Walther PPK Slide Fix

[JohnKSa]

This relates to the Interarms PPK pistols made in Ranger Alabama.

I bought one of these little pistols in the early 1990s. It's been perfectly reliable at the range but there was one little wart that has plagued me over the years.

If you start with the slide forward and try to chamber a round from a full magazine, there is a pronounced tendency for the slide to "catch" on something when the rearward travel is nearly complete. When that happens, if you think the slide has reached full rearward travel and release it, or if you can't pull it back any farther even though you know it's not all the way back, the round jams halfway into the chamber with the slide pinching it in place.

The situation isn't helped by the stiff recoil spring.

It's not a problem with the slide locked back, but there's no external slide lock so you have to put in an empty mag, lock the slide back, drop the mag, put in the full one and rack the slide. It's a hassle if you have an empty mag handy, a problem if you don't.

I finally got to thinking about this and realized that the problem was that the rim of the cartridge is catching on the underside of the slide. I don't know why this never occurred to me before, but that's another story, I guess...

The circle in the picture shows where the rim of the cartridge was catching.

With a fine tooth round file, I carefully removed the metal covered by the red "U" in the second inset photo from the left. Be VERY careful here, you don't want to change the profile of the breechface viewed from the front and you don't need to actually remove much metal. You're just trying to change the "v" shaped ramped depression to a ramped trough that extends all the way to the breechface.

Next I used a fine tooth flat file to break the corner of the breechface. That's the red highlighted area in the rightmost inset.

With 320 grit paper wrapped around an appropriately sized punch, I polished the trough, then wrapped the paper around a flat bit screwdriver and polished the rest of the red highlighted section in the third inset photo from the left and the corner of the breechface highlighted in the rightmost inset photo.

Then I repeated the polishing with 600 grit paper.

When finished, I was able to easily chamber a round starting with the slide closed and a full magazine in the pistol. A pretty major improvement.

This project is best done with the slide detail stripped so you don't get metal filings and sanding dust into the works, but if you are careful about how you hold the slide to keep the bulk of the crud out of the back of the slide, you could probably get away with just blasting it with Gunscrubber, Hornady One Shot, or something similar to blow out any unwanted particles when you're done.

I'm not recommending this as a general procedure, but if you're having a similar problem, the pictures look like your slide, and you are handy with a file, this might be something to try. It's a very minor modification if done properly and shouldn't really hurt anything even if it's not required.

If you're worried about the filing, you could just do the polishing steps without doing any filing. That should help some.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=100471&stc=1&d=1447015659

 

[AK103K]

I had a 90's era Interarms PPK/S, and it was constant trouble. The main problem being the hammer following the slide down, putting it back into DA mode. It went back a number of times, and they never did get it sorted out.


As to locking the slide back, you dont need a mag. Using an overhand grip, simply pinch the slide at the serrations with the thumb and trigger finger of your left hand, push it back until it stops, and then slip the pinkie finger of the same hand, into the ejection port, and hook the slide stop with it, and pull it up, and then allow the slide to move forward and catch it. Sounds like a lot when you read it, but its really very simple once you do it a couple of times. It also works with similar sized guns, like the SIG P230's, etc, or anything else that doesnt have the stop, and has a port big enough to get your pinkie in.

 

[JohnKSa]

I'll give the slide-lock back procedure a try one of these days, but the spring on my PPK is stiff enough that I'm not anticipating trying to mess around while holding it open--let alone sticking my finger in the ejection port.

Detail stripping the Walther PPK Slide.

Turn the decock/safety lever so that it is between the two detents. Halfway between safe and fire.

With a thin-bladed screwdriver, engage the block near the rear of the firing pin and push the firing pin forward.

While holding the firing pin forward, completely out of engagement with the decock/safety lever, pull the decock/safety lever out of the right side of the slide. Be aware that there are spring loaded components, so don't just yank it out of there.

Carefully release the firing pin/firing pin spring. They should come out together.

With the decocking lever out, the extractor spring assembly will be free to fall out of the back of the slide. Pay attention to how the assembly was oriented--both in terms of which end goes which direction and how the assembly needs to be turned to properly engage the extractor.

With the extractor spring assembly out of the gun, the extractor will fall out when the slide is turned so that the right side is down.

To remove the chamber loaded indicator, push it back all the way through the breechface with a properly sized punch, hook it with a bent paperclip and pull it upwards. It will probably catch on the firing pin hole and you may have to pull on the back of the chamber loaded indicator where it pokes out of the back of the slide to release tension so you can pull it all the way out of the slide.

Pay attention to how the spring for the chamber loaded indicator was oriented and be aware that the indicator and spring have a front and a back so you can get them back in the proper orientation when reassembling the slide.

Assembly is the reverse. Nothing really needs lube, but if your gun is going to be carried, it would be wise to wipe down the springs (or any blued surfaces) with a silicon cloth. If you really have to lube something, a tiny dab of grease in one the safety/decock lever detents probably wouldn't hurt.

Here's a picture of the slide after being modified.