Smith & Wesson are recalling Walther PPK and PPK/S pistols manufactured between march 2002 and February 2009.
Link.
While S&W will pay shipping, they do not say if they will pay dealer fees to have pistols returned.
Correct me if I am wrong but in this case you wouldn’t need a dealer. You can overnight the firearm straight to S&W and when repaired they can overnight it back to you, seeing as you are the owner and no 4473 needs to be filled out.
Hm. That sounds vaguely familiar. Do you have a cite? (Or I can call S&W tomorrow.)
Anyway, just thought I’d post the notice in case there are other PPK or PPK/S owners here.
In other news, British Commander James Bond shot himself in the foot today…
‘Missh Moneypenneh, I think you’d better take me to bed.’
Is there an actual mechanical flaw, or is this just a case of trying to out engineer the butterfingers of the world? I mean “Smith & Wesson’s Product Engineering Group has determined that the possibility exists in certain firearms that lowering the hammer may cause a chambered round to fire.”
Well yeah, most of my double action pistols can do that same thing, provided I drop that hammer too quickly. I’m not familiar enough with the firing design of a PPK to know for certain and wiki doesn’t indicate if this is a striker fired pistol or not.
The safety de-cocks the pistol, and rotates a block over the rear end of the firing pin/striker. The end is still visible in a U-shaped cutout in the safety cam. I can imagine that when the safety is engaged, and the hammer falls with the normal force, a striker that sticks out a little too much may cause a round to be fired.
But the notice says the condition may occur when the safety is disengaged. If the safety is engaged, the hammer is already down. So how can the hammer be lowered? Obviously, if the hammer is cocked, one can lower it by holding it with the thumb and pulling the trigger. But the notice says ‘without the trigger being pulled’. I wonder if disengaged is a typo, or if there is another condition I’m not thinking of.
I suppose my not understanding the verbage comes down to is it *while *the safety is disengaged (rather obvious) or *when *the safety is disengaged, which I could see posing a bit of a problem.
‘While’ hadn’t occurred to me. I just got off the phone with S&W, having asked them about the condition. The rep on the other end didn’t seem to know the specifics. Instead, he repeated that a hazardous condition has been identified and that all of the pistols in the s/n range must be returned for repair. He said that the condition is rare, but that all of the pistols must be repaired whether the condition exists in a specific one or not. He did mention that with the safety engaged a blow to the hammer may result in a discharge.
He also confirmed that there is no need to ship the pistol back to owners through a dealer, and that it would be delivered directly to the owner.
Nice job on the legwork Johnny. Too bad that they didn’t have more specifics.
A quick bit of Googling on my part turned up this that someone else was able to get from Walther:
“When you have your pistol loaded with a round in the chamber and the gun is on SAFE (meaning there is a hammer block holding the hammer back a fraction of an inch) there can be a discharge when the hammer travels that fraction of an inch from the blocked position when you disengage the safety.”
Sounds to me that it’s the hammer block not being a nicer style rolling block, but instead when the safety is disengaged it just drops the hammer instead of easing it down. I don’t know if that’s really a product flaw or just people not used to firing 60+ year old double action German pistol designs.
See, this is the good thing about telecommuting. I can do my work, and also read the Dope. (Actually, I’m only telecommuting today because I have a cold and it’s best I don’t infect people.)
On my PPK/S I engaged the safety. The hammer, obviously, is down. Then I disengaged the safety while examining the hammer. The hammer did not move at all. With the safety engaged I pushed on the hammer. There was slight movement, indicating the hammer is being held slightly back under spring pressure. Holding the hammer forward as far as it would go, I disengaged the safety. The hammer moved forward as it rode the cam down. Upon release, the hammer returned (aft) to its resting position.
Given that the hammer does not move at all when it is at its resting position when the safety is disengaged, it does not appear that there is any way for it to tap the striker unless the safety is off and a blow is delivered to it.
Which brings us back to the purposefully vague “Smith & Wesson has identified a condition that may exist in certain PPK and PPK/S pistols which may permit a round to be discharged without the trigger being pulled.”
This condition would appear to be “Loaded pistol thrown repeatedly at brick wall”. Looks like they’re just suturing up a lawsuit loophole with the recall.