There’s something deeply cool—borderline romantic—about a gun that carries the stamp of a country that doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s like holding a Cold War time capsule, except this one goes bang when you pull the trigger. That’s why I have a soft spot for anything marked West Germany—and I’m not talking about that sleek SIG P220 everyone raves about (though I adore it, too). No, I’m talking about a strange little import from Hungary, sold to the world under the watchful capitalist eye of a West German company called Hege Waffen, run by a guy named Georg Hebsacker. The gun? The FEG AP66—a Hungarian clone of the Walther PP that looks like it time-traveled out of a black-and-white spy movie.
You wouldn’t expect much from something that used to be peddled in the back pages of Shotgun News for less than the price of a tank of gas these days. But the AP66, well, it’s a weird little gem—one of those guns that makes you appreciate the elegance of bygone simplicity, even if it was designed by a bureaucratic committee in a land of paprika and Communism.
FEG (short for Fegyver- és Gépgyár, which sounds like something you chant to summon Cthulhu) was Hungary’s go-to arsenal. They’ve been churning out Walther clones since before Elvis hit the airwaves. The AP66 series was their 1960s take on the iconic Walther PP. It came in .22LR, .32 ACP, and .380 ACP. Naturally, I picked up the .32 ACP, because as the high priest of the One True Caliber, anything else would’ve been heresy.
The guns were imported into the U.S. through a variety of channels, and depending on who did the importing, the roll marks can vary wildly. Mine has that sweet “Hege Waffen” mark, with “Made in Hungary FEG-Budapest” beneath it. Slap a “West Germany” stamp on a Cold War-era pistol and I’m a happy man.
Let’s get something straight: the AP66 isn’t a Walther PP. It’s basically a PP. It feels like a PP. It even looks like a PP if you squint hard enough. But it’s not. And if you start swapping parts around like it’s Mr. Potato Head, you’re going to end up with a pile of sad, incompatible steel.
The AP66 is a direct-blowback, DA/SA, fixed-barrel semi-auto pistol with a single-stack seven-round mag. It’s got a left-side safety/decocker, and a hammer that sits above the firing pin until you pull the trigger, at which point the firing pin rises to meet the hammer. That’s how the AP66 avoids discharging if dropped. The Walther PP uses a hammer block instead, so there’s your first mechanical difference.
There’s also no slide release on the AP66—just like the original PP. Once the magazine’s empty, the slide locks back, and you’re either yanking the slide manually or doing the awkward slap-and-rack maneuver to reload. The mag release is a traditional push-button type, but like a lot of old-school Euro pistols, the magazine doesn’t drop free. It kind of slinks out. You have to coax it—maybe whisper sweet nothings—because it sure isn’t flying out like a modern Glock mag.
Hungarian gunmakers loved polishing things that had no business being shiny. The AP66 follows that proud tradition. Mine’s a two-tone model with a slick, polished alloy frame and a blued steel slide. It’s the same aesthetic they used on the PA-63—basically Hungary’s Makarov, just a little angrier and more Soviet.
It’s a strange choice for what was, functionally, a military sidearm. A shiny combat pistol makes about as much sense as a camouflaged disco ball. But it was cheap to produce and the style stuck. You’ll see a lot of Hungarian surplus guns with that high-gloss frame. It’s sort of their national calling card.
Shooting the AP66 in .32 ACP is pure joy. Unlike its snappier .380 ACP or 9mm Makarov cousins, the .32 ACP version is a kitten. It barely recoils, the slide doesn’t try to take a chunk out of your hand, and it makes those rapid follow-up shots a breeze. James Bond didn’t carry a .32 because he was underpowered—he carried one because he could shoot it fast and not flinch.
Accuracy? Surprisingly solid. At 25 yards, I could consistently dump seven rounds into a six-inch group. It’s not a match gun, but it’s also not trying to be. It’s a Cold War pocket pistol, and for that role, it performs admirably.
That said, finding the sights is like trying to read Braille with oven mitts. The front sight is a nubby little bump, and the rear notch looks like it was drawn on with a Sharpie by someone with poor depth perception. Doing fast transitions or target acquisition drills? Good luck, pal. You’ll be staring down that slide trying to figure out if you’re actually aiming or just hoping.
Let’s talk about the trigger. The single-action pull is decent—nothing special, but usable. The double-action? Good Lord. It feels like you’re trying to win a grip strength competition at a Soviet prison camp. It maxed out my trigger pull gauge, and I’m pretty sure I sprained a finger trying to cycle through it. This thing is stiff. Alec Baldwin couldn’t ND this thing if he tried—he’d give up halfway through the pull and go find a revolver.
It fits the hand well—if you’re right-handed. Lefties are going to hate the thumb rest on the left grip panel, which juts out just enough to make things uncomfortable if you’re holding it wrong. The safety is easy to access and decocks the gun safely. It’s old-school Euro in all the right and wrong ways—like driving a vintage Fiat. Charming, but temperamental.
You’re not going to find these things stacked like pancakes at gun shows anymore. The golden days of picking one up for a hundred bucks and change are long gone, but if you find one under $200? Grab it. They’re still criminally underappreciated, especially compared to other Cold War surplus pieces.
No, the AP66 isn’t going to win any design awards or make you Instagram-famous. But it will give you a smooth, low-recoil shooting experience, a cool conversation piece, and a little slice of gun history from a country that vanished off the map.
It’s the kind of pistol you take to the range, smile while shooting, and then lovingly wipe down like it’s a relic from your grandfather’s sock drawer. It’s obscure, it’s quirky, and it’s unapologetically Eastern European.
And that, my friends, is exactly why I love it.