Walther P99 blew out the mag internals

drumenigma

drumenigma

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So I went to the range yesterday and brought my Walther P99 in 40 S+W as I hadn't shot it in a while. I brought some Speer Gold Dot and Blaser safety slugs along with me as it was HD ammo I had for a while and figured I'd shoot it and replace it with newer stuff. So first I shot the 6 rounds of Blaser I had with no problems. There was some definite kick but function was fine. Then I loaded a 10 round mag of the Speer Gold Dot ammo. Upon firing the 3rd round everything inside of the magazine blew out the bottom of the gun.The base plate retention rails broke and everything else flew out all over the place. I can not explain what would have caused this. I sent an e-mail to Walther to see what they think and if I can get a new base plate for it or something as I don't want to spend the 40-50$ on a new magazine. I have done nothing to the gun and it is in factory original condition. Here are some picks of what broke.

You can see the two L shapred pieces of what broke from the top side of the base plate.
Baseplate1.jpg

baseplate2.jpg

magparts.jpg
 
Wow, and it's not even a Glock.

I'd be curious whether it was a magazine part failure that caused it to come apart or some kind of kaboom that blew out the mag. What did the fired case look like? Was there any evidence of case failure or an out of battery fire?
 
I didn't find the case. I think it flew out the window in to the snow. I was at an outdoor range. I had to search for the spring and base plate as they flew out the window too. I am wondering if maybe it was a kaboom or something.
 
At first I was thinking KB, but a KB usually locks up the gun and you will find chunks missing, and you probably would have seen/felt/heard an unusual gas event- eg, smoke and hot gas coming out of the gun in places it's not supposed to.

I forget who it was, but not that long ago someone posted something here stating that the P99 .40s had a problem with the .40 cal magazines coming apart spontaneously. You can probably call S+W and get a new magazine for nothing, and I'll bet they'll probably replace the other one too, for nothing.

This is also a graphic illustration of why I -HATE- most cripplemags. Money says this would have never happened if it was an appropriate capacity magazine. Unfortunately on the P99 .40, there is little choice in the matter.

-Mike
 
I did a quick search online and it seems that there were some problems with the earlier magazines. Even though I have only had my gun for a year or so I know it is not the current gen so maybe it had the older bad batch mags. I sent this information over to Walther earlier so hopefully I can get newer mags or something. Hopefully that was the only issue. Nothing else seemed out of place after it happened.
 
what did the other rounds in the mag look like, were they covered in gunpowder? did the gun cycle normally? did the recoil seem more than usual?
If everything looked the same. then the basepad let go. no big deal, just get some more
 
drgrant said:
I forget who it was, but not that long ago someone posted something here stating that the P99 .40s had a problem with the .40 cal magazines coming apart spontaneously. You can probably call S+W and get a new magazine for nothing, and I'll bet they'll probably replace the other one too, for nothing.
Click to expand...

Mike, you have a LONG memory!! [laugh]

This happened to me way back in 2005.

To the OP, this is regrettably a well-known problem. S&W will replace the baseplates for you, but since nobody can tell the good from bad Walther-marked baseplates, ask S&W to ship you the S&W marked ones.

See the following post for more info.

http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=16412&postcount=27

Further info was posted in a thread that was deleted many years ago, so that's all that I could find about the problem that I had.

There was NOTHING wrong with the gun or ammo to cause this. There was a mfg defect in the plastic that caused the problem. This info was from S&W/Walther Tech Supt.
 
GSG said:
Not that long, I remembered that you'd said something about it recently too (I wasn't on NES in 2005), and I searched but couldn't find the post.

Just sayin... [wink]
Click to expand...

I think it's because someone had (recently) bumped the thread that his post was in... or someone else discussed the same problem, and then I found
Len's post, as well, somehow. [laugh]

-Mike
 
This happened to me with my P99 in .40 too. I bought it used at FS. The plastic mag plate broke where it mated with the mag body, but only on one side.
 
It looks like Walther is going to send me a replacement floor plate and floor plate retention plate for the one that broke. Hopefully the other one doesn't break now or I'll be pissed.
 
If one broke, it's likely that the other one will too.

S&W originally send me 3 new Walther-marked bases and all those broke too. Turns out that they aren't marked in any way to determine good from bad (batch of plastic).

Only solution was to have them send me S&W-marked bases for ALL my P99 mags and never had a problem after that.

You should have asked for enough to cover ALL your P99 .40 mags (according to S&W this is not a problem on any other caliber marked mags).
 
Talking about the P99 brings back good memories. It was my first handgun and part of my first collection of 4.

P99.jpg


IM001497-1.jpg
 
hey guys, new to the site, browsed a few times but never posted...just bought my first handgun yesterday, Walther P99 S&W .40....has a comfortable feel in my hand, seems pretty light, going to put a few rounds through it today...seems to be I should keeping a close eye on those mags! Ive been wanting to get a good handgun for almost 2 years now, I was active duty army, 2 tours in Iraq, figured I'd see how my aim was when nobody was firing back....I ve put rounds through 9mms, M16s, M4s, 50s, M243 Saws, M60s, MK19 40mm grenade Launchers, and a few angry diaperheads....thought I would try putting some through some paper targets with a personal firearm....time in my life to enjoy firearms, hopefully done using them to try to keep my ass alive...!!
 
I was right next to Drumenigma when it happened. The gun sounded like it fired normally. Glad to hear they're replacing the floorplate lil bro!
 

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