Polish P-64

Polish Radom P-64

     Who doesn’t love the Walther PPK?  C’mon, who?  What if I said you could get a pistol that was “practically” a PPK, with a mystique and history all its own, for about ¼ the price?  Interested?  Okay, well even if you’re not a fan of Walther’s 1930s design, how about a perfectly serviceable, reliable, accurate, reasonably powerful (and so-far, cheap to feed) pistol, sized right for concealed carry that can be had for a nominal price under 200 bucks?  Are you interested now?

     Well, meet the P-64, the Polish service pistol from 1965 through the late 1970s.  It’s chambered for the 9x18mm cartridge, often called “9mm Makarov” since it was initially designed for that pistol.  When one first sees the P-64 it’s Walther roots are clearly apparent.  Now, is it a copy?  Some say yes, some (like the designers) say no.  External and some other basic design similarities aside, there are some internal differences, so let’s move past the similarities between the P64 and the PPK and look at the P64’s own merits.

     It’s a highly concealable, all steel pistol, double-action first shot, single action thereafter.  It features a decocker/safety lever on the left side of the slide that, when engaged, locks the firing pin in place.  The hammer has a rebound type mechanism so that once the pistol is fired and the slide comes back, tripping the disconnector, and the trigger is released, the hammer is sprung back to its resting position.  There it does not make contact with the firing pin until the trigger is again pulled.  I have heard of some models where the hammer may come to rest on the firing pin.  If so, then to the best of my ability to determine, it’s a defective model and should be repaired or replaced immediately.  Parts seem a bit scarce on the market, unfortunately.  Of course, with a price under $200 many folks could easily afford to buy another pistol that either works better or could be used as a source of parts to fix their primary model.  Mind you, I’ve never seen one that was defective as described, only read about one on an internet forum (and everything on the ‘net is real, right?).  In any event, most savvy folks (most savvy right-handed folks, anyway) carry with the safety lever engaged.  I seem to remember similar arguments concerning Walther's PP series several years ago.

     The pistol is fed by a six-round, single stack magazine featuring a small, plastic finger extension on the bottom.  I'm not aware of anyone making flat-bottomed magazines but the 'net abounds with folks discussing how they modified theirs to make them fit better in smaller pockets.  I've found magazines at various on-line retailers for under $20.  The pistols were initially issued with two magazines.  Some still offer it for sale thusly.  The magazine release is of the European heel-clip variety.  Yes, this means you have to reach over with your non-firing hand and push the catch on the butt back in order to free the magazine.  Oh and how you should hear people gripe about that online!  Some folks swear you’ll never do a fast reload with a heel-based magazine catch, those crazy Europeans!  Well, let’s look at a couple of points with regards to that argument.

First off, this is not a duty pistol (at least to the American market and even the Polish military and police establishment complained it was too small for that role).  It’s a small concealed carry piece.  Even if it had a Walther-style or similar push-button magazine catch of the variety so popular here, would anyone really be doing speed reloads?  True speed reloads of the sort a Bianchi cup competitor uses in competition spells a pinched pinky finger when done with a pocket pistol.  I have no trouble reloading mine quickly and (more importantly) smoothly, but I certainly can reload my full-size SIG P226 faster.  And, if I could stick my P226 in a pocket or on my ankle, or make it disappear IWB under a T-shirt like I can my P64, I probably would not be writing this. 

Secondly, I’m not in the habit of just pressing a magazine release button and trusting my empty or malfunctioning magazine to cooperatively jump forth from my pistol.  I’ve logged enough miles (and thousands of rounds) carrying a Browning Hi-Power in the early days of my LEO career and with a GLOCK 26 much of the time thereafter to be in the habit of “helping” a magazine eject.  This is not a bad habit to develop, no matter how “reliable” your pistol’s magazine ejection.  Things happen.  Lint happens.  Debris happens.  Double feeds happen.  Mr. Murphy comes to visit.  If you are in the habit of helping your magazines out of the pistol’s grip, these won’t be nearly as much of a problem.  So, do I prefer a European heel-style release or our more popular push-button release?  It’s a toss-up for me, really.  The way I do it, one is not significantly faster, nor the other significantly slower.

Thirdly, have you ever had the push-button magazine release on your small CCW pistol get bumped?  You know, the pistol is in your pocket, or on your ankle and suddenly you hear a “click” (if you’re lucky) and now best-case, you have a one-shot repeater and worst case, your magazine is now on the floor somewhere.  This is much less likely to happen with a heel-clip release.  Too, if you’re wearing gloves (for those of you in places where you don’t sweat and sunburn in December), that tiny button can be hard to hit … or entirely too easy to hit.   That, as I understand it, is one of the main reasons behind the Euro style release; the mag stays in place until you want to remove it, and when you do want to remove it with gloves on, you can.

Yeah, yeah, okay, so it’s sort-of a PPK clone, it has a heel-style magazine catch that you’ll either accept or not, and it comes ready-made as a pistol tough and reliable enough to serve as the police and military pistol for behind-the-Iron-Curtain work (back when there was an Iron Curtain).  It’s a tough, reliable, easy to conceal pistol for the price of a zinc-alloy ghetto special.  But, you want to know, how does it shoot, don’t you?

Ultimately it shoots quite well, with a couple of reservations.  First off, and this was a major complaint of the Poles, out-of-the-box, the P64 has something like a 25 pound double action trigger pull!  Yes, it is brutal, and no, you won’t get used to it.  When these pistols first came to our shores there was a quick-fix involving, if memory serves, a modified Walther PP main spring.  I’m not crazy about modifying springs.  There is a science unto its self concerning the making and modifying of springs.  Thanks to the good folks at Wolff’s Gunsprings, however, one has but to drop about ten bucks or less in the mail and you can receive a spring (or even a few) made specifically for your Polish P-64 (on their website the pistol is listed under “Polish” not “Radom” as of the time of this writing).  It took me a few minutes to install the new spring (very simple, really) and pulling that double action trigger was no longer a two-finger affair.  The trigger pull is not exactly smooth, but I’ve certainly felt worse.  There is some definite stacking towards the end of the DA pull, but with the new spring it’s not bad.  It’s definitely there, but not really a problem.  Single action is … responsive.  Cocking the hammer (or it becoming cocked after the first shot) does not move the trigger back (like on, say, a PPK).  To fire single action, there is a bit of take-up on the trigger with no real spring pressure.  About the time you begin to feel any resistance you’ve fired your shot.  It’s not quite a hair-trigger, but it is about as light as I’d ever care for a standard carry gun’s trigger to be.

This is a straight blow-back design which means the barrel is fixed to the frame and the slide is held shut only by the pressure of the mainspring.  While this makes for a rather accurate set up (fixed barrel), it means you get more felt recoil.  The 9x18mm cartridge is a wee bit peppy in this regard.  This is not a pistol you’re going to want to spend the afternoon shooting a couple of boxes of ammo through.  I put its recoil in the same class as my Kahr PM40.  Not painful, exactly, but it will definitely get your attention.  The rearmost corners of the slide have been beveled so as to reduce the chance of it biting the web of your hand (again, a ’la the PPK).  It’s still possible to get bitten, and the recoil it’s self tends to make a red “V” on my hand for a few minutes, but it’s vastly better than a lot of other small autos in that while it’s possible to get bitten, it’s not a foregone conclusion.

The 9x18 is an interesting cartridge in and of its self.  It was engineered to be between the 9x19 (a.k.a. 9mm Parabellum, 9mm Luger) and the .380 ACP (a.k.a. 9x17mm, 9mm short).  One could say it succeeds.  The actual bullet diameter is 9.2mm or about .363” as opposed to the other two cartridges which feature .355” bullets.  I haven’t put a chronograph to mine but others who have claim a bit under 900fps for Hornady’s 95 grain XTP JHP load.  There are some domestic loads available which may enhance its capabilities.  But for plain shooting or practice (or real cheap carry on a shoestring budget) Russian surplus ammo is still available for cheap.  I normally find it cheaper than most other center-fire ammo (except maybe 7.62x25mm).  Ballistically  it seems a lot closer to .380 than 9mm Luger, but it seems to have worked well enough for cops and soldiers the former Soviet Union for a long time.

Accuracy wise I found nothing to complain about.  I came across some nomenclature that says the tiny, old-world military-style sites are zeroed at 50 yards.  Maybe, I didn’t shoot a bulls-eye target at that range.  However, from a few steps to 15 yards I shot a group I’d have been proud of from my afore-mentioned SIG P226.  As for longer range (yes, yes, unrealistic) shooting, suffice to say I now know I can knock down pepper poppers at over 75 yards.  Pretty flat shooting little pocket pistol.

So, it’s snappy in the hand.  You really need to spend the few bucks to get the better spring.  Even then, the DA trigger pull is nothing to get excited about.  It shoots an “odd-ball” former Soviet cartridge (that’s C-H-E-A-P and readily available from numerous online sources and your better stocked gun shops).  It’s accurate, reliable, small enough to disappear with IWB carry, and available for a very low price.  As stocks dry up, I expect the prices to climb (remember the super-cheap Makarovs from the early 1990s?), but by how much I cannot guess. 

It has its quirks (the trigger, the Euro mag release) but from a price vs. features & performance standpoint, I don’t think you can beat it.  Mine is definitely not for sale!