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NOTE: Possibly dangerous situation with Walther P22 safety...

64K views 46 replies 28 participants last post by  1917-1911M 
#1 · (Edited)
There's a lot of posts on this forum about the safety walking to the "on" position under recoil. That's annoying, as the gun "going" to "safe" while you're at the range is unexpected.

The problem, it seems, is that the way they designed the detent balls on the safety, allows the safety to lose engagement and go "on."

Mine had this problem on its first trip to the range, and dressing the detent holes on the "fire" position fixed it. My gun now stays on "fire" under recoil.

Last night, however, I noticed a much worse problem. I dry fired the gun a couple of times with the safety "on," and noticed that the safety was MOVING from "safe" to "FIRE!" in about two dry fires. EGAD! Looks like the same thing, the detent holes weren't keeping the lever firmly in place. The hammer hits the safety, when it's "on," in a location that creates rotational / angular force, and this was rotating the safety to "off."

Ultimately, I fixed the situation by doing the modifications on this page:

http://www.sju.edu/~bc165187/fixes.html

That fixed the situation, but I wanted to bring it to everyone's attention. If your gun has this issue, dropping the hammer onto the safety can possibly cause the safety to disengage, and if a round is in the pipe this can be VERY dangerous.

Now, I was doing dry firing practice with a verified unloaded weapon and all my ammo locked up in a safe. "Good" range and safety practices should keep you out of trouble (i.e., when you're working with or anywhere NEAR live ammo, you don't pull the trigger, whether the safety is on or off, without having the gun pointed down range...), but its still something to be aware of.

And ultimately, its an issue that would cause me NOT to suggest this gun to novice shooters. My opinion of the gun is high, but I'm worried that you need to be a mechanically adept "tinkerer" to get the bugs worked out. Not good, in my view.
 
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#28 ·
Howdy
I've just received a new P22 and have been function checking it. The pistol will cycle by hand with the safety ON and OFF.

I can pull the trigger with the safety on, and it cycles completely. I keep my thumb on the hammer due to it being a rimfire, but the trigger pull cocks the hammer and releases the hammer on both S and F.

Is this normal? (I really don't think so)
 
#30 ·
Absolutely normal, allows you to chamber a round with the safety on. This is good.

It is also good that you can lower the hammer by pulling the trigger with the safety on. Although I do this with my thumb controlling it's fall it is still much safer. If for example I'm halfway through a mag and the target has actually been hit and I need to set it up again and I want to decock the hammer with a round in the chamber. Safety on first, then safely lower the hammer. Slips, I'm covered. Not so on my 1911 unless completely unloaded. That baby better not slip or there's going to be noise, smoke and fire, lead splattering and flesh removed. :eek: M1911
 
#32 ·
What a dumb *** I am. I just traded my 15 year old perfect condition Ruger Mark-II, 6 7/8 bull barrel for a new Walther P-22. :eek: I wanted something smaller that my wife and I could handle a bit better.

I checked out a couple of links and saw that the newer models seemed to have taken care of all the flaws. After purchasing it, ( I haven't taken position yet ) I dug into the info and found this board. I'm concerned I did a really dumb thing. After an initial bad clip feeding problem on my 15 year old Ruger got corrected ( new clip ) I had never had any issues with it except for feeling like Wyatt Erp when I pulled the giant barrel out. I really don't shoot much I just thought it was a neat looking little pistol and got carried away. Did I make a huge mistake! The guy gave me $200.00 for my Mark-II

Signed - Ignorant:(
 
#34 ·
What a dumb *** I am. I just traded my 15 year old perfect condition Ruger Mark-II, 6 7/8 bull barrel for a new Walther P-22. :eek: I wanted something smaller that my wife and I could handle a bit better.

I checked out a couple of links and saw that the newer models seemed to have taken care of all the flaws. After purchasing it, ( I haven't taken position yet ) I dug into the info and found this board. I'm concerned I did a really dumb thing. After an initial bad clip feeding problem on my 15 year old Ruger got corrected ( new clip ) I had never had any issues with it except for feeling like Wyatt Erp when I pulled the giant barrel out. I really don't shoot much I just thought it was a neat looking little pistol and got carried away. Did I make a huge mistake! The guy gave me $200.00 for my Mark-II

Signed - Ignorant:(
Oh Lord, if you had posted this over at the Ruger Forum, they'd hound you to kingdom come. The Mark II has been discontinued and replaced with the new politically and legally correct (read that lawyer resistant) Mark III. :eek: While the Mark II is not quite the Holy Grail of Ruger semi-autos, it is getting there.
 
#33 ·
rger8,

You can avoid problems like this by following the advice given to me by a close friend (and gun-gomer)... namely, NEVER SELL A FIREARM.

However, I own both a Ruger MKII and a P22 and they're both good guns, each designed for a different purpose. The Ruger is more reliable, but the fun factor on the P22 is very high - I like mine lots. It gets 2 or 3 times the trigger time as the Ruger.

As long as you're not planning to use it for self defence... I think you'll be fine.

My P22 is about 2 years old, has about 3000 rounds through it and the only sniffle it's had was the front sight fell of (recently) - easily remedied.

Hold on on your judgements 'till you get it. You may be very happy with it.
 
#35 ·
Biran B, Thanks for making it sound like not a total bummer. I like what your buddy said, " Never sell a gun" makes a lot of sense...... now!

Big Bad Wolf , Thanks for making me feel like a bigger *** than I thought! Please don't post this to the Ruger forum!

Anyway, What's done is done. At least I can consult the experts on this forum for future reference. Hopefully I wont have any major problems and all will be well. Thanks for both your feedback. As I indicated I have not been into guns for soooo long and hopped back into it without checking the current status of the industy or the worth of my old guns!

Sometimes your the pigeon and sometimes the statue!
 
#36 ·
Thought this was worthy of mention regarding the safety modification. I did the mod approximately 800~1000 rounds ago, as I was having the all too familiar safety travel or 'walk down'. After taking some material off the safetys snugged up better against the slide and the travel stopped. Today however one of the ears on my safety broke. Upon examination of the broken piece I can't say it was the result of the modification at all, but I would like to caution you folks doing this procedure to take care when filing the section closer to wear the 'ear' meets the round section as this is the thinnest section of the mold, and may possibly weaken the part and thus increase the possibilty of a fracture.
 
#41 ·
it seems to vary, I bought mine in 04 and it works perfect, I did have an issue with the mag safety, but I saw no use for it as none of my other guns has one, so I removed it and it fixed the issue with the hammer falling to half cock when trying to fire from double action...
But a friend of mine bought his in 05 after liking mine alot, his had the issue.

Just take a look at the way the safety works, mine it's pretty solid and it does not switch to easy, it takes a little bit of force.
My friends was easy to move, later on it would move on its own.
 
#42 ·
I purchased my P22 in Apr 09. It's date code is AH. After 1100 rounds, the safety would walk from Fire toward Safety between the second and third shot from a new mag. It did it over and over again.

Before my next outing, I checked that the safety screws were tight. In fact the ball under the safety lever is beginning to etch a line in the slide. I thought perhaps the safety bar was being rotated by friction with the hammer as the slide went rearward. So I put a drop of oil where the hammer and bar meet.

Next time at the range I fired about 20 shots before I noticed the safety starting to move. I pushed it back to the firing position and pressed in on it with my thumb. I fired another 30 or rounds before I had to repeat the procedure. It only happened twice during the 135 rounds I fired that day.

My P22 has the 5" barrel. Until this occurred, I had planned on purchasing another P22 with the 3.4" barrel. I've given up on that. Yesterday, I was thinking about buying a PK380 until I started worrying about it's safety.
 
#43 ·
This hasn't been reported for quite a while as Walther has tightened the tolerances between the safety levers and slide and installed a thread lock on the screws. The cure is the same as before, remove a little material to allow the levers to sit closer and tighter against the slide. I would wash all oil out of the safety and not re-oil it. It does not need any oil. You will never wear it out moving it from safe to fire. An easy fix but one that wouldn't be necessary if Walther redesigned the safety so that the bottom of the breech block was full length and cocked the hammer instead of the safety bar. This would eliminate the gap that catches the hammer too. M1911
 
#44 ·
As I'm not mechanically inclined, I sent my P-22 back to Walther yesterday. Mine would sometimes fire with the safety engaged. I will let everyone know what Walther decides the fix is. Although it's out of the 1 year warranty, I'm hoping they won't charge me much if anything as this has and is a repetitive problem. With the value of a used Walther not being very high, repairs could exceed its value and turn it into an expensive paperweight.
 
#46 ·
Something is broken if this is occurring. There are two safeties that are engaged when the safety lever is set to safe. The safety drum physically blocks the hammer from being able to hit the hammer and a cam on top of the drum engages the firing pin which stops it from moving should the pistol be dropped or the hammer hit. In addition there is an internal firing pin block. S&W will repair it at no cost. M1911
 
#47 ·
Walther tightened up the safety years ago. Have not read of the safety rotating from the hammer dragging on the safety drum in years. Your safety ears should firmly click in the safe and fire positions. Never should movement of the slide move the safety position. Something was not right with BB61's pistol. Broken part, I do not see how a P22 can fire with the safety set to safe unless several parts are broken inside. Would be good to get an update, something that doesn't happen all too often. M1911
 
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