Did Nazi's hold the Biathlon? The Tyrolean Walther PP Sure Thinks So

Walther Variation Check List (Email us)

Hey, guys, and welcome to another one of our educational videos as part of my series on pre-1946 Walther PPs and PPKs, I'm going through all the variations, and it's going to become a video book which you'll be able to watch on YouTube. And also, we have a summary sheet of each of the variations. So you want to make sure you send away for that. Contact us by email, and we'll send that to you. 

Walther Tyrolean PP the Shooting Prize

So today, I want to talk about a rare variation. In fact, most of the books don't even include this variation. And it's one that I didn't know about 15 years ago. It's the Tyrolean Walther PP. Now they only come in PPs. They also are known as shooting prizes and for a good reason. The Tyrol region of Austria, it was taken over when Germany took over Austria. It became part of Germany. But it's actually western Austria, north of Italy. So it's the mountainous region. I'm told they're very independent group of people, much like Texans.

Tyrol is Equivalent to Texas in Terms of its Culture

When you think of the Tyrol region, one of the images that come to mind is the classic Lederhosen with shorts with suspenders. And that yes, that would be this region, also the Ricola.

So they have their own culture, very distinct, very unique, and very independent. Part of their culture is they historically held shooting events, includes 22 rifles which have the Tyrolean mark on them and also pistols, which in this case they ordered somewhere between 100 to 200 pistols from the Walther factory, which has the Tyrolean eagle on it. Now, I've owned about five of these over the years. I still have this one because it's one of the nicest I've seen.

Tyrolean Magazines Under the Microscope

This one actually includes a box mag. I'm not sure that came originally with the gun, but probably whoever bought this gun liked the look of the box mag. It was an option for the commercial for the commercial market. You could order this. It just gives it a better look and a little more of a handgrip. It does not extend the magazine capacity. Some people say, oh, it's a magazine extender. It's the same magazine. It's just on a bigger plastic piece. We call it a box mag. They make them for PPKs and PPs. But this one. Somebody added that one. It probably came with a regular finger extension magazine. The Tyrolean eagle, all the ones I've ever seen. They're kind of not stamped very well. So I've seen them where it's really heavy on one side and light on the other. A lot of times, people can't make out what it is.

Tyrolean Eagle, a Prize worth Attaining

But the Tyrolean Eagle. Here's a better look at it. This was one of the prizes, one of the medals they gave out in nineteen thirty-nine. Now they did this shooting competition. The Nazis ran it. All right. All the way up to nineteen forty-four. So nineteen forty-five of course that the war ended and I don't believe they held any shooting competitions that year, but since then actually, it has become an Olympic event. It's not the Tyrolean shooting prize, but throughout the world, Switzerland and Austria are famous for their shooting competitions.

So again, 22 rifle which you will see the Tyrolean Eagle on the twenty-two presentation rifle. These, we know, were ordered for the competitors. They were all ordered in nineteen thirty-nine. And it seems like it's somewhere between a hundred and two hundred. So there you can't possibly give away 100 prizes in nineteen thirty-nine. So my conclusion is they ordered enough to last several years and also probably some of the officials, some of the party officials would keep one.

Tyrolean Eagle as a Trophy (whichever way you spell it)

So my conclusion is that these are its shooting prizes, but also party officials from the Tyrol region. Now just to clarify, in case you were Googling Tyrolean, I always spelled it Tirol. And then somebody corrected me and said it's Tyrol. So I Googled it. And everywhere I looked, it was Tyrol. So I corrected myself, and then I got this, I got this medal, and it's Tirol.

Only around 100 of these Made

So this is like a potato patato. I'm sure it's spelled both ways, but if you're googling its Ty or Ti role in the region and Tyrolean was the prize. Again there's only 17 of these known probably only one hundred or a few more than one hundred given out as shooter prizes or to party officials from the TIROL region. Very cool variation. Very hard to find. If you have one and you have a serial number, please give it to us.

I have the serial number ranges here, but it's basically 1-3-5 thousand all the way up to 1-3-8 thousand. So send us your information. We'll keep track of it and update constantly. Thanks for watching it. Hey, check this out. Push the subscribe if you want to be notified about our videos or pick one of these recommended videos.