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On April 8, 2012 I received a 1972 Walther PP .32 W. German police trade-in pistol through my FFL that I bought off Gunbroker. The gun was in excellent mechanical condition with a mint condition bore. The finish was better than it had appeared in the photos on Gunbroker. I purchased the Walther in order to fulfill my idea of the custom double action that I had dreamed about since around 1984.
I had collected several Walther pistols over the years.
I carried a 1988 stainless steel Interarms PPK .380 for 20 years. When I retired the faithful little pistol, I had it engraved with 75% coverage American Scroll. The one problem I've always had is a common one with some folks. I have big hands and the Walther's slide would cut railroad tracks in the web of my hand when shooting fast. If I concentrated, I could lower my grip to avoid the blood, but when shooting fast the pistol's slide always got me. Here's a photo of my hand after I shot steel plates last year with my stainless PPK:
I turned my .32 PP over to Mario Matelli (Bullseye Firearms and Gunsmithing) and he welded a beavertail grip tang onto the gun to prevent my hand from seeping red. Mario also removed the front sight, cut a new dovetail, and installed a Novak gold bead front sight (which I've always liked ever since reading about Ed McGivern and his custom front sights). Mario also widened the rear dovetail and install a match Novak low profile rear sight.
Patience is a virtue they say. This project took 17 months to complete with all the different work I had done. After Mario worked his magic, I sent the Walther off to Michael Gouse in Montana (Gouse Freelance Firearms Engraving & Montana Art Emporium). I've had several guns engraved by Michael, always with American Scroll. But he can do any kind of engraving and I decided that my dream Walther needed vintage German Oak Leaves & Acorns deep relief style engraving.
Gouse engraved the blue steel pistol and left it without finishing at my request since I had a vision of how I wanted the Walther to turn out when done.
When the .32 came back from Gouse (only a 7 week turnaround time!!), I then delivered it to a local gentleman who specializes in Walther and Luger restorations. I told him I just wanted to have the trigger, magazine release, safety, hammer, extractor, and grip screw nitre (fire) blued as Walther would have done in the 1930's. He did a great job, but the extractor on this 1972 model is not made from the same steel as the Walthers from 40 years prior and it would not take the blue. That was okay, I would just have it finished along with the rest of the pistol. The nitre blue turned out amazing!
Once I had the Walther back in my hands again, I shipped it off to Accurate Plating & Weaponry in Alabama (ACCURATE PLATING AND WEAPONRY | APWCOGAN). After lots of research, I felt their reputation was outstanding to do the work I desired.
Walther plated some of their (rare) PP and PPK pistols with a finish they called Verchromt. Translated from German, it means "very chrome" or "hard chrome" as we would say here in the US. Hard chrome is very popular and durable finish on modern pistols today.
When I first saw the Sig Sauer Scorpion pistols (they make a 1911, P226, P220, etc with this finish), I was stricken by how good the two-tone look appeared when the trigger, mag release, decocking lever, hammer, etc looked in black compared to the flat dark earth finish on the rest of the pistols. Instead of being all one color, the small parts really contrasted well to my eye.
I figured my custom Walther with a Verchromt silver finish would contrast really well with the fire blued small parts. A search via Google turned up a factory original Walther PP just as I imagined it.
Being a minor PP/PPK fan myself, I like it - and I do understand the modern sights. I have yet to see a factory-sighted Walther that shot to point-of-aim, in my hands anyway.
