Well I picked up my P22 yesterday and shot it at the range. Range fees were waived if you were picking up a new gun purchased there so I couldn't pass it up anyway. Note that my Fake Suppressor/barrel extension hasn't come in yet (should be here today) so my shooting review was of a standard P22 with no accessories. I did however immediately install the larger of the two 'rear' grip pieces in an attempt at largening the gun a bit to fit my hand better. The larger rear grip piece in combination with the included 'extended' magazine makes the gun fit almost perfect in my hands. The gun does come with 2 magazines, both ten rounders, but only one is fitted with the extended pinkie piece at the bottom. I wish they were both done this way. A shame since it's only a little piece of plastic on both. Oh well. It's important to note that both magazines looked to be exceptionally well made and both sported the "A" at the end of the serial number signifying that they were the newer style magazine. These are Walthers 'fix' to the jamming problem experienced in early models.
Now I think it's important to note that I have pretty small hands. Not girl hands but not huge either. If you have anything larger than an average hand size I would think that this gun would feel uncomfortably small. Especially if you are used to shooting larger frame handguns.
Everything else seemed to be exceptional quality for what was a $229 gun. The gun shop recommended I shoot CCI stinger ammo and had them for $5.95 in 100 counts. These were FMJ and hollowpoints. I couldn't see why I needed hollowpoints but for under .06 cents a round I figured what the heck. I'm still getting 3 shots for every 1 shot I'd spend on my usual 9mm rounds. So I load up my first two magazines of ten each. Note that I don't usually stack a full magazine plus the 1 in the chamber. With packages of 100 rounds and a 10 round clip I like the easy math of 10 rounds per load. It's important to mention that because some reviews said that it they had a hard time feeding the 10+1 configuration. Something like the 9th round would jam or something. More on that in a second. With the 10 round bursts I unloaded 160 rounds with not a single jam or problem of any kind. Absolutely perfect. I was amazed as well that the report of a .22 out of a 3" barrel was surprisingly loud! Even though I was still being drowned out by the hand cannons next to me, the P22 had a much beefier report than my Ruger 10/22 rifle does. Shorter barrel equals more pressure exiting the muzzle, I understand, but it surprised me none the less. Ok, so far so good, so for the sake of this review I decided to load my last 3 clips (33 rounds plus 7 left over) in at a 10+1 configuration. All three clips with the chamber loaded worked flawlessly. Still not a single jam. I am very pleased at this point!
Accuracy is what is to be expected from a 3" barrel. I shot at 10 yards with decent success. I am no marksman so accuracy may not be the 'guns' weakness if you know what I mean. I was shooting mostly 8" groups at 10 yards with a few stragglers outside of that. No complaints at all from me there. It wasn't all together different than what I shoot from my 9mm out of a 5" barrel.
Some of the features I noticed about the gun I'll mention here. Since the gun does have a pretty small frame, the ergonomics are not perfect. The safety I found hard to reach with a simple thumb flick. Also the slide release was a bit stiff for just a quick thumb swipe to chamber a round. I ended up having to pull the slide back an 1/8" and releasing it to go forward. Maybe this is on purpose? My 9mm releases with simply the lever? I also noticed that with the clip removed the gun is basically dead. For instance, my last three rounds I tried to just hand feed a single round into the chamber, close the slide and fire. Without the clip in the gun it won't function. No big deal just interesting to note. Field stripping the P22 is a pain. Nowhere near as easy as my Taurus PT92. I can strip my PT92 and reassemble it in the dark in under 15 seconds. With the Walther, you better have all the tools and a few minutes with plenty of lights.
That's it, I was going to take a few pictures but I won't have the chance to until tomorrow. So in the interest of time I decided to post without pictures. If anyone has any questions let me know. Sorry for being long winded. Overall I recommend this gun highly. I will say go and touch it in person to see if it's too small of a frame for your hand first though. And it can be bought new for $229 so don't get ripped off. When I first looked at the P22 it was in the glass case for $350. I was about to walk out with a "yeah right" look on my face when the salesman told me they had them on sale for $229. So always ask!
Edit : I got ya ape, hehe