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P99: The Pistol that Rejuvenated Walther (Ad-free)
🕑 Added 2024-11-20 12:00:05 +0000 UTCFor a couple decades after World War Two, Walther survived on legacy designs - the PP/PPK and P38 (eventually made with an aluminum frame as the P4) primarily. In the 1970s they developed the P5 for German police use, and this was a reasonably successful pistol, but expensive and complex. Something more modern was needed to keep the company relevant in the market. The first attempt was an all-steel Browning style pistol, the P88. This was put into production, but was never very popular. Next was an attempt to recreate the PP in 9x19 with a locked breech, the PP90. This was a complete failure, never getting past prototype stage. And by this time the company was essentially bankrupt, and was put up for sale.
German airgun manufacturer Umarex came to the rescue, wanting to see a historic German company remain underGerman ownership. They purchased the firm, and a new R&D effort led to the release of the P99 in 1996. This was a truly cutting edge pistol at the time, with a polymer frame, interchangeable backstraps (the first production pistol of its type to have this feature), ambidextrous controls , and a remarkably good DA/SA striker firing system with a decocking button. With company manager Wulf-Heinz Pflaumer putting a preproduction example into the hands of James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) in "Tomorrow Never Dies", the gun got off to a hot start, and proved very successful, rescuing the company from financial disaster.
Over about 25 years of production it was licensed to several additional manufacturers (including S&W and Radom), made in a variety of colors, trigger styles, and calibers, and not finally discontinued until 2023.
Comments
FCWVFX
forgot to mention the factory windage adjustable rear sight!
Jack Wakeland
Ian, you misspoke. The Walther P-88 has an aluminum frame. I do not own one, but I believe the Walther P-5 also has an aluminum frame. In all my years listening to you, I have not once ever spotted an error in any of your extraordinarily detailed snd informative statements and I couldn’t possibly begin to list the number of confusions about firearms designs/history that you straightened out in my “reasonably-knowledgeable-person” mind. You need to eat your Wheaties, brother — and keep up the good work.
Florian Preik
Hallo Ian! Florian here (the federal police guy from IWA). You made a little mistake. The P4 is not a P38 with aluminum frame. This discribes an P1, the BW standard pistol. The P4 was developed for a german state police, especially for the Bereitschaftspolizei. It has a shorter barrel and a decocker, with no manuell safety. The slide is also different, more like a P38k late production. My organisation (formally known as BGS) used both variants. The BGS (federal) and the Bereitschaftspolizeien (state) always hat the big stuff. 9mm pistols, machineguns, rifles, instead of 7.65 pistols, which the patrol duty used. The P4 is you can say the missing link between the P1 and the P5. Greetings from germany!
Charles Riggs
I used a P99 in .40 S&W for EDC and in IDPA for a few years and absolutely loved it. It had superb ergonomics and the best trigger of any polymer pistol, but the .40 round was more than a pistol designed for 9mm could handle. Still a superb pistol, and the PPQ that succeeded it is one of my carry guns now.
Guido Schriewer
but they feel like a brick a mile above the hand. that slide... triggers ain't too bad though. P6 was a very very great piece, the P5 was not. I'd go with the dao of the 99.
Hijack
The decocker sending itself to space was hilarious, I’m sure they sold plenty of spare springs for them
Kenneth Marshall
Umarex also exploited its popularity by offering the P22 which is still in production - the Umarex 22 clones have been widely popular in the P22 format - I think mine is 20 years old possibly.
Garrett Wright
I was wondering when this was coming after seeing the BUG match video! I can't wait to sit down and watch this after work today. I've been collecting P99s for a while now and have gotten extremely lucky to have found some extremely rare ones.
