Walther SP 22

Dave45-70

So I've just run across a few Walther sp22's for sale and they looked very intriguing... But I was wondering if anyone has heard (good or bad) anything about them.

Dave45-70

I need some expert gunsmithing advice.I recently purchased a Walther SP22,had some accuracy problems and send the pistol to S&W they replaced the barrel and did trigger work,but I still had problems.This time I had to send it to Walther in Arkansas,they shot 5 rounds and said nothing was wrong and sent me the target,which was a good group .When I took it back to the range from a sand bag rest at 50 ft. the first 6 shots were in the bullseye,the next shots were all over the board with a spread of about 7" not good for a target pistol.Since Walther will not do anything about it,do any of you pistol experts have any idea what could be wrong and can a local gunsmith correct the problem.Any help or advice is appreciated.

babun

Give the gun and different ammo to another good shooter first, to make sure it is the gun and not you. Try lots of different ammo also.

rufe-snow

Agree with previous poster! .22 ammo and barrels very substantially. Some ammo that I have had fouling problems with in certain barrels, is the Mexican Aguila and Remington Thunderbolts. CCI is your best bet for quality .22 ammo.

Clean the barrel to make sure their is no fouling in it. Then try CCI standard velocity. If it still has problems with fouling, the rifling in the barrel is most likely the culprit.

Get rid of the Walther as the rifling isn't compatible with common ammo available in the U.S.

EDIT #1, One That I worked on a number of years ago had fouling problems. If the chamber wasn't kept clean their were persistent failures to fire, until the chamber was cleaned. Accuracy didn't seem to be affected though.

If you have been shooting it with various types of standard velocity and target ammo, with the same continuing problem, obviously something is rotten in Denmark.

EDIT #2, Tank has made a excellent point! Dug out the manual for the SP. It does have a threaded barrel that is retained by a muzzle nut, that is tensioned by a O-ring. There is also a "Front Cap" that positions the barrel in the housing that is secured by another nut. If either one of these nuts are loose it would very likely have a negative affect on accuracy.

Smith and Wesson also made a run of 22 pistols back in the 90's. Whose barrels were held in position by similar muzzle nuts. Although tensioned by a lock washer. They also had a tendency to loosen. ( Don't ask me how I found out, the hard way. )

charliemeyer007

Sounds like an ammo issue. Have you shot it enough to polish the barrel insides? Maybe some JB Bore paste and elbow grease. I like shooter's choice to cut leading.

Extract a live round that was feed from the self loading cycle and look for damage.

+1 for try all the different ammo you can. I have really poor luck with the bulk packed crap.

Dave45-70

I have tried 3 different brands and I did have a friend who is a bullseye shooter try it not any better group. I will try JB and another brand of ammo,so far I've tried Winchester T-22, Remington,and CCI,no improvement so far. Thanks

TANK78Z

Have you checked the barrel nut ? the one on my older p22 was not tight when purchased, it shot a little wild.
I believe the sp22 has the same barrel setup.
During a thorough cleaning of my p22 I noticed the barrel nut was Loosely tightened , after snugging it down, the groups became much tighter, not great, but very acceptable.