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NcongruNt wrote:Good job. I've got a 5" P22 and have found it to be very dependable. It's not picky on ammo at all, unless its just bad ammo *cough*RemingtonGoldenBullet*cough* with bad primers that won't ignite no matter how many times you hit them.

The trigger is a bit lacking, as it's quite gritty at the end of the pull, but is an OK starter.

That was pretty easy to fix. The trigger bar is a stamped, die-cut piece of metal. The edges are not clean up at all. The mfg grinds the bare minimum number of surfaces required to get it to work at all.

I filed off all the sharp edges and rounded and polished all the sides and edges. It made a huge difference and the trigger is very smooth now.

I just picked up a Walther P22 because I was looking for a semi-automatic pistol my 12yo daughter could learn to shoot with. The other option was a Sig Mosquito. I didn't want anything with "real pistol" weight and slide springs as I know she won't be able to run the slide on a full size gun.

I saw pretty much nothing but hatred for the Sig, so I looked at the Walther. General opinion is that it has a few problems but they can be fixed. There is a member on Rimfire Central that has a lot of good pictorials and a P22 Bible that is really useful. I bought the pistol and became a shade tree gunsmith. I tore it apart and did all the recommended fixing and polishing and put it back together. I've worked on N scale steam locomotives and other small mechanical stuff before, so this wasn't much of a challenge. A few springs were hard to get back in, but pretty easy to work on in my opinion.

I did a functional check this morning and shot about 200 rounds of Walmart Federal bulk pack .22LR through it with only 1 FTL. I was getting 3-4" groups at 7 yards which I think is decent considering it is a short barreled, inexpensive pistol shooting cheap ammo.

My daughter helped me clean it tonight and we went over safety and how all the parts work. We practiced working the slide with the unloaded pistol after we put it back together and she can do it. I'm going to go over safety and operation a few more times and then take her to shoot it this weekend.