Walther PPK is 80!

[Border Ruffian]

With the centennial of the Model 1911, don't forget the Walther PPK is 80.  Indroduced in 1931, most American shooters didn't see one until WW II and after.  The Sean Connery, James Bond, cool gun is 80 years old.  The best part is tat It fits in the Zoot Shooting time frame.   

[PJ Hardtack]

BR

I've got an Erma knock off PPK in .22 LR. Only gun I ever bought 'cause it was 'cute'. Shoots like a hot damn as well.

Best part is the serial # - the first three digits are '005'. I wanted '007' and the dealer said "So did I. Someone else got it."

I've got a small hand and you've got to be careful so as not to get a slice from the slide if you leave any meat too high on the grip.
Guys with beefy hands probably don't like these guns at all.

[Border Ruffian]

BR

I've got an Erma knock off PPK in .22 LR. Only gun I ever bought 'cause it was 'cute'. Shoots like a hot damn as well.

Best part is the serial # - the first three digits are '005'. I wanted '007' and the dealer said "So did I. Someone else got it."

I've got a small hand and you've got to be careful so as not to get a slice from the slide if you leave any meat too high on the grip.
Guys with beefy hands probably don't like these guns at all.

Now 007 would have been a great number to have!!  I have smallish hands and the PPK fits me fine.  If I had larger hands I'd opt for a PPK/S that has the longer 1968  import compliant frame.  I have a 1957 vintage PPK-L with the aluminum frame in 32 ACP.  I beleive (in my own mind) that what "James" would have carried. 




 

[PJ Hardtack]

In what I chose to refer to as my own mind, I'm of the opinion that '007' would have carried an all-steel .380.

What did Ian Fleming arm him with?

[Old Top]

All steel 32 ppk, to replace the Beretta 25 he was carring.  Changed later to different guns the one I remember was an ASP.

[PJ Hardtack]

Right ... I remember Ian Fleming referring to the "heavy slug" of the PPK hitting one of 007's opponents. I guess compared to the mouse fart .25, it was.
Having once owned a really pristine Mauser HSc 7.65mm (.32), I think I'm better off with my .22 LR PPK ERMA knock off, especially with Hi-Speed HPs.
Hard for me to believe that the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe armed so many men with pop gun pistols in 7.65mm. Cheaper than the 9mm P-08 and P-38s, I guess. Other than the infamous "neck geschuss" of the SS, I can't think of a gun less suited to the needs of a combat soldier. A thick greatcoat would stop the bullet.

[Evelyn Canarvon]

Tried one once but no thank you. 

Still much prefer my good old P-08 Luger.

Out of self-loaders my two favourite still remain the above and a 38 super 1911.  Both over a centuary old designs.

[PJ Hardtack]

While serving in Germany during the Cold War, I married into a German family. My Deutscher father-in-law was one of the few to escape the encirclement of the 6th Armee at Stalingrad, only to be captured later and sent to a Gulag in Siberia. He wasn't repatriated until 1951, earlier than some.
I used to ask him questions about the weaponry he used as a Panzer Grenadier in the Wehrmacht. When I used the word "Luger", he was baffled. Finally I showed him a picture and he said "Ach, P-'08! Prima pistole." In German, that is pronounced "Pay nuhl ocht", the German term for the gun.
"Luger" is a US term for the gun, with reference to Georg Luger who came up with the design based on the earlier Borchardt.
Stoeger made it famous peddling the Mauser Banner Lugers pre-WWII and the name stuck.

[RickB]

I've got two PPK/S pistols. One is an original German made one with all blue slide and frame. The other is a USA made Walther/S&W one in stainless. I use the latter as one of my carry guns. Makes me feel a little like Bond, James Bond. Love how they shoot.

[St. George]

The small autos were issued to Staff Officers - primarily as a badge of rank.

Combat Officers carried the various 9mms - the more senior preferring the P08, with the rest being issued the P38.

The smaller autos were also carried by aircrew - for reasons of compactness - and by the civilian Police of all varieties.

In Europe, the .32 was considered adequate and the .380 powerful.

Scouts Out!

[PJ Hardtack]

St. George

Well, we know who won the war .....

"Never shoot anyone with a gun whose calibre does not begin with the number '4' ...."  Cooper called the 1911 .45 ACP the "Yankee Hammer" for good reason - it works!
I'd have thought better of '007' had he carried a .45 Commander. Not much bigger than a Walther and much more effective. But it lacks the European cachet of a PPK.

[Pitspitr]

"Never shoot anyone with a gun whose calibre does not begin with the number '4' ...." 

Well, I don't know... There are some pretty effective calibers that start with a .5 

[PJ Hardtack]

Yep, don't own one and don't want one. The guys I know that do have them rarely shoot them and when they do, suffer from a well developed 'recoil anticipation syndrome' (aka flinching).

I guess I could have said - "... a gun whose calibre starts with at LEAST the number 4 ..."

I do enough shooting with .44 Spl., 44-40, .455 Webley, .45 colt and .45 ACP that I feel comfortable with these calibres. That outweighs the muscle of the larger bores.

[Forty Rod]

All steel 32 ppk, to replace the Beretta 25 he was carring.  Changed later to different guns the one I remember was an ASP.

He got the Walther in Dr. No. "It's a 7.65 millimeter and hits like a brick through a plate glass window". It was also threaded for  a silencer, but later in the same movie he used a Browning 1910 with a silencer to shoot the traitor who tried to kill him.

[PJ Hardtack]

7.62mm translates to .308". Perhaps you meant 7.65mm?

IMHO - someone would be better armed with the brick than a .32 auto. Some might be willing to stand behind a plate glass window and let you fire a shot at them with a 7.65mm/.32 auto - IF they could have the next shot with a gun whose calibre starts with at least the number 4 .... ;>)

Maybe even a .38 Spl. +P or .357.

It's a pity that some authors and proof readers don't do a little more research into their fantasy writings.

[Forty Rod]

Yep.  Fixed it.  Thanks.

[Forty Rod]

7.62mm translates to .308". Perhaps you meant 7.65mm?

IMHO - someone would be better armed with the brick than a .32 auto. Some might be willing to stand behind a plate glass window and let you fire a shot at them with a 7.65mm/.32 auto - IF they could have the next shot with a gun whose calibre starts with at least the number 4 .... ;>)

Maybe even a .38 Spl. +P or .357.

It's a pity that some authors and proof readers don't do a little more research into their fantasy writings.

As a rule Fleming did some pretty good research.  At the time he wrote this the French Flics were still carrying .22s on the streets and much of the world's military and police were using .32s and .380s for their second string troops and 9mm Parabellum for first stringers. 

Up until the seventies most countries and their "experts" thought Americans were horribly over-gunned.  Besides spies and assassins and agents weren't supposed to get into "wild west shoot-outs".

[St. George]

That, coupled with the fact that no one I ever ran across wanted to be shot with even a .22 Short, much less a .32...

Funny, that...

Vaya,

Scouts Out!

[RickB]

I remember reading that more people are killed with 22s, 25s, and 380s than are by larger caliber guns each year. So I can surmise they must do the job when needed. 

[St. George]

If they didn't - those calibers wouldn't be in the wide use that they are, and the weapons chambered for them wouldn't be in the high demand that they've always been.

Vaya,

Scouts Out!