After a week of grading Advance Placement essays followed by several weeks of prepping for, then actual painting our house, summer break finally arrived for me! So, this week, along with some little "honey-dos", I finally got around to doing some projects of my own. Much of today was devoted to working on my ARs (yes, I said AR(s), which I'll write a separate post on), I got to spend some time with my favorite gun; the Walther PPQ.
The first order of business is to replace factory sights with some TruGlo "Nightsights"!
This gives my main 9mm the same sights as my conceal carry piece, the PPS/M1. I really like consistency and having identical sight pictures is a good thing. At some point, I'll probably do the same to the Magnum Research MR9 "back-up" handgun as well.
In this image you can see a depiction of the M1 (aka Classic) magazine on the right vs. the M2 or the button (American) style release mag on the left. This is one of the reasons I use the MR9 as my backup gun. It's basically a Walther P99 and therefore uses the same mags. All that is awesome and fits my plan (personal obsession) well. However, it leaves one nagging issue that I wish was different.
Here's an image of the Kel-tec Sub 2000 like the one I picked up a couple of years ago. I really like it and it shoots well. I could wax eloquent about it for some time, but I'm going to go a different direction here. I bought it because it shares the 9mm that most of my guns uses. It's pretty much everything I want except for one thing. It doesn't take the Walther mags. The Sub2K actually comes in a wide variety of versions, ranging from S&W M&P, to Sig P226, to CZ75, to the Beretta 92/96 (which is the one I have) and of course the ubiquitous Glock 17 as well as the shorter gripped 19 version as well. No Walther. This is the price you pay when you choose based on what fits the best versus what's most popular! Currently, Kel-tec even makes a mag catch kit for the Canik TP9, so what gives? The M&P is easily the second most popular 9mm, and both the Beretta 92 and Sig have been around so long that they are considered standards.
Surely the Walther is more popular than the CZ75 and Canik? There's actually a perfectly logical explanation as to not only why there's not a Walther version, but will likely never be one.
So, here's the deal. There are actually 3 versions of the Sub 2000/9mm in production; a Glock 17 (the original) version and a Glock 19 version with a shorter grip to accommodate the shorter magazine for the "compact" and most popular Glock. Of course they are going to not only make something to match the most popular striker-fired of the most popular caliber (9mm) on the market! Then they make one other version for all the other 9mm handguns out there since pretty much everyone else's (non-Glock) mags are the same with the only difference being the shape and location of the magazine catch. One catch! All these magazines are roughly the same length; that of the old "full-sized" handgun along the lines of the Sig P226 and Beretta 92/M9. So, the issue for the Walther is that not only is that not the weird (really high) catch slot, but is too short for the grip of the gun since the PPQ is a compact along the lines of the Glock 19! So, what now, give up and just use the Beretta mags?
Heck no! I've got one more trick up my sleeve. If you'll look at the bottom of the grip, you'll see the finger cut-out to allow for a stuck mag to be pulled out. By comparing, it looks to me if I opened that area up more, maybe with a Dremel, I'll be able to get the shorter Walther mag up high enough to feed rounds to the bolt. But what about the PPQ/M1 mags with the "too high" catch slot?
I might have a solution for that as well. It appears that the Beretta have the "lowest" slot of all the ones that Kel-tec makes catch kits for......., and that if I turn it upside-down, it'll be in roughly the right location for the Walther mags! Now, it's going to require me to do some filing and maybe some "Southern Engineering", but what the heck? Ordering a catch kit is only $15! Stay Tuned!
I love "pistol caliber carbines" (PCC), actually, that's a bit of a lie. More correctly stated, I love sub-machine guns, however, if a person doesn't want to get involve in NFA (national firearms act) restricted weapons, the modern PCC is as close as the average person's gonna get.
In reality, I'd really love to own a Swedish "K", but Uncle Sam frowns on such things, so I'm left with the a regular carbine with at least a 16" barrel.
Where I originally started was one of these......
.....which I intended to turn into one of these. Now on the eve of Hightower Armory releasing it's bullpup stock for the 995, I'm having second thoughts. Why?
Let's look at the decision making matrix and dissect all the factors involved.
- I'm looking for a easy handling pistol caliber carbine capable of using the same ammunition as my primary handgun (9mm). This one is easy since the 9mm is the most popular caliber on the planet.
- I don't want to spend more than $500 "all in". This one is a little tougher, but definitely doable.
- I really want it to be compact and easy to carry around unobtrusively. Definitely makes things harder.
- Oh, yeah.... I like interesting....
So, there you go. Not too bad. It needs to a 9mm carbine, (16" barrel, 26" long), cheap, shoots the 9 x 19mm and interesting. Then, let's look at the candidates:
- 1st, there's the "Planet of the Apes" gun, or the original Hi Point 995, 'cus I own that. It's very handy, it's cheap, shoots the 9mm and the Hightower Armory stock is coming soon, .....and should correct the ugly gun syndrome! Issues? REALLY hate the 10 round magazine limit!
- 2nd, is the AR variant. We'll go ahead and get the elephant out in the open. They're expensive. I might squeak a home-build in under $500..... maybe. And the cheap self-build using magazine adapters tend to be a little unreliable.
- 3rd, is the "new" option (for me at least). That would be the Kel-Tec Sub 2000 folding semi-auto. It's very unusual and kinda cool. More on this later.
There are others such as the new Ruger PC9, but they are well out of my financial range. And some like the Beretta CX4 Storm is out of consideration due to ugliness. So, let's look at the folding gun,shall we....
In 2001, George Kellgren, aka Mr. Kel-Tec brought out the original Sub 2000 (image is Gen 2). At the time, it was (and still is) a revolutionary concept, where you can take a semi-automatic carbine and give it the ability to fold in half, giving it an overall length of 16" folded and 30" open! That's a size that's easily back-packable. On top of that, the design comes in flavors to take magazines from several major handgun manufacturers such as Glock, Smith & Wesson, Beretta and Sig Sauer. Why did this even become a thing?
Here's the deal. You might have heard that Walther magazines cost an arm and a leg. So, I've been looking into using mags from other manufacturer's guns. One such gun is the Beretta 9x series of pistols, one of which is the 92 that our military calls the M9. As a result, you can often find these mags for them cheap, including the excellent quality Beretta branded 30 round extended mag as depicted above. When modified (eg, cutting a new slot for the Walther mag release), it can be used in my P99! Which mean that I'd be able to take a Sub 2000 set up for Beretta mags and use modified ones as interchangeable between it and my Walther. To me, that's extremely attractive!
So yeah; something along the lines of this Gen 1 Glock model, but you get the idea. Right now, I'm very tempted to sell my Planet of the Apes 995 and save up for one of these!
