Someone aksed me to advise them between two choices of 22LR pistols: The Glock 44 and the Walther P22. Not being a 22LR rimfire pisol conniosseur personally, with the exception of the excellent Ruger MKII, could you guys give me the bottom line, more or less, before I dive into researching the two. So far I've only studied the Glock so far, and the early reviews discussed various issues with feed and function etc., but I don't know if Glock effectively addressed them since then. I also read about the balancing act between slide mass and striker spring, versus bolt mass and spring on other 22 pistols like the Ruger etc.

Regarding the Walther, I don't know about the P22, but otherwise I've never met a Walther I didn't like, though I have never owned one.

So before I spend a crap load of time researching these two guns, are there any clear winners, or significant points between these two guns you know about or have personal experience with ? For this purpose we can ignore any questions like the purpose, use, etc., with the exception of trigger and relative accuracy. The reason is I despise crappy triggers and crappy accuracy, other things being equal.

So, what what are your guys opinions between these two guns, particularly in terms of reliability (assuming an equivalent amount of 22LR rimfire dirt for a given number of rounds), accuracy, trigger quality, and overall quality of build ?

Any advice is very much appreciated.

Take this for what it’s worth. I bought an early P22 and loved everything about it. I had the model that came with the short and the long barrel configuration. It sucked. Every single time I shot it the safety would wander into an indeterminate position that rendered the gun unable to fire. Sent it in and they fixed it. Except it continued to do the same thing. You couldn’t get through any amount of ammo because it wouldn’t work. Only gun I ever sold at a loss on purpose. I just wanted it gone.

Since they have had such a long run I can only do imagine mine was an early lemon. I really liked that gun except for it not ever working.

There used to be a recurring problem with the P22 slides cracking. They were made from zamak (zinc alloy), if memory serves. I don’t know if Walther has updated the design to address the problem. Those weren’t one of Walther’s best firearms.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
There used to be a recurring problem with the P22 slides cracking. They were made from zamak (zinc alloy), if memory serves. I don’t know if Walther has updated the design to address the problem. Those weren’t one of Walther’s best firearms.

Yes. The early guns had problems with the slides cracking. Walther beefed up the slides several years ago and you don't hear about it anymore.

As others have said, the P22 has had a long production run and have gone through many improvements throughout the years. The new guns tend to run well but still work best with higher velocity 22lr ammo.

I have shot the P22 a fair amount and own a PPQ 22. While not mentioned, I'd do the PPQ as it is more reliable.

Glock did a fix on the Glock 44 shortly after introduction to fix the early issues changing something to do with the extractor I believe.

I have shot the Glock 44 but not the Umarex Walther 22. I like the Glock 44 because it is the same exact size and the Glock 19, has changeable backstraps, can be dry fired, and the part of the slide that rides on the frame steel tabs is also steel which will make it great for durability. Also will fit Glock 19 holsters. Check out all the great reviews on the Glock 44 at Bud's (4.8 out of 5 with 144 reviews) and Grabagun.

https://www.budsgunshop.com/pr....22+lr+4.02+in.+10+1

However how a pistol fits a shooter is important too especially if youngsters are going to be shooting it too and the Walther P22 probably has a smaller grip and shorter trigger reach if that is a concern.

Both guns have had their issues regarding reputations for spotty reliability. The G44 initially was extremely ammo-sensitive and too often would not run reliably even with brands of 22LR that normally would generally cycle in most problematic pistols (CCI Mini-Mag, Federal Automatch, Federal Game-Shok, etc.). Similarly, the early P22s also had their share of reliability problems, as well as durability issues that were previously mentioned in this thread. Both guns supposedly have seen their share of tweaks and purported improvements, though to get comments on those revisions someone other than myself would have to chime in.

The P22 has gone through at least one major aesthetic revision where Walther/Umarex took its once boxier, jagged PPS M1-like styling and remodeled to look more like its sibling Walther PPQ/CCP models that were in the Walther lineup at the time of the makeover. However the internals I believe were still fairly close to being the same as the gun was prior to its "reskin" facelift.

I haven't shot a G44 in some time, and none that I have shot were of recent production. The first G44 I tried was a first-year gun and it was quite ammo-picky, though it was pretty reliable with 40gr Mini-Mag target rounds. Since then I've shot at least a couple of others; each of those times we were using hotter CCI loads and the guns ran without any sort of continual problems, though I do remember a couple of stoppages with the most recent time at the range. I've not shot a recent production P22; I tried an early pre-facelift model years ago and recall that it didn't do well with standard velocity ammo but if I remember correctly it did run okay with supersonic. Not much of a sample to base an informed opinion off of, but that's the experiences I had with the two pistols. But to be brutally frank neither gun was particularly impressive to me as they were back then and even as they are now, neither is a gun that I would trouble myself enough to own.