At the moment, at least, the PPS seems to be an acquired taste, akin to Guinness. If you try it a few times and eventually return to your normal watery lager, that's fine; you gave it a try, after all. But if you sample it often enough and come to enjoy it, Guinness quickly becomes the best drink you've ever tasted. What's fascinating about the PPS FE to date is that so many folks have weighed in without the sampling ... without giving it much more than a cursory once-over -- in a gunshop if they were fortunate, but more likely after a quick look at a photo and the specs sheet on a website.
The FE model has at least generated a great deal of discussion among gun enthusiasts, with plenty of people chiming in on the perceived positives and the negatives of the model. (In some circles, oddly enough, there has been as much attention paid to the coloring of the polymer frame as there has been to the gun's functionality.) So it's far more likely that the first real test of the acceptance levels of the PPS won't come until the black models are in wide distribution and interested parties can hold it, waggle it, strip it, study it, shoot it a bit -- in other words, try to acquire a taste for it. Then we will see whether our friends at Walther have created a must-have model or a boon-doggle.
Interestingly enough, the debate probably won't rise and fall on which model -- the PPS or the venerable p99c -- is easier to carry or easiest to conceal. All things being equal, and holster manufacturers being the clever folks they are, a solution can be found for just about any problem. Put another way: Given enough money and a good fitting from a professional, virtually any handgun made today can be successfully carried in a concealed manner. Lots of folks carry full-sized P99s or Colt 1911s or even the big S&W revolvers. So it's far more likely that the PPS will rise and fall on its merits as a functional and reliable self-defense weapon that features a caliber sufficient enough to please those who don't believe in the stopping power of a .32 or .380. The gun will either outperform the competition and succeed, or it will become just another run-of-the-mill offering and fail to survive.
You would like to think that Walther's track record for producing weapons of superior quality and design and proven performance would give it an edge in this global marketplace, but that's likely not the case here, either. For every PPK and P38 success story, the company has produced a surprising number of consumer-rejected firearms. The PP Super, a surperb example of German crafstmanship, failed. The highly touted P88 -- still considered by many to be the finest 9mm handgun ever produced -- never caught on. So you have to ask yourself, "What does the PPS bring to the table that sets it apart from everything else out there?"
Will people abandon their PM9 or their Seecamp or their j-frame S&W revolver to carry the PPS on a daily basis? Will they even abandon their PPK? Who can say for sure? One thing is certain: You can't tell much of anything by judging the gun from a photo on a webpage or reading an online review from "critics" who gush about every product they test. The only way you'll be able to tell for sure if the PPS is the right gun for you -- the replacement to your P99c or your PPK/S or your PM9 -- is to get one and study it and shoot some rounds through it.
Sadly, there aren't enough FE models out there to make this practical at the moment. Be patient. Give it some time. The black model will show up soon enough, and the opportunity to test the PPS -- to acquire a taste for it -- will present itself. Then we'll see whether this new Walther will become a classic ... or just another splot on the windshield.
