The Black Campbell

I’ve had several PPK and PP knockoffs across the decades, but I didn’t buy my first actual Walther PPK/S until about five years ago, when an Interarms period Walther showed up for a very reasonable price. It’s a great pistol, but I replaced it with one of the new Fort Smith-made PPKs in .380 a year later. With the release of the new Walther in 7.65mm (.32 acp), I jumped on the first one I saw when the guy that had been thinking about it didn’t just buy it. He walked away to look at something else; I bought it.

First off, Walther definitely took a hint from some of the latest packaging trends. The pistol comes in a very Apple-like simple white box with a gray Walther logo on it. Inside, there is a blue presentation case that is quite nice, with the pistol and extra magazine inside. Documentation, etc. is under the flap in the white box. Noticeably missing in the box is what you used to find — a spent cartridge and a target showing it had been test fired. I haven’t seen this in most manufacturers of late and I suspect a lot of them are kicking their products out the door without an actual test firing. That said — an A for presentation.

Both the .32 and .380 PPK are the same size, weight, and have the new extended tang/tail on the back of the frame. A lot of folks, especially those with bigger hands, love this. I do not. The pistol is beautifully formed, but the tail carried a sharp angle from side to the underside. I find a too high grip on the .380 and I come away with a triangular bruise in the webbing of my hand. Your mileage may vary. One complaint I’ve heard about the new tail is it presents a spur that could catch if you pocket carry. I haven’t experienced this issue in the years I’ve been carrying the PPK in my pocket. If you put your thumb on the hammer of the pistol while drawing, it clears a pocket with little issue.

The very low profile sights are minimal, to be kind, and this aids in concealment and in drawing from teh same. This is not a long-distance weapon. This is made for self-defense distances — under 15 yards. At contact to 5 yards, I can keep a two in the chest drawing and firing fast from low port, with a quick aim and follow up for a head shot. Rapid acquisition of the sights is doable and sub-2″ groups up to 10 yards are easy with little practice. For me, this has been the case with every version (including knock offs ) of the PP and PPK platform.

Back to build quality: The engraving in the “little” PPK is excellent — much deeper that you see on the .380 — to the point I can tell them apart just from that. (The .32 in the bottom pistol in the following images.) If fact, the only real way I could tell the difference otherwise is the slide is sprung much lighter on the .32, and is very easy to manipulate, whereas the .380 requires a bit of pull to cycle.

Trigger pull seems to be about the same between the two pistols, though I haven’t measured it — it should be about 10ish pounds on a long double action with a fast, crisp break; or a 4-5ish lbs. single-action. There’s a bit of takeup on the single action, but once you hit resistance, it’s going to break clean. The extractor spring seems a bit weak on the .32 — more on that later. Even the magazines will swap from one to the other, and yes — the .380 fit in the .32 mag. The only visible difference is an extra witness hole with a 7 to show the .32. The .32 mag in the .380 will lock in but will not lock the slide back. If still fed a round into the chamber when cycled. I’m not recommending you do this, but I was curious…

Take down and cleaning are the same, although my recoil spring on the .32 did not want to come off like the .380 does, and I didn’t want to use too much force. I just lubricated the barrel around it. Then it was off to the range to shoot both and torture test the little one.

For the .380 I used Freedom Ammunition’s 100 gr. remanufactured FMJs and Sellier & Bellot 90gr. FMJ. The .32 was fed only FMJs — 150 rounds of Magtech, 100 rnds. of PMC — both 71 gr. FMJ; Fort Scott 71 TUI., Aguila 71 gr. and Fiocchi 73 gr., then finished with 40 rounds of Underwood .32+P 55 gr. Xtreme Defender with the fluted copper bullets.

The .380 Walther has eaten everything I’ve thrown at it from 68gr. Lehigh and Underwood, to 100 gr. remanufactured stuff, and the only issue I’ve had is with S&B. There’s a real snap to the recoil impulse that is sharp enough that very occasionally, it will half drop or fully engage the decocker! It happened once with the Freedom 100 gr. on this trip but hasn’t happened before. Fortunately, everything else runs fine and the 90 and 68 gr. Underwood perform flawlessly, with hits into a coke can from 20 yards — no issues. I stay away from the S&B for my .380 PPK, although I’ve never had an issue with anything else.

The .32 — oh, the .32. The first box of Magtech was causing issues — solid primer strikes that dented the hell out of the primer, but requiring two or three trigger pulls to get them to ignite. I put this down to the ammunition. I was also having failures to eject. The empty would extract, but get caught above the incoming round about half the time. Then I figured it out: On the .380, the recoil with the new tang makes me teacup the pistol, with my thumb folded down. On the .32, I was riding with my offhand thumb forward…and pressing to the slide. I was slowing the action and causing the failure.

On the PMC, I started having stovepipes. I was 170 rounds in, so I stopped and cleaned the gun a bit. Problem solved for about 50 rounds, then recurred. However, when I switched to the Aguila and Fiocchi I had no such issues. They’re both slightly faster cartridges than the Magtech (which fired dirty!) and the PMC. The little PPK likes the hotter stuff. The Underwood +P 55 gr. Xtreme Defenders ran without an issue and printed solid 2″ groups at 10 yards free-standing. The Magtechs had the worst groupings, but partly that was my stop-and-start shooting while clearing jams. The stovepipes were super easy to clear: hook the casing with my finger and pull. The gun would go into battery and fire, no problem.

Now…I’ve used Fort Scott ammo before and it’s good stuff. Just not in the PPK. Every. .single. round… failed to feed, jamming up going into the barrel and requiring me to take the slide off to pry them out. The bullets are just too long for the breech. Avoid them for the .32 pistol! It does seem that the .32 is more finicky on ammo. It likes the hotter stuff and when it gets dirty, the chance of jamming — mostly stovepipes that can be quickly cleared — goes up. This is much the same for the .22 PPK/S my daughter has as a plinker; 40gr. only and the hotter the better, or you’ll get failures.

Would I carry this as a defense pistol? No, I’d stick with the .380 PPK or if I’ve got the opportunity to carry on my belt, my Alpha Foxtrot S15. If I want a deep concealment .32, the super-light and small Kel-Tec P32 is still king, for me. Would the PPK .32 be fine for a defense carry for someone who was recoil averse or had arthritis or some other condition bad enough that something heavier sprung might be hard to manipulate? Absolutely. When clean and well-fed, the gun is very reliable. Dirty and lighter range stuff is more prone to failure, although after I sorted my grip on the pistol, the incidence of failures to eject dropped from about 40% to about 2%, and that was usually after 50+ rounds of fouling from the cheaper stuff. It didn’t happen at all with Fiocchi, and only twice out of 100 rounds with Aguila (and that was with the gun filthy!)

So is it worth it? Depends, do you want a PPK in the original chambering like I did, and like fans have been railing on Walther for the last six decades to produce? Then, yes. Is it a good self-defense pistol? Provisionally — with good ammo and for people who are recoil averse. Is it a good range toy? With crappy ammo, and a lot of the .32 is meh quality, it’s a pain in the ass; with the hotter stuff, it’s good. Is it worth the near $1000? Meh… it’s easily the best-looking pistol ever designed. There’s something about it — the James Bond connection aside — that is just classy as hell, especially in the stainless steel. However, I keep feeling this pistol should be coming in about $700-ish max, but inflation has skewed pricing so badly the last four years I just can’t mentality keep up.

But was it worth it? I was not as impressed as I thought I would be after seeing it, and it’s a beauty. But I think the .380 runs better.