Back in 1999, I bought one of the original Walther P99 9mm handguns.  I had a few different pistols, including the Heckler & Koch USP .45 Compact, and was tending to carry the latter at the time.  The P99 had one of the best grips on the market at the time — ergonomically designed to give the user an incredible hold on the weapon, three different backstraps to resize the weapon for the hand, and adjustable rear sights with different front sight heights to make the weapon customizable for the user.  These are all common on polymer guns now, but most forget how revolutionary this was in 1999.  It had the downside of being during the Clinton gun ban when you could only have 10 rounds, instead of 15…so it really didn’t offer much over the 8-shot USP.

It shot incredibly accurately, with mild recoil, but had a break in period that I found made me question the weapon’s reliability.  (After about 200 rounds, the P99 started running flawlessly.)  I know a lot of handgunners hear this “break it in” crap, but to me that means the factory didn’t bother to finish their product.  If I need the gun that night after I’ve bought it, “break in” just isn’t going to cut it, should it malfunction.  I didn’t have to break in my H&Ks, or my CZ-85 (flawless out of the box), nor my FN57.

I wound up needing money for a move from Austin to Albuquerque in 2000 and sold the weapon.  I regretted it almost immediately, and bought a P99 in .40S&W.  Unlike the 9mm, I found the .40 version functioned very well, but found the accuracy spotty past 10 yards.  I got rid of it and was on the look out for a 9mm P99 with the original trigger set up (now called “anti stress”).  At that ever turned up was the idiotic double action version.

Today, I found a P99AS in 9mm in near pristine shape but with enough rounds through it to be “broken in.”

So — the P99AS.  The benefit of the anti-stress trigger is that it is a stepped trigger:  with the striker cocked, the trigger has a step that allows the user to not accidentally pop a round off, and shortens the trigger pull.  A decocking button on the left side of the slide drops the striker for a long, heavy pull on the first shot, then drops to the AS trigger for the rest of the magazine.  The P99s now come with a 15-round magazine, making them an excellent, light, and super-accurate (to about 25 yards) self-defense weapon.  It is light enough I might occasionally take it on walks, instead of the CZ-85 (but the CZ configuration remains my favorite, to date.)

If you can find one of these gems used, a good price is between $450-600.  They’re one of the better handguns on the market — as good as the S&W built PPKs are bad.