Walther PPQ M2 9mm Pistol Review
Major Pandemic 06.02.14
Without question I love my Glocks–my G19, G26, and G17. In fact, my $1,500 Salient Glock 17 is my personal favorite pistol of any I own, but that’s a custom and far from something you can walk in and buy for under $600. All the custom elements I love about my Salient Glock 17 and the functional attributes of the Glock are all integrated in the Walther PPQ 9mm.
In the past decade, Walther has jumped from a waning brand with quality problems to making extremely high value, premium quality firearms. The new Walther has indeed dramatically changed what the company has been delivering with very cutting edge designs. I have been personally very impressed with the PPK re-do in .22LR. The PPX and the PPQ are now available in a variety of defensive calibers as well as a terrific .22LR version for training, plinking, and small game hunting. Today we are discussing the gloriously fabulous PPQ M2 9mm.
Why I am in Love with the PPQ M2
I like many handguns, and I love Glocks. But for the money, the off-the-shelf PPQ M2 is hard to beat. Comfort is probably its biggest selling point. It’s as if Walther snuck into my house at night, took an imprint of my hand, and then went and made a gun around that imprint.
Beyond the sublime fit, the gun points perfectly. An old fitment trick for pistols is to pick a point, such as a light switch, close your eyes, and point at that point with your finger. Nine times out of ten your index finger will be pointing at the fixed point as you open your eyes. A pistol which fits you perfectly will do this same trick, but with the sights perfectly aligned as you open your eyes. The PPQ provides this level of fit for me and thus is extremely fast on target for me even without using sights. Glocks do this for me and so does the PPQ.
Functionally the PPQ operates exactly like any Glock, which is to say that it is void of any external safeties. All the safeties are internal, which is exactly the way I like my pistols. In my opinion the last thing you need is a safety to worry about disengaging in a stressful situation. Just like any revolver, I want to just concentrate on pulling the trigger and hearing a bang from my gun.
Beyond the allure of Bond and appearing recently in several of the new 24 TV series shows, the PPQ M2 delivers a lot of custom features including a light rail, front and rear cocking serrations, two drop safeties plus a firing pin safety, low profile three dot sights, and a Tenifer finished slide. Unlike my Glocks, Walther departed from the traditional block square design with a full contoured frame and slide. All these elements increase the concealment and in the pants comfort of the pistol in addition to looking really very cool.
The PPQ M2 also features ergonomics that work for me, with the hog leg bend at the base of the grip and a comfortable yet aggressive grip pattern as well as front fingerguard grip. The angled hog leg grip is important for me for several reasons, including ergonomic comfort and concealment while carrying. Back when I reviewed the Walther PPX, I was a little shocked how the butt of the unique Walther grip greatly reduced printing and increased concealment.
The slide release is extended and easy to hit as well as being ambidextrous, and the magazine release is reversible and easy to hit for small hands like mine without the obligatory minor hand reposition during the reload to hit the mag release.
And then there is the 5.6lb trigger. There has not been a shooter I know who has not been shocked at the short crisp trigger of the PPQ M2. The trigger is freaking awesome, short .4″ travel, crisp break, .1″ reset, and in many ways very similar in feel to the Walther PPX, but better than the initial prototypes I had shot from Walther prior to release. Honestly it rivals the Salient and ZEV competition match triggers for Glock shooters. The trigger also allows the match grade barrel to stack rounds on targets.
Despite the full sized look of the PPQ M2, it is actually roughly the same size as your standard Glock 19. Yeah, I know its a bit of an optical illusion like one of those 3D pictures you had to stare at for a while. It was a bit of a magical moment when I placed the PPQ M2 on my Glock 19 and witnessed that they were the same basic size. The compact size would explain why I enjoy carrying the gun so much. It’s that great carry-able size with a full sized handgun feel.
Accuracy and Function
The Walther PPQ features a match grade barrel with excellent out of the box accuracy. In my case, Hornady 9mm TAP ammo delivered some impressive groups around 1″ at the 25-yard line. During a little screwing around shooting golf balls at 25-50 yards, I was very impressed that I was still connecting with the golf balls off the sandbags with less expensive Winchester and Federal FMJ rounds.
I had zero functional issues with any ammo fed through the gun from reloads to the premium rounds tested from Hornady, Federal, and Winchester.
Final Thoughts
So for around $550, you can own a gun that will give nearly any competition gun a run for the money, with features that which are difficult to match in this price range of gun. The only complaints I have are that the magazine well need a little more flaring for competition folks, and that magazines run at the $40-$45 range on the street, which seems high when many other comparible firearm magazines are in the $30 range.
I would have also like to see Walther stuff one more round in the magazine given its ¼” extra length over a Glock G19 magazine, but on the other hand, I do not dislocate my thumb putting in the last 15th round in the magazine. I attached a Universal Clipdraw on the side of the pistol and carry it everywhere without the need for a holster. Great gun–thanks to Walther for sneaking in my house to get the hand print.
Specs
- Caliber:9mm
- Finish:Black
- Barrel Length:4″
- Trigger Pull:5.6 lbs
- Capacity:15 rnds
- Overall Length:7.1″
- Height:5.3″
- Width:1.3″
- Weight (empty mag):1.5 lbs
