Walther Q5 Match Frame Mod

[jmtyndall]

I've been shooting my Q5 Match a bit and have been getting some "Glock Knuckle." For those unaware of the issue, its basically just irritation of the strong-hand middle finger knuckle where it hits the frame. Interestingly enough I dont have the issue at all on Glocks, but the Walther frame uses a small "fence" below the magazine release to protect it from accidentally being pushed while in a holster.

Great feature for a carry gun, not really necessary on a competition gun. It also sticks out quite far right where the trigger guard meets the frame, which happens to be about where my knuckle goes. The harder I crush with the weak hand, the harder I crunch my knuckle and the more it hurts under recoil.
 
Here's a few images trying to highlight the problem area.

 

 
So I did what any reasonable person would do and looked online to see who was doing stippling and/or frame mods on Walther guns. The grip is not textured well, a good stipple would be a benefit and I was sure others would have had this problem too. Turns out, I found a couple people who did custom stipple jobs but couldnt find any professional outfits offering the service or any kind of grip reductions.
 
I love the pistol in a lot of ways, but pain while shooting is absolutely a deal breaker. So I took matters into my own hands and decided to reprofile that area of the frame with some sandpaper to mimic a more traditional polymer frame without the protrusion.
 
Grabbed a couple of my favorite beers, a sheet of 150 grit, 320 grit, 600 grit and 1200 grit sandpaper and got to work. Slowly and by hand (didn't trust taking a dremel to my new gun) I worked the hump almost all the way down until I was able to grip the gun hard without any pain. Then used the 320 grit to blend the area back into the natural curves of the frame before polishing out the sanding marks with 600 and 1200 grit paper. All in all I spent probably an hour and it seems to have completely resolved my issue.
 
The left side of the gun doesn't give me any issues, so I haven't touched it yet. But I feel positively about the results here. In the future I may look at doing some stippling or silicon-carbide texturing and at that time I'll probably reduce the other side and remove the finger grooves on the front strap.
 
Anyways, I hope if anyone else has this issue they might find this helpful.

[Salsantini]

I did this exact same thing to my Walther PPQ's.  It gives a much better feel in the hand.

[Hany]

I did the exact same mod on mine! It really chewed up my middle finger at first.  I also took off the light finger grooves. I found that with a crush grip, the grooves made my fingertips go numb!  Removing them solved that issue.