Originally Posted by
JonInWA
I've had 2-3 P5s, and a P5C, Jody. The P5 was a great pistol-IF you were willing to dedicate the necessary hammer time to get totally grooved in with the trigger pull, as it was slightly on the heavy side for the DA pull, and had a distinct "hitch" as the final portion of the triggerpull mechanically lifted the firing pin into position to be struck by the falling hammer.
The German plastic OEM grips were a bit fragile, and susceptible to cracking/marring/softening when exposed to common US cleaning solvents-Earl Sheehan of Earl's Repair specifically recommended Kleenbore's Formula 3 as one of the few US ones that were viable without causing harm to the grips.
Walther's rifling also extends a bit further into the chamber more so than pretty much any other contemporary combat pistol that I can recall, making chambering some cartridges dicey, if not impossible; Cor-Bon's 115gr hollowpoints come to mind.
I automatically simply replaced my P5 grips with a set of Hogue rubber Cobblestone grips-apparently Hogue got the Dutch Police contract for P5 grips-they may even still be a catalog/available item-otherwise there are the beautiful, ergonomic Nill grips, but they're very pricey.
I never really liked the P5C. It's balance never really felt "right," I thought it's aesthetics were ugly to the point of homely (yeah, not a criteria for an efficacious gun, but at Walther prices it was a bit off-putting), and, most critically, the hammer strut was embedded in a plastic fillet piece, which, as Walther's plastic of the day tended to do, over time crystallized and cracked, loosening the hammer strut from its mooring, rendering the gun TOTALLY unfireable. This was a TOTAL deal-breaker for me-I had Earl's repair it, and promptly sold it. I've anecdotally heard that the Brits for their contract P5Cs had the polymer fillet piece replaced with a metal one to preclude what happened to mine, but I've never been able to physically verify that.
This problem is unique to the P5C-the P5's hammer strut is anchored to the frame by a hanger protrusion as I recall.
Mechanically the P5 is an engineering marvel-beautifully manufactured and fitted. Unfortunately slight dimensional differences and a different heel latching system preclude magazine interchangeability with P.38/P1/P4 magazines, which can usually be found at a lower cost. I believe that some enterprising souls did experiment with cutting or punching a rectangular latch receptacle in the spines of such earlier model magazines, but the practice never became wide-spread, and as I recall such modded magazines protruded a bit from the magwell, and looked a bit odd.
A beautiful gun, and very viable within its limitations, but pretty much totally rendered obsolescent by the Glock G19, among others...
Best, Jon