WALTHER P99 QA .40

I wanted to do a review of the guns of James Bond. Then this new James Bond movie came out. Casino Royale, with this new guy playing Bond. I didn't think I was going to like this flick... the new guy is blond haired and blue eyed, and I'm not into card games or casinos. I went into the theater with no expectations. In fact, my buddy and I went to the theater to see a different movie altogether but once we got there we found that it had already left town. I don't even remember what that flick was. Let me cut to the chase, I loved the new Bond movie. This one is like Batman Begins for James Bond, a total remake of the character. The old James Bond movies became cartoons on film.... this one fixes all that. Anyways, regardless of the stupid plot lines and bad scripts, every guy wanted to be James Bond. Bond was cool... Bond always got the hot chickybabes... Bond always one the fights... Bond always has the slick gadgets... Bond always drove the cool cars... and Bond never broke a sweet. This new James Bond? No one wants to be the new James Bond. This new James Bond got his butt kicked left and right. He got broken and bloody. He wrecked his cool car. His hot chickybabe dies. Heck, he even died once. No one wants to be that guy. This isn't your father's James Bond. Take everything you ever knew about James Bond and toss it. This is why I'm not going to review all the old Bond guns. This new Bond is the only Bond worth the price of the movie ticket. Sean who? This is why I'm only reviewing his handgun.

The newest Bond gun is actually into the third Bond movie, but it is still worth looking at. This is the Walther P99 and the one I'm looking at is in .40 caliber. I'm not sure what caliber Bond's Walther is in, but I suspect it is only a 9MM. I'm reviewing it in .40 for two reasons. First is that I've done enough 9mm's and .45's lately. Secondly because this is the only Walther P99 I had access to. That's how this works here.

Let's look at gun for a second. It looks cool. The design in deceptive. It looks compact, like a small gun that might not be quite as effective as it should be. The gun once in the hand, chances your initial impression. It feels much larger than it looks. It has a good heft to it unlike a lot of other poly-framed handguns on the market. There is substance in the Walther that is not found in the XD's, M&P's, Glocks, P2000's, or even the FN FNP I reviewed last issue. One thing I didn't think I would like are the molded finger grooves on the grip frame. Other pistols with these molded in grooves never fit me right and my fingers end up riding high centered on the raised portion. This is one of the reasons I don't like Glocks so much. The older generation Glocks were great, but then they put in those grooves and ruined it for me. The P99's grip frame fits my hand wonderfully. The grooves work as they should and allow for a firm grip on the weapon. The trigger guard is also nice and roomy. Not an important detail for most folk but critical if you live in an area that gets cold and requires the wearing of gloves. All my test firing done on the P99 here was fired while wearing gloves... thick gloves meant for cold weather and keeping your fingers from falling off from frostbite. I had no problem firing the weapon or manipulating the slide.

The gun carries very well. For a gun offering full sized firepower, it carries like a Compact. In automotive terms this a big engine in a small car... a hot rod. Concealing the P99 is no more difficult that concealing the smaller FN or the even smaller yet Kahr K9. Yet neither of those guns offer the confidence of full sized duty grade automatic like this.

There is one thing I have noticed on the gun that seems to be completely stupid... The decocker. This P99 is a essentially a Double Action Only pistol. What Walther is calling a “Quick action”. And it is. The striker is mostly cocked when the action is cycled and the trigger only picks up the last bit before dropping it to fire the gun. So why does it need a decocker? The position of the decocker is another thing. The decock lever is small and almost hidden up on the top of the slide in front of the rear sight. This is the worst decocker I've ever seen. Other Walther P99's have a larger decocker lever in the same location, but it seems Walther decided that since it was obnoxious and disliked, they might as well just make even more spiteful. This is really the only flaw the pistol has. This is the mole on Cindy Crawford's lip. After awhile you not only forget to be annoyed by it, but it becomes a character trait and even a “beauty mark”. Cindy kissed me once. A chaste “please to meet you” peck on the cheek. Trust me... I didn't notice the mole. When handling the P99, you forget all about the decocker lever up there out of the way and all you can think of is the pistols other excellent qualities. At least it is not glaringly annoying like the HK P2000's decocker lever sitting on the back of the frame like Quasimodo's hunchback.

In order to operate the tiny decocker, you would have to have a long prehensile thumb with an extra joint. I don't know who designed this thing, but they need to get one of those “what were you thinking” slaps on the back of the head.

The only thing that makes sense about the decocker is that it is out of the way. I guess that it does have some use. To strip the weapon for cleaning, you have to drop the striker. Using the otherwise useless decocker instead of dryfiring does make sense for safety. In fact, in talking with Smith & Wesson, the guys who import the Walther, they told me that is exactly what the decocker is for. Just for dropping the striker when disassembling for cleaning. So there you go.

The gun sits in the hand with excellent balance. The design puts the action further to the rear and lower in the hand that most autos. This allows the gun to point naturally with a high grip that makes the gun really handle well... like a sports car. Like an Aston Martin DB5, if I might be so bold to say. If the P99 doesn't fit your hand quite as well as you might like, the interchangeable back straps can switched to allow a better hand to grip fit. Lots of guns do this now, such as the P2000, FNP, M&P... but let me point this out, Walther came out with this idea first. It comes with the medium sized grip installed, but if you like there is a smaller one or a larger one as you see fit. You choose. The medium one works well for most folks, myself included. With the medium one, the gun points naturally and instinctively. Making fast hits with a gun that points this well is easy. I'm not into “Point Shooting” (Point Shooting is a technique I'll let other editors talk about) as I prefer to use my sights, but the P99 points so well, sights are only for verifying that the gun is actually pointing right at the bullseye. When it comes to front-sight-press the P99 is one of the best I've tested.

Reliability is excellent. Even with wide mouthed hollow points. Ball ammo is child's play with the Walther. This is a huge improvement over other Walther pistols I've tested in the past which did not really care for hollow points. This gun loves to shoot and it seems the hotter the ammo the better. This is bonus of the clever design and high grip position. The gun doesn't just handle heavy recoiling .40 caliber rounds well, but the geometry of the way the gun fits the hand it just comes together with some wonderful German alchemy that I wish other Teutonic weapons had.

Accuracy is well above average. This surprised me. I didn't expect much in the realm of accuracy and was guessing that the gun was only capable of throwing rounds in the general compass direction I was pointing the weapon. Why? Well, because the slide fits in the frame pretty much in the same way that pinewood derby cars fit on the track slots. This isn't just loose tolerances... Comparing the fit to the FN I just tested, it's like the Odd Couple and the P99 isn't the neat and tidy one. Sloppy. But the gun comes together and works very well hitting the target where I mean it to. I can't ask any more of a handgun that this. Especially a DAO handgun in .40. One of the contributing factors to the accuracy has got to be the Walther Quick Action trigger system. The pull is a little heavy at a solid 8 pounds, but it is reasonably smooth with a travel distance of only .31 inches. This is a good trigger by any measure. Shooting the gun quickly and accurately is about as easy as it gets in this type of pistol. The only triggers better than these are on Single Action pistols such as 1911's or High Powers. If you could lighten the pull up – it would be even better.

The .40 S&W cartridge is not an especially accurate cartridge. It is not even really all that powerful either. However it does fit the roll it was cast to play, namely an intermediate option between the small and fast 9MM and the big and slow .45. The .40 S&W cartridge can be a handful to shoot. The recoil pulse is sharper, harsher, snappier, with more flash and bang than either 9 or .45. For experienced shooters it is a good option. Getting bigger bore performance more like a .45 but with an increase in magazine capacity more like the 9MM. In most guns you only give up two or three rounds of capacity by going to a .40 version. Some guys don't mind that trade off. Then Springfield came out with the XD45 which has a mag capacity of 13 rounds compared to the XD40's 12 round capacity. In my opinion the XD pretty much negated the .40 caliber argument. But then we have the Walther P99 offering a good counter point. This intermediate caliber's performance in a package that handles and hits this good is something that will always be a weapon worthy of consideration.

I didn't have any of my favorite .40 rounds for testing. My favorite was the 135 grain CorBon loads. So testing was conducted with 165 grain loads... Winchester SXT, Blazer Brass, and some Speer Gold Dots. I've found a fondness to the Winchester SXT loads. Federal's Personal Defense loads are not worth the time it takes to load them into your magazines.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the “The most fabulous object in the world” and 1 being a Hi-Point .380... I'm calling the Walther P99 a solid 9. This score shocked me. I honestly didn't expect it to rate this high. I shot a 9MM P99 a some years ago shortly after it hit the market and it didn't impress me that much at all. But at that was before I starting writing for CCM and looking at the guns I shot with a more critical eye. I might have to go back and start shooting everything all over again.

STATS:

OA Length: 7.1”

Barrel Length: 4.1”

Height: 5.3”

Width: 1.2”

Weight: 25 oz.

Caliber: .40 S&W

Capacity: 12+1

Prices: MSRP - $665USD, As Tested - $475