Easy Upgrades for Your Walther PDP Pistol

Backstrap Upgrades

My original Walther Full Size PDP pistol is my bedside pistol for home defense. It is outfitted with the Holosun 407C X2 optic and Streamlight TLR-7 flashlight. I upgraded the backstrap on this pistol to the LOK Grips Aluminum backstrap as I didn’t want to add weight to the gun but wanted to add more texture. The grippy hexagonal texture lets me know I’ve got the gun gripped properly, especially if I pick it up in the middle of the night. I’m sure my hands would be sweaty in a stressful situation, so the added texture keeps the gun firmly in the web of my hand. This minor upgrade is valuable to me for when SHTF.

I upgraded my PDP F-Series 4-inch barrel pistol with an aluminum backstrap like I did on the full-size PDP. The F-Series guns were designed with female hand sizes in mind, with reengineered ergonomics designed for the exact biomechanics of women’s hands. Walther Arms also reduced slide rack force by 20%, which I have seen many women struggle with on the range. This pistol is one of my carry guns, outfitted with the Holosun SCS optic, which is directly mounted to the slide and designed for the PDP 2.0 slide. This lower mounting capability allows for better co-witnessing iron sights on the gun.

The Walther PDP Full Size Professional ACRO pistol is the only gun in the PDP series lineup that comes with an optic already mounted to the slide. This pistol has 18 rounds of capacity with a 4.5-inch barrel and co-witnessing tritium 3-dot iron sights. It is also outfitted with the Dynamic Performance Trigger, Walther’s high-end trigger, and a flared magwell for easier reloads. You can see why this gun was built for law enforcement and also why the civilian market demanded it be available to them. With the ACRO red dot optic on the slide, the gun felt a little top-heavy to me, even when fully loaded. The LOK Grips brass backstrap added more weight to the gun, making it more balanced and helping decrease the felt recoil when shooting it. This backstrap also has a hexagonal texture and is a similar shape to the Walther Arms stock medium-size backstrap.

Base Pad Selections

If you’ve never competed in shooting sports that require you to reload while moving positions, you might not be as familiar with base pad damage as I am. When magazines are dropped onto concrete, gravel, and other surfaces, they take a beating and can even crack the plastic. The LOK Grips aluminum and brass base pads are, first and foremost, a necessary upgrade I made to protect my magazines. Base pads can also increase magazine capacity and add more weight.

I added the brass +0 base pad to my Walther PDP F-Series pistol more for added weight than anything else. I wanted the added weight to mitigate some of the felt recoil since it’s a smaller gun with a shorter barrel than my other Walther pistols. I opted to upgrade to the aluminum base pads for my Walther PDP Match Steel Frame Pistol since the gun is already weighted down. I did the same for my Walther PDP Full Size Professional ACRO pistol magazines because the brass backstrap already added weight to the gun. What these two pistols have in common is they both have flared magwells. LOK Grips intentionally designed these base pads to work with their magwells, but I can confirm that they do not interfere with the stock magwell either.

Wraparound Grips

The best upgrade you can make on any pistol is changing the grips to match your hand size and texture preference. Think about the 1911 pistol. There are grips for days, including wood, ivory, checkered, carbon fiber, and endless colors, patterns, and styles. How often do you see two identical 1911s? That’s because everyone is different in terms of hand size, style, and, of course, with their favorite color. So, first, let’s talk about the practical side of upgrading to aftermarket grips.

LOK Grips designs aftermarket grips that are unique to fit the shooter’s preference and hand size. For example, the Walther PDP Full Size Steel Frame pistol has the following options for grips:

• Palm Swell Bogies
• Standard Bogies
• Thin Bogies
• Standard GridLOK Brass
• Thin Veloce
• Standard GridLOK Aluminum
• Palm Swell Veloce
• Standard Veloce
• Thin Checkered
• Palm Swell Checkered
• Standard Checkered

Overwhelmed? Don’t be. More options mean you can set your pistol up exactly how you want it to feel. The Palm Swell Bogies, for example, are thicker than the stock Walther grips with a shape that fills the palm of your hand. The aggressive texture wraps all the way around the pistol for maximum traction. The Standard GridLOK Brass grips add significant weight to the frame and are similar in shape and thickness to the stock Walther grips. The GridLOK texture is unique, and the grips have grooved lines cut into what looks like uneven squares. Finally, the Thin Checkered grips are thinner and smaller than the stock grips. The backstrap is reduced, the finger grooves are flattened out, and there is more relief around the magazine release to find it more quickly. The checkering feels like light sandpaper.

Choosing a grip is 100% a personal preference and won’t be a one-size-fits-all. The same goes for the color options LOK Grips offers. I LOVE bright colors, so I outfitted my Walther PDP Full Size Steel Frame with the Palm Swell Bogies in Zombie Green Black with a bright Cherry Red liner to make it pop. Practically, these grips add a lot of texture to get a great purchase on the gun. Aesthetically, it reminds me of shooting zombies in video games and is so different, which I find fun!

Magwells

A flared magwell makes reloading any pistol 10x easier. You might not think so, but it is extremely easy to mess up inserting a fresh magazine under stress. As a competitive shooter, I have competed in divisions that don’t allow for magwells and others that do. I can speak from experience that magwells have served their purpose on multiple occasions and make it way more fun for me to reload faster and get back to shooting. For this reason, I added an aluminum magwell to my Walther PDP-F series pistol because it is a carry gun, and I want to add anything to the pistol that can help save my life. This subtly flared magwell doesn’t add much weight to the gun, and because LOK Grips designed it with smooth edges, it is comfortable to carry this gun on your body without irritating your skin.

If Walther Arms hadn’t included a magwell on the ACRO or Match Steel Frame pistols, I 100% would’ve upgraded to a LOK Grips magwell. These guns are primarily used in competition shooting, so a magwell is a must-have and super easy upgrade.