Walther P99 AS

Walther P99 AS

My name is Tim and I’m a Waltherholic.  Yep, given pretty much any similar choice and I’ll take the one with that famous banner stamped thereupon.  Way back in 1997, the year before I made detective (man, that statement makes me feel old!) Walther introduced the P99 and it was an immediate hit.  Not only did it impress several nations’ militaries and police forces, but it was a hit with me.  Something about it just struck a nerve and I knew I had to have one.  The pistol has gone through several variations through the years and we now arrive at the P99 AS (Anti-Stress) pistol.  Gone is the proprietary rail on the dustcover and in its place we find not only cleaner lines but a more universal rail allowing the end user to fit a wider variation of his or her preferred aftermarket implements such as lights and lasers.  More on that in a wee bit.  I wanted a P99 and I have finally at long last brought one home.

My new Walther P99 AS

Upon my retirement from the police agency with whom I spent most of my career, our Animal Control officer, knowing my love of the design, brought his P99 .40 to work with him so I could have the experience of shooting it.  I shot it quite a bit that last day and greatly enjoyed it.  Call me a stickler, though, but I wanted the 9x19mm version.  Ballistic reasons aside, once I retired I would no longer have the key to the ammo closet and would thus need to secure my own shooting fodder.  Costs to income ratio being what they are, I wanted a more affordable round.  Also, every .40 S&W caliber pistol I’ve ever shot had quite pronounced recoil and muzzle flip (well ahead of the .45 acp, in my opinion) and my friend’s P99 was no different.  Although it was softer shooting than our issued SIG P226s and P229s, it was still quite a thump to my somewhat arthritic hands. 

I looked for, handled and priced several examples but all were priced well outside my range.  The last example I saw at a local gun show, admittedly in excellent condition, was priced at $600 used.  Fast forward about 3 years and I found a like new in box, with all the goodies Walther P99 on an auction site.  Cost, 2-day shipping and transfer fee at my LGS all totaled $400.  How could I say no?  Obviously I didn’t and I thus became the proud owner of a very nice pistol.

My high-cap 9x19mm choices for CCW these days is usually my Browning Hi-Power or my Glock 26.  I love that old Hi-Power and despite its 13 round magazine, it hides pretty well even under a t-shirt.  Alas, it has a lot of sharp edges (and a notoriously stabby hammer spur) and, not to sound wimpy, but it’s a might heavy too.  Normally that’s not an issue and goodness knows it’s ridden many a day IWB back in my “I have one duty/off-duty gun” days.  But now, in my 50s, things like sciatica and other old-man issued limit how much weight I can tote all day, every day (or at least some days).  The Glock 26 has been a long-time companion as well, both as a backup and at times as a primary duty pistol.  I keep three mags loaded for it, a flush-fit 10-round mag, another 10-rounder fitted with a +2 floorplate giving me a pinky rest and a total mag capacity of 12 rounds, and a 17-round magazine fitted with an X-grip to fill in the space between the floorplate and the bottom of the pistol’s abbreviated grip.  The latter choice essentially gives me a model 17 with a model 26 barrel.  That’s the way I keep it for in-the-house and bedside duties and frequently how I carried it, although the 12 round mag probably got a little bit more time for IWB carry.  That baby Glock is great, easy to shoot, and surprisingly accurate.  Alas, like all hi-cap Glocks, it’s a bit thick.  Call me old fashioned but I absent a thumb safety I like my first shot to be Double-Action as well.  Yeah, yeah, but that’s how I feel.

I’ve looked at and considered a Glock 19, one of the pistols I consider about perfect for overall carry.  The 26 is so short that it doesn’t stabilize well in most IWB holsters I’ve tried (with the exception of Aliengear’s excellent hybrid rig).  The 19 has just enough more barrel length to stabilize the piece and the little bit of extra grip length barely compromises discreet carry (body size and carry methods vary, of course). But the Walther P99 is overall just a fraction shorter, and though it’s ever so slightly taller (.21”) it’s 1.65 ounces lighter. and .7” thinner.  That thinness is important for anything that shares my waistband.  While I’m not obese and am considerably lighter than I was when I retired (how I hate that fat guy photo of me that hangs on the wall in my old department) thinner is generally better for IWB carry.

The weapon arrived and other than a tiny scratch on the left side of the slide just below the front edge of the wide ejection port, it looked like it had never been out of the box.  Frankly, that could well have occurred during shipping from the factory as a few weeks of nearly constant carry have produced a bit more wear that that tiny, hard to see scratch.  I’m not saying to the finish isn’t durable and there is certainly no rust.  But there are very faint marks on the trigger guard where the security device in one of my holster engages.  Again, hardly noticeable, and any gun you carry is going to get banged up some.  If such bothers you, leave it in the safe.  Along with the weapon was the case, all the paperwork including warranty card and test target from the Walther factory.  Three alternate sized backstraps were included along with four front sights of differing heights (one came installed on the pistol).  Two 15 round magazines came along as well.  The medium sized backstrap was installed on the weapon and it fit me fine.  I tried the smaller one, though and though it was barely perceptibly smaller, it felt quite good and I figured adds just a pinch to concealability so that’s the one I went with.

I dug out three holsters for it, one a Don Hume leather clip-on IWB leather holster.  It was made for a SIG P229 but fits the P99 very well so I figured it would give me a fair assessment without me having to purchase what might be yet another resident for the dreaded Box of Misfit Holsters (c’mon, we all have one).  The  Aliengear hybrid IWB for my Glock 26 fit it securely enough that I used it for a while too.  Finally I have a Safariland 578 GLS paddle holster that adjusts to fit a wide variety of similarly sized pistols.  It was fitted to my Glock 26 and the P99 fit into it fine but it could move about just a little.  So a turn or two with an Allen wrench and it now fits my Walther like it was made for it.  Lacking belt tension (the main manner of security for the two IWB holsters I mentioned, the GLS needs to fit a pistol just right.  Too tight and you’ll play havoc drawing it, too loose and … well, I doubt your weapon will fall out as that trigger guard catch is pretty darn secure, but it will rattle around a bit and why risk breaking a holster and/or losing a gun?  

The pistol carries quite well whether in a holsters similar to those I mentioned or with just a Kydex trigger-guard cover and lanyard.  For that matter, although not prescribed and certainly not to be recommended (L-I-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y) it carries well in the old “Mex-Carry” holsterless, stuffed-in-the-waistband-behind-a-snug-belt manner too.  That’s how we did it “back in MY day” when those of us who carried off duty couldn’t afford expensive holsters but were leery of anything cheap enough to be in our cop-pay price range.  A little forward cant (i.e. FBI tilt) keeps the pistol from printing even under a t-shirt.  Frankly I’m amazed I can walk around carrying it while shopping, walking the dog in the park, etc. and a duty-sized (if arguably compact) pistol can go unnoticed even when only covered by a t-shirt.  The weapon is light enough to be quite comfortable for all day carry as well.  That's something that cannot always be said for many other weapons featuring all steel frames (although I do love those heavy, solid frames, great throw-back that I am).

So, how does it shoot?  Quite well, as one should expect.  A bit of a caveat here is in order, however.  First off, do not, unless you want to embarrass yourself and ruin your trip to the range, even think about putting aluminum cased ammo in this pistol.  I bought a 100 round box of Independence brand aluminum 115 gr FMJs that my local big box store had on sale.  I got a failure to eject (dreaded double-feed) during the first magazine run and by round #38 I had a failure to extract that resulted in an aluminum case stuck firmly in the chamber.  I was later able to get it out without damaging the weapon but that box of ammo is a definite no-go for me, at least for this weapon.  The Walther’s massive extractor darn near tore the rim off the cartridge case, too, so there’s that.

Oh, and if you do any research you’ll find that there is one often repeated criticism of the pistol and that is the design of its windage adjustable rear sight.  The manual says just turn the screw, you know, like you do with any other screw-adjusted rear sight?  Alas, it lies.  See, there is this spring powered plunger that rises out of the top of the slide on the right side.  The top of the plunger has a notch.  The adjustment screw on the rear site has a square head.  Do you see where this is going?  To adjust the sight, the plunger needs to be held down very, very carefully and the screw turned by ¼ turn increments.  Make very sure when all is said and done the rear sight screw is firmly sitting in that slot on the plunger.  Most likely you’ll turn the screw, and wind up popping off the rear sight.  Don’t fret if that happens.  Set the sight atop its slot, guesstimate where it needs to be, turn the screw until it looks right, reinsert the sight in its notch from the left while holding down the plunger and fitting it to the screw-head.   Yeah … or just replace the rear sight with one that doesn’t require that silly, over-thought, over-engineered spring/plunger assembly bit of engineering madness.  Hey, it’s a German gun so something had to be over-engineered.   More than likely you won’t need to adjust the rear sight anyway as it comes sighted from the factory (although there are stories of one test-firer at Walther who feels the need to drift rear sights all the way to the left … ah, but I digress).  If it shoots low or high with your chosen carry load, simply replace the front sight with one of the extras.  That process is fairly simply.  Or, hey, choose another load.  Handgun rounds aren’t death-rays, so likely as not whatever you wind up carrying will do about as well as anything else.  Reliability and Accuracy are the primary qualities in a handgun of this type.

Anyway, following my learning experience with alternate ammunition casings, I returned to the range with a much better selection of ammo, including rounds from Federal, CCI, and other top name brands (I'm pretty sure brass cases ammo of good manufacture should work fine).  115 and 124 grain rounds were quite accurate and the installed front sight was indeed the correct one, saving me any further drama.  I began by shooting at 7 yards.  I fired 5 rounds of CCI 115 grain FMJs going for something close to one round per second or slightly slower.  I was initially shocked and chagrined to see only two holes in the target.  One, right where I’d been aiming, and another not quite an inch higher and left.  My angst turn to pride, however, as I got closer and realized that three rounds went into the first hole and two in the second.  Not bad, not bad at all, new gun jitters and everything!  I fired some more, varying from a few steps to 25 yards, but I won’t bore you with the details.  Suffice to say it is a very accurate handgun.  I noticed it was still shooting just a pinch to the right.  I fumbled with the rear sight for a bit and it now shoots ever so slightly to the left.  I mean not so much that you’d notice, especially at combat ranges and even at 25 yards it was all around the bulls-eye.  At 50 yards I could hit a Pepper popper every shot aiming dead center.  But at 75 yards I had to aim right about the width of the front sight blade to knock down a Pepper popper.  At that point I was just showing off so I left the sights where they were.  Please note in the below groups that I had "new gun jitters" which, I suspect, accounted for more of the off-center shots, especially elevation issues) than did any sight mis-alignment.  Of course, that also means that any degree of decent accuracy is due more to the pistol's inherent accuracy and ease of shooting than to my own skills.  Hmm ... I probably should have left that bit out, eh? ^_^

A quick 5-shot group from 7 yards
              (yes that's 5 hits, 3 in one hole, 2 in another) 

Five more shots, from 15 yards this time
               (total of 10 hits showing)

And five more 25 yards (showing the total group)

I tried some rapid draw-and-fire drills and found the weapon pointed very naturally.  In one drill, I started maybe 3 yards from the target, drew and began firing while stepping to the side and then backpedaling.  I stopped shooting once I got almost to the seven yard line.  I was shooting very fast and I don’t think I did more than just glance at the sights once or twice.  Nevertheless I could cover all the shots with the bottom of one of the P99’s magazines.  It didn’t seem to favor one brand or weight (115 or 124 gr) over another, at least in my informal and practical testing.  If I were shooting bulls-eye matches I’d probably test many other loads.  Or more likely I’d be loading my own.  For that matter, if I were doing any serious bulls-eye shooting I most likely would be using a purpose built target pistol and not a compact duty weapon.

The "AS" in the model name P99 AS means "Anti-Stress" and refers to it's trigger action.  When one first loads the weapon in the common manner for loading a semi-automatic pistol, the internal striker is cocked, making the weapon in essence, a single-action pistol.  The trigger, however, stays forward.  That is the "Anti-Stress" setting which let's you have a single-action pistol with the trigger in the same starting point as it would be if it were being carried double action.  When you apply the initial tiny bit of pressure to the trigger, it rolls back effortlessly with your continued finger pressure to the "cocked" position where it stacks to about a 4.5 pound single action pull weight. That "cocked" position is also where the trigger stops after being fired and on subsequent shots.  The shooter has two options here.  First, if you like to keep things short and light, once you've fired and want to go back to trigger-forward mode, you can retract the slide just about 1/8 of an inch and let it got back home (mine is still so new and stiff I usually have to give it a bump on the rear of the slide to be totally sure it's back in battery).  The trigger will jump back into its forward post once more.  Or, if you want your first shot to be double action (a'la ye olde typical DA/SA semi-auto "wondernine") simply depress the little oblong button on top of the left side of the slide, just a wee bit forward of the rear sight.  That will decock the firing mechanism and your first shot will then require a longer yet smooth and quite manageable trigger pull (9 pounds according to the factory).  This is the way I prefer to carry mine as I am quite used to the DA/SA style of pistol and lacking a manual safety (I know, I know, I'm a dinosaur) I would rather have a slightly heavier and longer initial trigger pull.  Sure, I know, there are ten thousand reasons why I'm wrong but I did carry a gun for most of my life (professionally), went through a LOT of upscale firearms training (including FBI's SWAT course back in my SWAT days), and have had to "draw down" on more than a few folks who were determined to bring harm to myself or others.  So I like to think I have at least some degree of first hand knowledge over some arm-chair commandos and range rats regarding what works well vs. what might not.  That said, I really like the options on this pistol and find shooting it either way (with the relatively light DA first shot or with the respectably light and smooth SA) to be accurate and easy.

There is a round hole in the rear of the slide through with the red colored end of the striker's cocking indicator will protrude if the weapon is not in DA mode.  You can watch the indicator drop back into the slide when you press the decock button atop the slide.

Oh, insofar as my chosen load, I decided against my normal “old boy” load of Federal's excellent 9BPLE 124 gr +P+ and went instead with Federal’s standard pressure 124 grain HST jacketed hollow points.  I did a lot of research and I’m not losing much velocity (well under 100fps) but in all the test I’ve seen the HST performs spectacularly and without the added wear I might bring to my pistol with +P+ pressures.  I’m not saying this is my forever load but I like it and the pistol likes it (that’s what I was hitting the poppers with at 50 and 75 yards).  Again, though, any quality load you choose should serve you quite well.  I've said it many times, pistol bullets poke little holes, period.  Shove a piece of 9mm drill rod (or 10mm, or 11mm, or what have you) and the results I would imagine will be very similar to what a similarly sized handgun bullet will do, with the exception of bone fragmentation.  Okay, also, contact shots add the effects of expanding gases going into the wound but insofar as the damage from a bullet's path, I stand by my drill rod analogy.  Still, you may want something with enough "uumph" to get through light cover and to reach the vitals of a bad guy even at weird angles, but not exit a human body (or at least not go two blocks down the road and through an exterior wall into someone's nursery).  Frankly, that's asking a lot from any handgun round, but modern defensive ammo manufacturers have come a long way and, IMHO, the HST line is usually about the closest as we can get to that magic bullet.

To sum up, the Walther P99 is an excellent pistol for someone searching for either a great service pistol or a good home defense or CCW handgun.  We're in the height of spring here on the sunny (and bloody hot) Alabama Gulf Coast so we'll see how well it carries in the dreaded summer heat soon enough.  I expect it'll stand up to Summertime abuses far better than I usually manage to.  My prediction is that my new P99 will prove an excellent summer carry pistol and may even get carried in times and places where I may only otherwise have had "just" a micro .380.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, I think I need to go shoot my new pistol some more.

 Overall Observations

Dimensions / Weight	7.1” length, 5.3” height, 1.1” width
Caliber / Capacity	9x19mm / 15 round magazines (.40 S&W available with 12 rd mags)
Action	DA/SA striker fired with “Anti-Stress” option
Pros	·         Very accurate and Reliable (with good ammo) ·         Lightweight for the size/capacity, ·         Rounded Edges that make for quite comfortable carry. ·         Overall a very ambidextrous design ·         Affordable after-market holsters, sights, magazines, parts and such are easy to find.
Cons	·         Rear sight is over-engineered and if you need to tinker with it, be careful or better yet, replace it (not a huge deal but worth noting). ·         Not a fan of aluminum cased ammo (again, not a big deal but you need to know this in case you hit the bargain bin on your way to the range).
Comments:	It’s a Walther!  Enough said! J