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I hate to admit it but the post war PP's made by Manurhin in France have uniformly been great.

I might add that I have two Hungarian copies, one in .22 and one in .380, and I think I like them better than most of the real Walthers, and the price can't be beat.

I had the good fortune to be stationed near Ulm, Germany in 1967, and while other GIs my age were touring the Munich watering spots and cathouses, I spent my weekends at the Munich BMW plant and the Walther waffenfabrik. I got to spend a LOT of time in the basement range at Ulm, and I got pretty fair with most of their products after a little practice.

The opinion of the staff toward the production of the PP and PPK [which were made with slides built by the French Manhurin facility] was that they were just a tool, to be churned out for the crude use for which they were meant by unappreciative types, much as the MPL and MPK machinepistols that Walther hoped to sell to the German police and Army, but only peddled to a few third-world buyers. The real skill and serious craft was poured into the Walther PP-Sport models and their Olympic target pistols, priced skyhigh even before import taxes made their cost even more dear.

Myself, I never cared much for the upside-down safety of both the PP-series and their big brother, the P.38 and P.1 Army service pistols. The natural reaction on hitting that lever is downward or toward the target- which on the Walther, drops the hammer to the uncocked position and places the pistol in the *safe* condition.

The little Polish P-64 pocket pistols I favor are the same way, so I just carry the thing hammer down in an ankle rig, and if needed, I thumb-cock the hammer. DA trigger pull is around 15 pounds, and I'm not inclined to go stoning away on the interior parts.

If more serious pocket gun work is needed, or I need to loan a gun to someone who knows a bit about what they're doing but not enough, the choice will be a German or Russian PM Makarov- and the safety on those little goodies works the way I'm accustomed to.

Both are chambered for the Soviet 9mm Makarov cartridge, which I get in 2000 round-plus cartons. And there's now a .22 kit out for the Makarov....

P-64:

PM Makarova:

Possibly, the most accurate gun I have ever owned was a Russian Makarov. I don't mean most accurate pocket gun or combat gun, but most accurate handgun period.

This particular gun, I got in one of my few good trades. I traded an old geezer a Pentax Spotmatic for one. It had adjustable sights and a pretty good single action trigger. Double action wasn't as good but was still OK.

The first time I tried it, I was shooting at the end of an old oil can. It kept putting all the bullets into one, not very large hole from maybe 10 yards. Impressed, I later tried it on paper and it was consistently putting them all into one larger hole at 25 yards. Probably would beat my High Standard Victor or Supermatic Citation.

Also functioned perfectly. Someone should examine those guns to see just how they do it.