Disassembly and Reassembly Of the Walther P22 Pistol

When I say this is a "busy" pistol, you only have to look at the schematic to see what I mean. With the exception of the trigger-locking key (#29), almost all the parts from #6 to #34 will be found in the right sideplate (#3). Among those parts that are not part of this subassembly are the slide-stop lever (#15) and its spring (#16). They’re located on, but not pinned to, the left sideplate (#2).

A few things have to be done before you can get at those sideplates, and getting at them is a must for detailed cleaning or part replacement. Field Stripping The first step is field stripping. But here’s the rub: For some unexplained reason, at least unexplained to me, the field-stripping instructions in the P22 owner’s manual are woefully inadequate. We’re not, for example, even told in which direction to rotate the takedown lever (#17). Actually, it’s not really a lever and you don’t rotate it.

After you engage the safety, remove the magazine, and check the chamber to be sure it’s empty, you grasp what I’ll call the "takedown block""a more appropriate description for the part" cock the hammer, and pull the block down toward the bottom of the triggerguard. It doesn’t go all the way to the bottom and you’ll probably have to wiggle the frame back and forth to get the block moving. It will be particularly stubborn with a brand-new pistol.

The one I worked with here was fresh from the factory and "stubborn" isn’t even the word. I had to "encourage" downward movement of the block by inserting a wooden tongue depressor between its upper end and the slide. To see how far down the block has to go, check the fieldstripped photo on page 4. Sometimes, I’m told, it only has to be moved enough to allow the slide to be pulled back far enough so its back end can be lifted clear of the cocked hammer.

Then it can be controlled in its forward movement and separated from the receiver, leaving behind the 4-inch barrel. A 5inch barrel is available for shooters preferring a longer sight radius. mainspring (#22) and guide (#21). The P22"s frame is polymer, and to avoid confusion between it and the sideplates, from here on out I’m calling it the "housing.

Since the housing and takedown block are polymer and the slide is nicely finished metal, you won’t want to use anything harder than a wooden or plastic wedge as a lever to get the takedown block started. Housing damage, damage to the block, and a scratched-up slide are almost certain to be the result of using anything harder. At this point with many smallcaliber handguns, you can go after

any fouling that has accumulated with an aerosol solvent. Not so with the P22. A harsh solvent such as carburetor cleaner could weaken (or melt) the polymer housing and polymer parts. So I suggest you go after fouling with a toothbrush dipped in dishwashing detergent and then degrease with denatured alcohol. After that, you can proceed to the next step. Detailed Disassembly Both safety levers (#39 and 40) are retained by screws (#41). Both levers house a detent ball (#42) and spring (#43).

These are pressed in and are normally retained in the levers when the retaining screws are backed out counter-clockwise. With the screws gone, the levers can be withdrawn from the safety block (#38) which, being captured by the firing pin (#36), will stay in the slide. There it will remain until you push the firing pin forward and push out the block in Right top: To avoid damage and to make reinstallation easier, the pins retaining the sideplates in the housing should not be drifted completely out.

Right bottom: In this exterior view of the right sideplate, its retaining screws are clearly visible. Nothing larger than a #0 Phillips-head driver or bit should be used in removing them. either direction. Everywhere it says "dowel pin" on the parts list it should read "roll pin." So wherever you see a dowel pin identified, reach for your roll-pin punches. The dowel pin (#32) that retains the breech block (#31) drifts in either direction.

Once the pin has This basic takedown is inadequately addressed in the owner’s manual, but is thoroughly explained in the text. The arrow indicates the magazine release, which pivots downward. cleared, tap the block forward to remove it from the housing. Turn the block over. The firing pin, firing-pin safety (#44), and safety spring (#45) will drop free. Be sure to keep track of the safety and spring. They’re much easier to lose than the firing pin.

Invert the slide and drift out the extractor pin (#35) from the bottom upward. When you do this, keep an eye on the extractor (#33) and its spring (#34) that are housed in their respective slide recesses. If the pistol has come to you with complaints of inaccuracy and you’re reasonably certain the problem isn’t being created by shooter errors, you can remind your customer that the 3- 1/2-inch barrel that usually comes on the pistol can be replaced with a 5inch barrel that’s more appropriate for target use.

The owner’s manual describes in good detail how that longer barrel is installed, along with the stabilizer assembly (#52) that comes with it. (I think the stabilizer does more cosmetically for the P22 fitted

1 Receiver 2 Sideplate, Left 3 Sideplate, Right 4 Stove Bolt 5 Stove Bolt 6 Trigger Assembly 7 Trigger Pin 8 Hammer Assembly 9 Sear 10 Sear Spring 11 Ejector 12 Magazine Catch 13 Straight Pin 14 Dowel Pin 15 Slide Stop Lever 16 Slide Stop Spring 17 Takedown Lever 18 Dowel Pin 19 Dowel Pin 20 Retaining Pin with a longer barrel than it does to improve accuracy.) Of course, the pistols’s owner has probably already lost the manual, but a free one by calling and asking for "cus- " The phone will be 21 Spring Guidance Rod 22 Mainspring 23 Magazine Safety 24 Magazine Safety Spring 25 Trigger Lock 26 Trigger Lock Spring 27 Backstrap 28 Backstrap, Large 29 Trigger Lock Key 30 Slide 31 Breech Block 32 Dowel Pin 33 Extractor 34 Extractor Spring 35 Extractor Pin 36 Firing Pin 37 Firing Pin Spring 38 Safety Block 39 Safety Lever, Left answered "Smith & Wesson," but it’s not a wrong number.

That legendary company is very much involved with Walther these days. Moving on to other possible accuracy complaints, the rear sight is adjustable for windage.

You don’t have 40 Safety Lever, Right 41 Screw 42 Ball, Safety Lever 43 Spring, Safety Lever 44 Firing Pin Safety 45 Firing Pin Safety Spring 46 Barrel, 3.4 Inch 47 Barrel Sleeve 48 Barrel Nut 49 Barrel Nut Spanner 50 Barrel, 5 Inch 51 Barrel Sleeve, Long 52 Stabilizer Assembly 53 Allen Key 54 Allen Key 55 Magazine Body 56 Follower Walther P22 Semi-Automatic Pistol (Specifications subject to change without notice) 57 Magazine Button 58 Magazine Butt Plate 59 Magazine Spring 60 Butt Plate Retainer 61 Magazine Butt Plate, Large 62 Rear Sight 63 Rear Sight Screw 64 Washer 65 Front Sight #3 66 Front Sight #2 67 Front Sight #4 68 Filler Plug 69 Dry Fire Simulator (not shown) 70 Mounting Pin 71 Worm Screw (not shown) 72 O-Ring 73 Magazine Catch Spring to use much force, and shouldn’t, to turn the adjusting screw (#63) in moving the sight to the right when rounds are printing to the right or to the left when they’re printing left.

The frontsight can be lowered if rounds are printing low or high, but not by ad-

justing it. You replace it. For low hits, install a lower sight, and for high hits, replace it with a higher one. The sight to be replaced is removed by pressing it forward from the slide. After all is said and done, the best way to determine exactly what needs to be done to solve an accuracy complaint is to accompany the customer to a range and observe how he or she is handling the pistol during a livefiring session. In the process, check to see how the gun fits the hand.

Besides extra front sights, Walther provides an extra back strap in the box with every P22. This is a great idea. A pistol that doesn’t "settle into" a shooter’s hand comfortably is certain to raise accuracy complaints, and changing from one back strap to the other is very simple. Drift out the dowel pin (#14), swap part #27 for #28 (or vice versa), and reinstall the pin. Below top: Here you can see the shallow recesses in the left plate for the slide-stop lever (A) and its spring (B).

A couple of approaches to retaining these parts during reassembly are discussed in the text. Below bottom: Indicated here are the locations of the ejector pin (A) and the breech block (B). The pin is drifted from this point of view upward for removing the extractor and extractor spring. Now we can turn our attention to the housing and what lies within.

Detailed Disassembly Of the Housing and Sideplates The trend with German handgun designers seems to be to place firing systems in a "frame within a frame." I’ll have to admit, however, the way this is done on the Walther P22 is nowhere close as complex as that of the Sig Sauer Mosquito I reported on a couple of months ago in the March 09 issue. And you don’t have to have a factory fixture to work on the Walther. With the P22, both sideplates are held to the housing by dowel pins (#18 and 19).

Note: #18 is slightly longer than #19. These can be drifted out in either direction, but I suggest they only be drifted far enough to free the sideplates and remain protruding from the right side of the housing. Lift both plates from the housing, but keep a finger over the slide-stop lever and spring on the left plate. Otherwise, they’ll drop off. No pin secures them. They are held in place, barely, by their plate slots.

It’s a good idea to place a strip of tape over the stop and spring to keep both from escaping, thereby saving you time searching for them later on. Place the adjoined plates on their right side. Drift the trigger pin (#7) inward until it disengages with the upper (left) plate but remains connected to the trigger. On the right side of the combined plates are two fasteners identified as "stove bolts" (#4 and 5), one longer than the other. They are, in fact, aluminum machine screws.

Using anything larger than a #0 Phillips driver bit to back them out will risk tearing up their heads. Removing both stove bolts allows separation of the sideplates. When doing so, no matter how little wiggling is done to the left plate in finalizing a parting, the ejector will probably be dislodged from the right plate. Place that plate flat on your bench and the "guts" of the P22 will be staring you in the face. Working from your right to your left, start disassembly with the hammer assembly (#8).

Pull the hammer slightly to the rear and press down on the upper arm of the sear (#9). This relieves any pressure on the hammer and allows easy control when moving it forward. With the hammer forward, there’s no pressure on the components associated with it and you can continue. Lift out the hammer assembly.

I recommend not taking it down further unless a broken or damaged part is evident, and I’ll get into how the hammer spring should be reinstalled in the upcoming section on "Reassembly Tips." Next in line are the sear and its spring. They ride on that pin floating in space in front of the ejector (#11). That pin doesn’t run completely through the plate. It fits in a hole and works in combination with a second pin, this one permanently affixed in the plate stud, to retain the ejector.

But as you may have realized by now,

Right top: In this after-reassembly view of the right plate, the ejector (A) has fallen from its dual mounting pins, but the sear (B), trigger bar (C), and leg of the hammer spring (D) must be as pictured. Right bottom: Here, the trigger assembly has been partially detached from the plate to show the magazine safety (arrow) and its spring. In its present position, the spring lies flat in the safety recess.

Correctly positioned, it tilts up at about a 45-degree angle. the arrangement doesn’t retain said component very well. (Note to the designer: How about giving usa little more of that stud pin to hang onto?) Drift pin #7 out in either direction (it isn’t a roll pin), and remove the trigger assembly (#6). Set it aside. The spring in the trigger assembly, I am told, is prone to losing its tension’even in the experienced hands of factory repair people.

Beyond that, the spring and all other components of the assembly are not available separately. Walther has elected to resolve any damage to them by making a complete replacement assembly available. So, if any breakage or tampering shows up in a trigger group, the only "fix" for it is to order and install another assembly.

Before getting into reassembly, I’ll interrupt this message to mention the "P22 bible." It’s not a book, but if you key those words into your computer’s search engine and punch the "enter" key, you will be rewarded with a sizable and profusely illustrated downloadable file that provides an incredible amount of detail on the P22.

After learning of the bible from the Walther technician who briefed me on this pistol, I referred to it more than once while working on this article to ensure I was not omitting anything critical regarding take-down and reassembly of the pistol. Reassembly Tips The outer housing and other parts are polymer, the sideplates are aluminum alloy, and all pins and threaded retainers are steel. This combination of ingredients means that you must work carefully.

You began taking the right sideplate down with the hammer assembly, and you begin putting it back together with the sear/sear spring. Then drop in the hammer assembly. If for any reason this assembly has been stripped all the way down, the hammer spring has to be retensioned by using a small tool to swing its lower, straight leg over and behind the curved recess near the rear of the plate (see photo). The ejector has two holes. The lower one is for the pin nub in the sideplate stud.

The upper one is for the floating pin to pass through on the way to its sideplate hole. I want to mention the safety-lock key (#29) setup. The key turns the trigger lock (#25) to block the trigger. The lock itself holds the long leg of the lock spring (#26). There’s a hooked Dend to the spring and a depression for it in the right plate. To reinstall the trigger assembly, put it in position and install its pin from the right just far enough to capture the trigger.

Align the trigger pin with its hole in the left plate and finish installing it to be flush on both plates. Now reunite the plates with the stove bolts. A drop of blue Lok Tite on the ends of the bolts will keep them from vibrating loose later on. Don’t overtighten those screws. Remember what I said about their heads? Now flip over to the left sideplate.

Assuming you taped the slide stop and spring in place earlier, start installing the plate after tilting the hammer to the left to get everything aligned. (You’ll probably hear an audible click when all is lined up). Push both plates into the housing and slowly pull off the tape, replacing the tape with a (continued on page 17)

finger. Continue pushing both plates down until the housing can take over for your finger, and then quickly seat both plates. Reinstall their two dowel pins. In case you didn’t tape in the stop and spring as suggested earlier, there’s away they can be installed prior to joining up the plates with the housing.

The slide-stop spring should be back in the plate where it came from. (You didn’t forget to take a close look at this arrangement before disassembling the left plate, did you?) The spring’s bent end attaches to the hole in the slide stop located under the center tab, and the stop seats somewhat in the groove for it on the plate. Then you can tape them down so you can proceed as directed above. I found that trying to hold everything together without using the tape was impossible.

At least I couldn’t have done it without having several more hands. When reinstalling the breech block, a dab of Vaseline will retain the firingpin safety and spring in the block. The slide should be inverted in preparation for rejoining it to the housing. Place the mainspring and guide rod in the housing.

Start the slide on, and compress both guide and spring with the mounting pin (#70) until the slide can be moved far enough rearward to be lowered into engagement and con- Binder Ad (p/u from page 18, AGM-March 08) trolled to its full forward position. Doing this is easier if you cock the hammer before starting the final reassembly. By the time you’ve got the Walther P22 all back together, you’ll be asking yourself the same question I did: Why can’t these little rimfire pistols be simplified? I