Talk:Walther P88

Corrections (P88)
The production date range provided in this article is incorrect. Production did not start in 1988. Manufacture of the P88 began in 1987. Walther P88's like all Walther pistols are marked with two letter production date codes. The codes used are as follows:

A=0 B=1 C=2 D=3 E=4 F=5 G=6 H=7 I=8 J (is never used) K9

I personally own a P88 with a IH code and have personally examined at least one other pistol also with an IH code. This indicates that P88's were manufactured as early as 1987. So the earliest known manufacturing year is not 1988. It was atleast 1987. You can verify this with Earl's repair shop, an official Walther German Importer.

It should also be noted that during the civilian production series two variations were created. One variation (the earlier of the two) has a dove tail front sight and has a slide with a rounded top. The other has a groove that runs down the top side of the slide and has a fixed front sight.

Additionally, the pistol was not "designed" in 1988. This couldn't be farther from the truth. The P88 has two different serial number series. The series that was made available to the civilian public began with 001xxx. An earlier series was developed for evaulation by the United States military, a few years before. It had a different serial number series.

As all informed Walther fans know the P88 was designed to compete against several other gun manufacturer offerings as a replacement for the 1911 .45 ACP when the US military decided they needed a newer pistol that could accomodate the 9mm cartridge. The p88 was designed for that purpose and was designed quite a few years before 1988. Unfortunately, The P88 was decide to be too expensive (mostly due to the exchange rate at that time, but was  relatively expensive all on its own as well) and recieved poor ratings during the adverse conditions test and so was not choosen for use by the US military. These facts sealed the fate of the P88.

Walther decided to release the pistol to the public to recoup some of its investment in developing the p88. Approximately 10000 pistols were manufacturered in the civilian series. The pistol therefore was not designed in 1988. It was designed many years before as part of the aforementioned contest.

The pistol is more acurate than traditional "carry" pistols. The design and tolerances under which that the pistol was manufactured resulted is a very acurate pistol. In many respects the pistol is more suitable as a target pistol then as a carry or military pistol which of course is what it was origionally designed to serve as. It is as accurate as any pistol that was manufactured to that time and interestingly enough since that time.

It is also worthwhile noting that despite the high quality of the p88 and its well accepted accuracy, it was not entirely without isolated problems. Due to the way in which it was manufactured a small number of them developed cracks in the frame near the magazine release button. Less than a dozen, out of the approximately 10,000 civilian production run, are know to have had this problem.

The clockworks of the pistol like many high end target pistols were designed and manufactured with many intricate and tightly matched parts. This resulted in a gun with exceptional accruacy however, it also resulted in reliability issues if the pistol were not kept clean. If you want a pistol that you could just throw in the mud and immediate use this is not your pistol.

Aside from the issues above the P88 is a work of art. Perhaps one can consider it a failure with respect to its originally designed purpose but it was exctremely innovative for its time. It gets four stars for accuracy. It gets four stars for innovation and while complicated the clockworks are quite beautiful and artfully engineered. Today, many pistols resemble the P88 but the P88 had several important design elements long before they became the norm.

It's a true collectors item not only for what it is, but also for what its not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.223.243.5 (talk) 14:45, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Airguns (CP88)
These are not variants of the P88 and do not belong here, you should consider creating a separate page for it and linking it to this page. This previously been thrashed out on the Walther P99 page in it's talk section: Talk:Walther P99. --Deon Steyn 11:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'll consider a new article.--Zanes 11:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have just created a new article– Umarex air pistol, perhaps you can start by adding it there under a new "variants" section and then each type of copy would be another variant of the basic Umarex design? Good luck. Deon Steyn 11:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

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 * Walther P88 with Nill wood grips (32415095370).jpg