Home of the PDP and PPK: Factory Tour of Walther's German Plant
In this installment of our Select Fire series, we traveled to Walther's state-of-the-art factory in Ulm, Germany, to see what goes into making some of the most renowned firearms in the world.
Founded in the Thuringian Forest town Zella-Mehlis, near Suhl, by gunsmith Carl Walther in the 1880s, it was his son Fritz – holder of over 80 firearms patents including some of the most innovative in semi-auto pistols – who took the family business to international acclaim and success, starting with his Model 1 in 1908.
This led to a long line of pistols including the PP and PPK, which remains in production today.
Walther was located in Zella-Mehlis from the 1880s through World War II. Occupied first by the Americans in April 1945, it was later demolished – blown up –when the Soviets moved in three months later. (Photo: Walther)
Shifting operations to the Danube bastion town of Ulm after the war, the company was able to restart, producing adding machines until eventually building a new factory in that city in 1953. The factory had to start over from scratch with just the folder of plans and drawings that Fritz Walther was able to escape with to the West, just one step away from the Soviets.
Walther, along with other historic gunmakers who had escaped the Soviet occupation of East Germany after WWII, managed to share a building in Ulm until they could set up a new factory, which was in operation from 1953 through 2006. Vaunted new designs such as the GSP sport pistol, KK-Match rifle, and P99 pistol series were developed at this factory. (Photo: Walther)
The current Walther factory, in Lehrer Feld along the autobahn just outside of Ulm, contains nearly 130,000 square feet of floor space and opened in 2006.
Ulm, located on the Danube, is a beautiful city. (All photos unless noted: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
The company's new factory. Walther has been in Ulm since 1945 and in this current factory since 2006.
It is the birthplace of such groundbreaking firearms as the PPQ and its all-steel sisters, the Q5 and Q4 Steel Frame, and today's PDP series while continuing the company's Olympic sports heritage with designs such as LG 400, LP 500, and KK 500.
We were lucky enough to be invited inside for a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility.
Note the evolution of a PDP frame from blank to something more closely resembling Walther's flagship pistol.
The floor is crowded with modern CNC machines.
That's a big difference.
The same goes for the slide.
During the process, measurements are as precise as thousandths of a centimeter.
While the company maintains an ever-expanding 185,000 sq. ft. facility in Arkansas, some components are still made in Germany. Company officials tell us that upward of 70 percent of the consumer production at Ulm gets sent to the U.S.
We also came across the last run of P99s.
After 25 years of production, the P99 Final Edition is heading to consumers.
And of course, Walther is renowned for its sport guns.
Going past CNC machines, there are still a lot of steps, such as adding the rifling to .45 ACP barrels, done by hand.
Speaking of the "old ways," Walther maintains an in-house craft training program, in which students get several years of firm foundation
in traditional gun-making.
The school is very much a world of bench vices and workbenches.
And, of course, there will always be painstaking detail work, such as polishing barrels...
...and slides. Here, we see a before (bottom) and after (top).
Chamber feed ramp polishing.
Deburring frames.
Assembly.
A lot of consumers who are well aware of Walther's pistol offerings have little idea of just how important the company's precision sports line of small-bore rimfire and air-powered rifles and pistols are. This KK500 .22 LR is an Olympic-quality tack driver...
...as is this GSP 500, a pistol you wear more than hold.
The same thing can be said of this LP 500.
Stay tuned for more information on Walther's competition guns, which have won literally hundreds of medals in competitions around the globe. Keep in mind that the same machines and workers that make these carefully construct the company's pistols under the same roof in Ulm.
We'd like to thank Walther for the opportunity to visit their amazing factory, and we look forward to their next few centuries of innovation.
