Walther Steel PDP Match
The Case of Steel v. Polymer
Because the Walther PDP Match was a polymer pistol originally,
rendered in steel, it is much bigger and heavier than it technically
needs to be. Compare the size of the PDP Match SF (left) to the
classic all-steel Browning Hi-Power (right).
In Frank’s experience, Walther’s PDP pistols have
been very accurate guns.
On the surface, it seems a little odd to make a steel frame version of a polymer frame pistol. Outside of legacy platforms like the 1911 or Walther PPK, you don’t see many new production handguns made with steel frames at all.
Polymer frames, molded to their precise shape, are vastly more efficient for high production manufacturing, lighter, don’t rust and can be more durable than steel frames because of the physical flexibility of plastics that allows them to resist permanent denting and deformation better than steel. Steel’s major advantage over polymer in a handgun frame is its greater strength and rigidity allow the frame to be physically smaller and resist flexing that might negatively affect manufacturing tolerances. You simply don’t need as much material to meet engineering requirements.
Compare the physical size of the polymer frame Walther PDP Match with a Browning High Power, the classic, steel, high capacity, autoloading pistol of the 20th Century, and you’ll notice steel Hi-Power has a much thinner slide and frame and is a considerably smaller pistol overall. A more compact handgun is easier to pack and conceal, but the trade-off with steel is its weight. For example, comparing again the polymer frame Walther PDP Match to the Hi-Power, their unloaded weights are 27.1 oz. and 32.3 oz., respectively. The bigger gun actually weighs five oz. less! I offer this preface because it will put Walther’s new 42.7-oz. PDP Match SF (Steel Frame) into its proper context.
04 Plastic sights are standard on both models. The steel pistol (left)
has a rounded beavertail to save weight.
The steel gun (left) has a one-piece wraparound grip panel, is slightly
thicker than the polymer gun (right), and doesn’t have the option of
multiple backstraps for DIY customization.
Polymer Roots
The PDP Match was engineered as a polymer handgun. The PDP Match SF is a steel gun engineered to look virtually identical to its polymer brother, which is why it weighs nearly a pound more. It’s massively overbuilt. You could argue that Walther should have just redesigned the steel gun to take advantage of what the material has to offer rather than making a heavyweight twin. In their defense, people recognize and like the PDP and those that already use a polymer PDP will find the PDP SF completely familiar in function and feel, if not behavior. Because the polymer and steel guns are nearly twins, the difference in their behavior is attributable solely to the difference in their weight. Shooting them side by side was an enlightening experiment.
At first glance, the steel Walther PDP Match SF (left) and the polymer
PDP Match (right) seem like identical twins. The difference is apparent
when you pick them up. The steel gun weighs 42.7 oz. empty, while the
polymer gun weighs 27.1 oz.
Weight Benefits
Unless you have to carry it everywhere with you night and day as soldiers do, or the weapon is so weighty as to be slow and awkward to deploy, a heavy firearm isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, as in the case of the PDP Match SF, it’s a very good thing because it lets you shoot faster with greater accuracy. In general, a heavier gun absorbs more recoil impulse than a lighter one, making it more pleasant to shoot. Less recoil equates to less disruption of the shooter’s sight picture and hold on the firearm, allowing for faster realignment of the sights on the target between shots.
The steel frame PDP Match SF has an MSRP of $1,899 compared to $1,099 for the polymer-framed PDP Match. That should give you an idea of what type of shooters the steel gun is oriented to. Walther made this gun for serious competitive shooters and law enforcement professionals seeking to maximize their performance in the match course of fire and on the street.
For muzzle rise testing, Frank made a slow-motion video of himself
shooting a string of 10 shots as fast as he could and then isolated the
frames just before the moment of firing and at the apex of recoil,
measuring the difference between the positions with a protractor.
Weight was shaved off the steel model (left) by narrowing
the trigger guard, dispensing with the shield under the
magazine ejection button and angling the front of the accessory rail.
Recoil Science
Not being a serious competition shooter or a policeman, I know I can’t get everything out of this pistol that it has to offer. However, even a recreational shooter or casual shooter will notice it has considerably less recoil than the polymer gun. It is a remarkably soft shooting and smooth cycling pistol. I contrived an experiment to try to document this by making slow-motion video recordings of myself shooting a 10-shot string with each pistol as fast as I could at a target seven yards away. The camera was fixed, so I could go frame by frame and isolate the image at the moment before firing and at the apex of recoil, and then measure the muzzle rise with a protractor. I was also able to document the time it took to fire the string within a few tenths of a second. I wouldn’t say it was an advanced research facility-level study, but it was at least equivalent to a high school science class lab.
The steel frame gun was faster and easier to control. The polymer PDP Match showed an average muzzle rise of 12.4 degrees. The 10-shot string took 5.5 seconds to fire, with the shots clustered in a 3.73″ group. The PDP Match SF showed an average muzzle rise of 11.1 degrees. The 10-shot string took 5.0 seconds to fire, with the shots clustered in a 4.22″ group. Muzzle rise during recoil was 1.3 degrees less than with the polymer gun, which allowed me to line up my sights on the target faster. In my one-time test, the steel gun gave me a 0.05-second edge per shot. I’d love to see Walther get a world-renowned speed shooter to do this test 20 times in a row. By the way, after the test and before studying the data, I felt like I was faster with the steel gun. Take it for what it may be worth.
Field stripping the steel PDP models is different from the polymer guns.
The steel guns use a rotating takedown latch rather than a pull-down
type commonly associated with GLOCK pistols.
There are quite a few common fire control parts between
the steel (left) and polymer (right) PDP pistols, but the slides,
frames and barrels are not interchangeable.
Same But Different …
Despite their close resemblance, the polymer and steel pistols do have notable differences. The polymer gun uses a pull-down style takedown latch for disassembly, while the steel gun has a rotating takedown latch. The slides and frames are not interchangeable. Both guns have the Performance Duty Texture tetrahedral grip surfaces, but the steel frame grip uses a removable, one-piece, wrap-around panel that is slightly fatter with less pronounced finger swells and doesn’t have the user-customizable interchangeable backstrap feature the polymer gun does. A wide variety of aftermarket grips for the PDP Match SF and other steel Walthers are available from www.lokgrips.com. Compared side-to-side, the sharp eye will notice that the steel frame has slightly less bulk than the polymer frame in certain areas to shave down the weight and improve the balance.
On the steel frame, the nose of the accessory rail is cut back at an angle and the grooves are tapered back closer to the triggerguard, resulting in slightly less usable rail space. The triggerguard is narrower and thinner and lacks the broad shield at its undercut below the reversible magazine release button, and its beavertail is rounded off instead of squared like the polymer gun.
On the inside, I noticed the steel gun had an enlarged magazine well that was shimmed down to size, a steel recoil spring guide rod instead of plastic, a different cam design to unlock the action and comparatively huge slide guide rails. I’m told by Walther that long rails have less to do with accuracy than barrel-to-slide lock up, but it certainly can’t hurt. This PDP Match SF has a very tight slide-to-frame fit and has notably less wiggle room than my polymer PDP Match.
Note the difference in the barrel camming and lock-up engineering
between steel (bottom) and polymer (top). Also, note how the steel
gun’s magazine well is cut large to save weight and shimmed to size.
The PDP match pistols require aluminum base magazines
offered with 18-round (left) or extended 20-round capacities.
Comparisons
The accuracy of the two pistols was comparable. Both have a 5″, 1:9 twist, polygonal rifled barrel and Walther’s short pull, crisp breaking, Dynamic Performance Trigger (4.75-lb. pull in the polymer gun and 5.5-lb. measured pull in the steel), are optics ready and have adjustable, plastic, open sights. I did my testing from the bench rest at 25 yards, shooting several five-shot groups with each load, measuring the most widely separated shots in each group center to center, and averaging the results. Velocity was recorded on a Competition Electronics Pro Chrono digital chronograph set 15 feet from the muzzle.
Federal Premium 135-grain Hydra-Shok JHP grouped on average 2.89″ and averaged 1,120 feet-per-second (fps) in the polymer PDP and 2.49″ and 1,085 fps in the steel gun. Velocity extreme spread and standard deviation were identical with this top-quality defense load. Remington-UMC value pack 115-grain JHP grouped on average 1.79″ and 1,221 fps in the polymer gun and 2.08″ and 1,226 fps in the steel gun, which is again pretty close. With Winchester’s M1152 Modular Handgun System, Active Duty, Training, 9mm +P, 115-grain, FMJ truncated cone bullet load, the polymer gun averaged groups of 3.38″ and 1,313 fps while the steel gun averaged 1.53″ groups and 1,300 fps. That’s a dramatic difference and just serves to illustrate how guns can be particular in the ammo they like.
The Walther PDP SF is a sexy, oversized beast of a steel pistol and a delight to shoot at the range. Walther made it for the best shooters to exploit, but there’s no reason anyone who can lift it can’t enjoy it. The plastic, GLOCK pattern, open sights seemed incongruous on such a high-end pistol until I learned Walther expected the PDP would be used primarily with optics. Once you decide on what optic you’re going to use, Walther will give you an adapter plate for it, and, if you wish, you can purchase indestructible steel back-up-iron-sights from them in the appropriate height for a low co-witness with many brands of optics. In addition to the Match PDP SF, Walther also makes a steel frame 15-round, 4″ barrel compact and the 18-round 4.5″ barrel full-size model more suitable for concealed carry, with a slightly lower MSRP of $1,699.
For more info: WaltherArms.com
