Pistol Review: Walther's ALL-NEW PDP - Duty Ready Out-of-the-Box!

Building upon the PPQ, Walther has invested eleven years of customer feedback and modern manufacturing prowess into their all new flagship polymer model the PDP!

Launching with three variants, a compact 4", a full-size 4.5" and full-size 5", the PDP comes out of the box looking fantastic with performance worth every penny spent on it.

Built for duty, the PDP is incredibly adaptive to nearly every situation whether it be for military or civilian use. It is important to understand that the PDP is a feature-packed warhorse capable of taking a serious beating while still functioning flawlessly. While Walther has long been associated with 007's PPK, a new flagship is emerging in the form of the PDP.

While the PDP is based upon the PPQ, it takes significant inspiration from the immense success of the Q4/Q5 platform adapting their tetrahedron style grip and their more squarish shape. Personally, I have never been a fan of these polymer pistols that look like blocks in your hand, but Walther never ceases to amaze. Using their unique SuperTerrain Serrations and angled cuts along the slide not only have they made the PDP incredibly aesthetic, but allowed for better grasping grip that almost all of their counterparts with standard serrations.

The ergonomics and tactility of the PDP's grip cannot be understated. The tetrahedron style allows for a firm grip even with gloves or sweaty hands while not being too abrasive on the hands. Not only that, but Walther incorporated groves that aid in getting your hands into that perfect position and keeping them there. To put simply, the handling couldn't be better.

Now for my favorite feature of them all, the brand-new ‘PDT’ Performance Duty Trigger. Now let's backtrack for a moment to the PPQ which has and I am quoting myself, "earned it's title has the best striker-fired trigger," that is no longer the case. This new and improved trigger system has shorten the length of travel and increased the "definition" of the trigger break. To put simply, the pull is light, short and breaks like glass. Another upgrade from the PPQ platform would be the increased 18-round capacity on the full size pistols and 15-round capacity on the compact pistols.

Built with versatility in mind, the PDP accommodates both left- and right-handed shooter with ambidextrous slide stop and reversible mag release. Moreover, it ships with three interchangeable backstraps and while a majority of shooters will find the standard backstrap to be perfect, the PDP can still be altered to fit smaller or bigger hands.

More on versatility, the PDP comes incorporated with Walther's RDS Ergonomics making the switch to any popular red-dot sight system a breeze. The RDS Ergonomics have been engineered to allow shooters to locate the red-dot instantly in defense situations. Achieved through analyzing pinky pressure and offhand support, the grip angle is designed for a natural aiming position which allows for lightning-fast acquisition of the red-dot.

Hoping on the wave of handgun modularity, the PDP is Walther's most modular pistol platform with two distinctly different frame sizes and three different lengths of slides. It is not an understatement to say that you can truly customize the PDP platform to tailor your specific needs. Any slide length can fit on any frame.