I went to the range recently and took with me a Walther P22. My objective was to see what kind of .22lr ammo works best in the gun. It was going to be a straight forward test. I stopped by my local Walmart, bought a box of each kind of .22lr they had in stock, and went happily off to the range. After setting up my targets about 10 yards away, I thoroughly cleaned the pistol in preparation for the testing. The test consisted of firing 50 rounds of each of the seven kinds of .22lr ammo I purchased, with a cleaning in between each set of 50 rounds fired. For the cleaning, I field stripped the gun and used a nylon stiff bristle brush to knock off any large deposits of fouling, followed by a nice bath of Break-free spray cleaner, a light oiling, and a wipe down with a clean rag. This was done to give each ammo fired a clean, unhindered testing. No fouling from the previous test ammo was left on the gun for the next test. The results are as follows:
Federal 550 round value pack, 36gr bullet, 1280fps
failure to fire: 0
failure to feed/extract: 16
CCI Stinger, 32gr bullet, 1640fps
failure to fire: 0
failure to feed/extract: 0
CCI Mini-Mag HP, 36gr, 1260fps
failure to fire: 0
failure to feed/extract: 0
Remington Thunderbolt, 40gr bullet, 1255fps
failure to fire: 1
failure to feed/extract: 0
Remington Subsonics, 38gr bullet, 1000fps
failure to fire: 1
failure to feed/extract: 1
Remington Target, 40gr bullet, 1150fps
failure to fire: 0
failure to feed/extract: 0
Winchester Super X High Velocity, 40gr bullet, 1255fps
failure to fire: 0
failure to feed/extract: 1
After seeing the results, I found that my new favorite .22lr ammo was the CCI Stinger and Mini-Mag. Both of the CCI loads worked great. The Stinger was my favorite as it had the highest velocity. When fired from the short barrel of the P22, it sounded more like the crack of a 9mm or 40 caliber than a standard .22lr. When I was shooting the Stinger it made people do a double take, not believing that the little gun I was shooting was making such a ruckus. I would definitely recommend the CCI Stinger or Mini-Mag for this pistol. These functioned flawlessly and even though I was not testing the accuracy of each ammo, I did notice a significant difference in the group I was shooting.
All the Remington ammo I fired did fairly well, with only one or two malfunctions with the Thunderbolt and Subsonic. The Remington Target however did very well with no malfuctions at all. Earlier in the week I did basically the same test with all the same ammo as recorded here, but for my own personal information. Those tests yielded very similar results. At that time I had one more kind of Remington ammo that I could not locate this time around. It was the Remington Yellow Jacket, which has a 33gr bullet, and an advertised velocity of 1,500fps. That particular round actually tested badly in the P22, resulting in about 8 failures to feed/extract.
Now, to my surprise the Federal ammo did terrible in the P22. So bad in fact, that I tested it a second time that day. The second test suffered 14 failures to feed/extract. This surprised me due to the fact that this ammo is all I ever use in my Ruger MKII and various .22lr rifles with few to no problems at all.
All in all, the Walther P22 is a very nice pistol. It is comfortable in your hand and rather accurate for such a short barrel. It also has an interchangeable back strap. There are two extra backstraps of different sizes to accommodate a variety of different sized hands. Though it seems to be a little picky about ammo, it will run just fine if you stick with the higher end .22 rounds. Steer clear of the cheaper, bulk value packs.
During this test I ran my Ruger MKII (my .22 cal pride and joy) right next to the P22 as a comparison. Only difference is I didn’t clean the MKII. It didn’t experience any problems until several (close to 6) hundred rounds in. Most of those several hundred rounds consisted of the Federal ammo.
Since there are so many more kinds of .22lr out there, I will most definitely be obtaining more kinds and testing them as well.