remington Rem Oil, work it back and forth and blow that out. The pin must be free enough for the small spring to reliably reset it and the firing pin block needs to work smoothly. The new QD has an additional lever in here and I have not taken mine apart to see how it works.
The rails on the pistol as shown above still measure to factory new specs. That moly really is a lifesaver in my opinion regarding wear between the slide grooves and frame rails. When the slide is fully rearward during cycling only about 1/8" of metal on the bottom of the rail is holding the slide in position. Meanwhile, due to the design of the pistol the hammer is pressing upward against the rear of the slide with all the lift it can generate with the wound mainspring. So, good lubrication is very important here for longevity. My calipers show no wear to the rails or grooves. Not bad for zinc.
The chamber and barrel cleaned up with no effort. The drill bit did the job on the lead in the stabilizer. A Q grip showed up in black and I put that on the pistol. So now it looks like a Q pistol....shoots straight but still has a 2007 frame insert. I do need to add the pre travel stop to the inner trigger guard though. I might add a few clean pictures of it tomorrow. Those bare lead Federals were what gummed up the works a bit. The plated ammo runs forever. If I were to shoot CCI in this pistol I bet it would go 4 or 5K rounds between cleanings. I'd put oil on the O ring for that count though. 1917
And, cleaned up, lubricated with a fresh dose of Moly...ready to go. Still has the 2007 frame insert inside. Sure isn't a looker when located next to those classic lines of yesteryear. .380 up top and beautiful .22 I got from ViperR in the center.
EDIT: Looking at the poor condition of the O ring and the problems BigBorgel reported I decided to have a look at the O ring in my suppressed QD....perhaps 300 to 500 rounds. The O ring was in poor shape......hmmmmm????? Why is that I began to wonder. The reason is the captive recoil spring assembly has a small washer on the muzzle end and that washer bangs into the center 1/2 of the O ring, cutting into it. Without the new assembly the O ring fit perfectly against the muzzle cup where is was banged dead center against the smooth take down lever. Those held up very well....but the small washer is going to cause a much shorter life. Good thing they are cheap.
