Shot a Walther PP, and it was good

[Motosurgeon]

A friend brought her PP to the range and I offered to test fire it for her just in case there was uh um, I made something up, got to shoot it before my other friends got in line. I have to say it is a very comfortable pistol to shoot and very neutral recoil impulse, smooth trigger, and looks great polished stainless with wood grips.

It was sort of awkward to hold at first because of the small grip but after shooting, it settled itself and my grip self adjusted and became comfortable both with mag extension and w/o.

I did find it difficult to rack the slide and I wouldn't doubt it could be nearly impossible with sweaty or otherwise soiled hands. I tried several ways but without covering the ejection port or grabbing from around the muzzle it was anything but easy.

This particular PP was not lubed or cleaned in years and functioned flawlessly. I felt like the recoil spring was pretty stiff but it functioned properly, just made it hard to rack the slide.

Anyhoo, thought I would share my range experience with a pistol I found interesting and fun to shoot.

[nick]

Cocking the hammer reduces the effort, required to to pull the slide. It's strange, I didn't experience this with either PP or PPK/S.

[Motosurgeon]

Tried this but I must have butter fingers because it didn't help much

[jyo]

Excerise those fingers! Yeah, the PP/PPK/PPKs are a very old "blowback" design pistol---therefore only the spring keeps the action "locked"---if you can call it that. Personally, I prefer the Walther design in the smaller calibers; like 22lr and 32 ACP over the 380 (9X17). I have a brilliant older PP (1969) blue steel 22lr that thinks it's a target pistol---amazes me with long distance accuracy (like say 50 yards)---it's a keeper...