The Walther P5 was designed and introduced during the late 1970’s along with the Sig Sauer P6, and Heckler & Koch P7 for the German police forces. All three were adopted and used, so the standard P5 is not overly difficult to find as there are surplus models available. On top of that, Walther built many P5 pistols for the commercial market.
The Walther P5‘s design is based on the earlier P1 and even earlier P38. Its uses the same basic falling block to briefly lock and keep the barrel on the same plane and parallel to the frame at all times. This helps enhance the P5's accuracy. The barrel does not drop or tilt as seen with the Browning design. Beretta junkies may know that the 92 is based on the same Walther design. The P5 does have some enhancements over the P1, however. For starters, the slide is stronger and more durable and the extractor is improved for reliability. The P5 also incorporates a firing pin safety via a pivoting firing pin. It moves into position only when the trigger is pulled just before the hammer drops. For better simplicity, the P5's slide release doubles as its decocker.
I’ve always been a fan of the P5's ergonomics. In fact, I like the ergos on the P6 and P7 also. Germany had an extremely nice trio of pistols for their police forces with these three at their disposal. One unique thing about the P5 is that the ejection port is on the left side. It seems strange to see brass flying left instead of right when firing it.
The P5 Compact was introduced in 1987, nearly a full decade after the P5 was. It was at this time that Walther brought out a target version of the P5 with a longer barrel and adjustable sights as well as the compact version. The P5 Compact was only in production a fairly short time, with well under 10,000 pistols being produced. While I believe a small percentage of them saw service, the P5 Compact was built primarily for the commercial market. The gun is not much smaller than the standard P5, which is already a compact. The slide and barrel are about a half inch shorter, but the grip frame is the same. The Compact model has a bobbed hammer rather than a spur hammer. The unloaded weights are within an ounce of each other, so not much difference there either. The Compact’s slide is shorter, but it has a slightly different profile, which I think is one reason there’s not more difference in weight.
This particular model is in awesome shape and is complete with the case and papers. The factory smooth wood grips were only used on the first few hundred P5 Compacts built. Most have checkered black plastic grips. This one is number 6 out of nearly 10,000, so its one of the first few to leave the factory in Germany. Needless to say, its stamped “IH” for the first year in 1987. These wood grips are a bit slippery, but still feel great in hand and I love the look. It also has the European heel magazine release. Walther built well over 100,000 of the standard P5 pistols and all of them had heel releases. However, the Compact was built mainly for commercial sales and most of those to America. My sources tell me only the first few hundred of the Compacts had the heel release as well. 95% of them have the American side button mag release. I happen to like the heel release on European pistols and I also like having the rare version of a firearm, so I definitely prefer having it like this. Also, because this uses the heel release, it also uses the same magazines as the P5.
Truth be told, I’m not the world’s biggest Walther fan. Through the years, I’ve never put much effort in finding the whole lineup or the rarest models. Hell, I’m not really even a fan of the most classic Walther built in the PPK. My love affair with Walther kind of starts and ends with the P88 line. Those are the only Walthers I truly love. I do like the P5 pistols. In fact, I like them more than the P88 in one aspect. The P5 uses a Walther design while the P88 uses a Browning design. While I feel the P88 series is better overall, I give the P5 series kudos in that regard. There’s just something really “authentic” about the P5 line from a Walther standpoint, that’s missing with the P88.
Does anyone have any of the P5 series of pistols? If so, what do you think?
Thanks for reading. Please share your thoughts.
I have another early P5C, its number 158.
Here's my small family of Walthers:
P5 Compact, P5 Compact, P5, P88 Compact, P88 Competition, P88, and P38 (post war)
