Aha! I have some experience to share here.
I've owned SEVERAL Walthers of varying pedigree and quality at this point in my short life- as a summation, I would only carry one of them after proving it out- the Walther PPK/S .22LR currently offered for sale by Walther Arms, made by Umarex. See below, I'll get there.
I started off with a stainless Interarms PPK/S in .380ACP, made under license by Interarms- but not a Ranger Manufacturing gun. I got the gun right as it came in the door of a local shop, and paid a decent price for it several years ago- $450 with box, papers, and a pair of mags. No test target.
Gun ran well with most ball loads, especially Winchester's 95 grain flat point oddly enough. Hollow points, steel case, and anything that wasn't FMJ was exceptionally unreliable. The gun itself worked well when meticulously cleaned, for about 250-300 rounds. Then, it became VERY unreliable. There were feeding issues, Failures to extract, and then a new issue reared it's ugly head. The points on the detents that ride on the safety drum had become worn down, and the safety was not staying engaged, leading to the gun becoming DAO or being on safe unexpectedly. I disassembled the gun and remedied the issue with some stiffer springs from Wolff, but while the safety was staying in place another issue cropped up. The hammer began following the slide. I was stumped, but had heard that Walther Arms would perform work on older guns if they had the parts, so I shot over a friendly email to them, requesting an evaluation and a quote to fix the firearm, as I did indeed like it a LOT. They responded amicably, and sent me a shipping label which I assumed would be included in the final quote. Walther had the gun for about a week, and to my surprise not only had they repaired the issues I'd described, but replaced my aging grips that were cracked. Walther did not quote me a dime for all this labor, parts, and shipping. I was ASTOUNDED. The gun, after being cleaned and lubed, was unfortunately still not reliable but I felt okay sending it down the road as it had been repaired. I cannot say enough good things about Walther Arms. They took in and fixed a gun on good faith that was made under license. Talk about standing behind your product!
I had at this point acquired a MINTY West German Walther PPK with box, papers, tools and target from an estate my LGS was handling. This was a blued 7.65mm pistol, and it has functioned flawlessly with the magazines it came with. I feel the gun is too nice to abuse overmuch, but I did fire it at a few IDPA matches just to evaluate it. It's one of the last handguns I'd sell.
I ended up trading the Interarms and a spare shotgun to a dealer for a H&K P30LS and a Walther Arms PPK/S .22LR
The fine folks over at the Walther Forum informed me that the PPK/S .22 that's made by Umarex would function best with Remington Thunderbolts and Remington Golden Bullets -This was exactly the results I got when trying CCI, Federal, and Winchester ammuniton- no dice. It didn't matter what I did, with anything but Thunderbolts it was a jam fest. ( I don't generally keep Golden Bullet around) That said, with Thunderbolts the gun ran FLAWLESSLY in regards to feeding and extracting- an occasional dud isn't something I'll hold against a rimfire. I've shot about 6500 rounds of Thunderbolts through this handgun, and it has now broken in to where I can fire Armscor, CCI, and other "HV" ammunition through it without issue. The only problems I ran into aside from ammunition is with operator error. I am a bit harsher on semi-auto pistols than I am my beloved revolvers, and don't clean them as much as I perhaps should especially with .22s. I had a failure to feed with some Thunderbolts that was caused by an excessively dirty gun. I sprayed some ballistol on the slide rails, and kept going, only to have it happen again. This time, I failed to notice the slide hadn't gone into full lockup, and upon firing the gun fired out of battery and blew the extractor out of the gun.
I ended up contacting Walther again with hat in hand, and they graciously repeated their outstanding service at no cost to me. They replaced the top end and sent it back, and the gun has been just as excellent as before.
I wouldn't carry a PPK in today's age- the atrociously heavy DA press is hard even for someone dedicated to DA/SA bottom feeders and DAO revolvers as me. The guns can be unreliable, the calibers are marginal. They're heavy guns, and with the exception of the .22, they're expensive.
If I HAD to pick one to carry, it'd be the .22LR. It's relatively reliable, the ammunition is cheap, and the gun is stupidly accurate. I have 4 spare magazines and they're all vetted in my pistol.
All that said, I'm still going to take a J or a 3" K frame over the PP and PPK series myself. NYS makes life both difficult, and easy in certain aspects.
EDIT:I spent a rather silly amount of time typing this up, and I now see this is a Zombie thread. DAMMIT. Oh well, I hope someone gets a kick out of reading this.
