Paging Mr. Bond: The PPK in .32 is Back (and it finally works)
Walther has reached into the vault to bring back one of its most classic designs, now refined and ready for a new century. Like a spy in from the Cold, the PPK in .32 ACP has returned unexpectedly, and we have the debrief.
The background of the gun is well established. In a nutshell, Fritz Walter, the heir to the famed Carl Walther rifle works, moved in the early 1900s to expand the company into handguns with a line of simple blowback pocket pistols to compete with models like the Colt Vest Pocket and Pieper Bayard. Moving to more advanced designs using a workable single-action/double-action trigger system by the 1920s, the Polizei Pistole, or PP series, soon became a smash hit, despite it being twice as much as the company’s earlier models.
While not the first DA/SA handgun on the market, the PP was much more successful, and soon an abbreviated version pitched as a detective’s gun, the Polizei Pistole Kriminal, hit the catalog in 1930. With a 3.25-inch barrel and offerings in not only .32 ACP (the original PP’s bread and butter) but also spicier .380 ACP, which was then and still is seen as big medicine for European LE types, the sleek, almost Art Deco, PPK soon filled holsters and desk drawers.
The Walther PP/PPK has some serious history to it. (All Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
A huge driver for the gun came from pop culture. While the Walther PP series appeared on screen in films as early as 1938, it was the James Bond film franchise that kicked the pistol into the stratosphere. Sean Connery’s Agent 007 was first issued a Walther in 1962’s “Dr. No” to replace his favored .25 ACP Beretta.
It would continue as his standard through his six-film run and go on to be picked up off and on by successive generations of Bonds.
The pistol is iconic, and in many cases can be a work of art, as shown here at the Walther factory in Ulm, Germany.
By 2013, with the market demand for the .32 waning in favor of the .380, Walther put the models chambered in the smaller caliber to bed.
Now, with improvements in bullet and propellant design leading to the resurgence of 9mm over .40 caliber, and .380 seen as the new 9mm, and .32 seen as the new .380, the stubby little round is much more popular these days.
So, it should be no surprise that Walther is bringing the “old” caliber back for both the PPK and the PPK/S, in stainless and black variants. We have been testing one for the past couple of months.
More in my column at Guns.com.
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