Walther PPQ .40 range report.

[Justin///M]

I don't normally write range reports, since most of what I shoot has been written about a million times already, but since the Walther PPQ is newer and I haven't seen a report here yet, I thought I would give it a shot. I will preface this by saying that I've never, in my life, shot a Glock. I'm not comparing it to a Glock, but I have read that some Glock owners say that this trigger reminds them of their Glock triggers. I am comparing it to my 2 other primary carry guns..., an HK P30 and a SA XDm..., both in .40.


I took her out to A&S gun range over in Youngwood and at 36, I felt like I was the senior person there. It was crowded and it was nice to see a lot of young people shooting, and at least 1/3rd of them were girls. I even spent some time chatting with a Marine who was home on leave that just turned 21 and was buying his first pistol. A Walther P99 in .40, nice choice!





Anyway, the Walther PPQ is just another in a growing plastic striker fired pistol market. What intrigued me about it, however, is the fact that it looks like a striker fired version of my HK P30 and the 0.1" trigger reset..., all for right around 500 buck, 300 less than the P30 and about 100 less than the XDm. Here is some pics of the P30 and PPQ for comparison (I apologize for the quality);

PPQ;


P30;



As expected, the PPQ feels every bit as good as the P30 does in my hand. With the interchangeable back straps, the grip can be shaped to be comfortable in almost any hand. The P30 does step it up with allowing one to change the side panels as well. The finger grooves in the PPQ grip feel exactly like the P30 to me. I'm not sure if Walther and HK work together, or if Walther simply copied the design, but the grips are eerily similar both in feel and grip angle. Both the P30 and PPQ feel much better in my hand than the XDm. While nice, the deep cuts of the XDm grip are bothersome, to me, after some time shooting.

The big "news" of this gun is the trigger reset, however. At 0.1", it is the shortest reset of any factory trigger of any gun I own. The HK P30 has a notoriously "shitty" trigger for an 800 dollar gun, and IMO, the PPQ trigger is the trigger that should be in the P30. It is so smooth and crisp, and the reset so short, that I don't see needing any trigger work whatsoever, and this is most definitely going to be my new primary carry gun. Here is a video in which the guy demonstrates the trigger reset..., skip to about 4 minutes to see that part;




Now onto shooting (These pics are all at 25 feet). My very first group was high left of the orange as shown in the picture below;



At first, I was thinking "WTF am I doing? I can't be that off, even with a new gun!" Then I noticed that the rear sight of the gun was sitting way left of center and then I thought "WTF!? How could they ship a gun this out of whack?" I then realized that the rear sight was loose and sliding freely left and right on the slide. I'm not sure how I didn't notice this before, but there is a little pin on the right of the slide that you can push down and release the rear sight. I'm not sure how it got pushed and the sight loosened, but I just had to push the sight back to the right and it locked into place, and I had no issues the rest of the time. I am going to have to look into this feature more closely and make sure there wasn't some way I inadvertently pushed the pin. Here a picture of the pin;




And the second group, I was aiming for the 8. Not too bad for my second mag in this gun.




Eventually my groups tightened up to be like the group in the orange of this pic;




And then I had to have fun with that trigger. I've never been the most accurate "rapid" firer, or double tapper, but this trigger goes a long way to helping me be more accurate. Here is a group at 25 feet, pulling the trigger as fast as I can, paying close attention to the reset and pull. I was aiming for the 7.




I had a shit eating grin the whole time. It has been a while since a gun has put a grin that big on my face. I am in love, and this gun is going to be my primary carry gun for a long time. She is comfortable, dead on nuts accurate, and that trigger..., oh my that trigger. Puts anything else I carry to shame. All for 500 bucks. Hard to beat!

So that is about it! Hope you liked it!

Justin

[Nigil75]

I heard these are awesome guns and I think I am going to get one for IDPA competition for my son. In 9mm though. Nice report!

[Justin///M]

Just a quick follow up, I am at about 600 flawless rounds down range now, and I absolutely love this gun. I haven't had any other issues with the sights becoming loose like when I took it out of the box.

The only "issue," and I don't really consider it an issue since it doesn't bother me, is that the casings eject in such a way as they sometimes leave brass marks on the slide.




All in all a great gun and I love carrying it! For 500ish bucks it is a great buy, IMO!

Justin

[LostinGermany]

Nice report. I love my PPS and Walthers in general. I had read some good things about the PPQ and after your report it's going on the list. All be it a very long list, I might have to to bump it close to the top. Thanks for the info, cheers.

[ah0873]

I bought the 9mm and I love it so much that I'm tempted to track down a .40 too.

Yea, it may be silly to own the same gun in two different calibers but in my opinion Walther could be charging almost double for this gun and it'd still be worth it!

[cybersurf]

I bought both the 9mm and 40 s&w PPQ.
These guns have the sweetest trigger I have ever used on a poly gun. To me this gun feels alot better than a Glock and seems to be a natural extension of my hand (easy to point). I am used to 1911's and this poly gun fits the bill. YMMV
I have shot over 1500 rounds from the nine and about 1000 through the 40. the only problem I encountered was a malfunction with a +2 mag for the 40, the spring was too stiff and the follower would catch inside the mag tube. Ijust don't load the +2 in that mag. Maybe it will loosen up after use.