Chris Long of Walther Arms Talks Drift Cars, Assault Rifles, and His Gun Collection – First, Last, Next Podcast

Every once in a while, you sit down with somebody at SHOT Show who doesn’t bring the polished, rehearsed brand-rep energy. They just bring the stories and experieinces that make them unique, that was Chris Long.

Chris is the marketing manager at Walther Arms, but if you only knew him by his title you’d miss most of the story. He’s a photographer who taught himself the craft on the job. He’s a serious shooter who came up in the glory days of gun Instagram. And in his spare time, he tinkers on a right-hand-drive 1998 Toyota Altezza in his garage because he can’t quite let go of the Fast and Furious era.

We covered a lot on this episode, Chris is an incredibly interesting marketer, and it’s been great getting to work with him.

Who Is Chris Long? Meet Walther Arms’ Marketing Manager

Five years ago, Chris was working in the fuel-tank cleaning industry. Not exactly the gun industry pipeline. But on the side he was shooting a lot and posting on Instagram, and he’d been doing graphic and web work for an instructor named Scott Jedlinksi of the Modern Samurai Project.

When Walther started hunting for a content guy, Scott put Chris’s name in. The catch? The interview wasn’t a sit-down style interview, it was a range day with Cody Osborne and Jens Krogh (two legends of the industry who will be on future episodes). The Walther PDP had just dropped, so Chris tracked down what was probably the only one available for sale in the entire state of Indiana, drove it down to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and basically shot for the job.

He got it. And in his words, it’s been better than he deserves ever since.

Coming Up in the Golden Era of Gun Instagram

If you came up on gun Instagram in the shooting challenge era, you know exactly the world Chris is talking about. He had his own challenge for a while, based off a scene from Miami Vice, and he says he got as good as he’ll ever be with a handgun during that stretch.

It’s also where the friendships started. Walther’s top competitive shooter today, is somebody Chris knew long before he ever worked at the company. Now he gets to help sponsor the guy he used to look up to. That kind of full-circle moment doesn’t happen by accident, and it’s the thread you’ll hear all through Chris’s story. He’s not faking the affection for this industry. He earned his way in.

Why Chris Long Treats Shooting Like a Martial Art

The turning point wasn’t a class or a gun. It was finding out his wife was pregnant.

Chris is candid about it. He was in bad shape, and the idea of being a “fat, useless dad” wasn’t one he could live with. So, he started treating shooting like a martial art. He looked up the people he wanted to be like (Travis Haley, Chris Costa back in the Magpul Dynamics DVD days, then Scott Jedlinski on the performance side) and decided he could do what they did because they’re all made of the same stuff.

He says it came to him naturally, which he chalks up to a gift from God. He didn’t want to waste it. So, he kept showing up to classes, kept chasing awards “nobody could take away from him,” and eventually that obsession became a career.

There’s a line in there worth keeping. The second you bring a living, breathing thing into your life, the math changes. Nobody buys their dream car and decides they need a gun to protect it. You only get serious when something matters more than you do.

Running 2,000 Rounds of .32 ACP Through a Walther PPK in a Day

Walther’s PPK is the James Bond gun, the gun that probably hooked half the industry as kids. Chris owns one, has tried to carry one, and freely admits it’s not exactly the modern performance-concealment choice. But it might be one of the most beautiful guns ever made.

He also has receipts on it. At an event, down in South Carolina, Chris ran 2,000 rounds of .32 ACP through a threaded PPK in a single day. No hiccups. The gun just kept eating. Pair it with the SilencerCo Spectre suppressor on the threaded barrel and, in his words, it might be the best-looking can-and-pistol combo on the market. The weld marks practically match the gun’s engraving. He’s not wrong.

The “Geissele Assault Rifles” Drift Car Story

Walther co-sponsors a drift car with Geissele, a BMW E46 that runs in Drift Mansion events. When the sponsorship got finalized, Bill Geissele himself called the drift car driver with a request.

He didn’t want it to say “Geissele Automatics” on the roof.

He wanted it to say “Geissele Assault Rifles.”

Chris and Geissele have become friends through that project, which is part of how we ended up on his Last Gun answer below. But the man’s point stands. Geissele isn’t cutting corners to save a dollar.

Walther Wins the P14 Contract for German Special Forces

The big news Chris was gearing up to talk about is the P14 contract. Quick context: the German army (Bundeswehr) just adopted the SIG P320 series as their new standard sidearm. There was also a separate contract called the P14 for the German special forces, which was awarded to Walther.

According to Chris, the P14 contract subjected the gun to the most rigorous testing ever done on a handgun. Sand, saltwater, humidity, corrosion, freeze cycles, all the standard military pistol torture, dialed up roughly ten times what’s been done before. The P14 (built off the PDP platform) survived all of it. KSK is slated to start receiving them around October.

If you care about pedigree, that’s a hell of a feather in the Walther cap. Add it to a stack that already includes more Olympic gold medals than any other shooting brand.

Chris Long’s JDM Garage Project: A 1998 Toyota Altezza

When guns became a job, Chris had to find a hobby that wasn’t guns. He landed on a 1998 Toyota Altezza, the right-hand-drive Japanese version of the Lexus IS300, and he’s been slowly building it to look like the cars from the early Fast and Furious era.

He’s clear, he’s not a mechanic. He thinks drifting is cool but isn’t trying to do it (he’ll leave that to Caleb), and the real point of the project is that his son comes out to the garage with him. Oil changes, brake jobs, all the stuff he says is important to teach little boys how to do.

Protect your peace, maintain your job, hang out with your kids.

Chris Long’s First Gun: Glock 19

“Probably like everybody else.” Chris’s first gun was a Glock 19. But he wanted us to clock his second gun too. A Walther P99, bought long before he ever dreamed of working at the company. Back then, all he knew about Walther was James Bond. He even picked up a PPK and tried to carry it for a while. The history-and-aesthetics part of the brand got him long before the job did.

Chris Long’s Last Gun: Geissele Super Duty 10.3

Chris is a 10.3 guy. He likes the short, Mk18-style aesthetic, and the deciding voice on this one was Bill Rapier, the Seal Team 3 / Seal Team 6 operator on Walther’s defense division. Bill has done a ton of work with 10.3-inch ARs, and Chris’s logic was simple. If it’s good enough for Bill Rapier, it’s good enough for me.

He says every Geissele he picks up makes him want to redo his other rifles. There’s a smoothness to them, close to the perfect AR feel in his opinion, and Geissele is one of the few companies he can think of that is unapologetically going the other way from the cost-cutters. He’s already plotting another Geissele, probably in that patina-rust or plum/dark-earth finish he keeps thinking about.

Chris Long’s Next Gun: Walther Q5 Match SF

Chris admits this one isn’t the most extravagant answer in the world, but it’s honest. He won most of his major shooting awards with a Q5 Match SF, and he’d love to have another one in the safe. If Walther ever did a P14-edition Q5? He’d be first in line.

It’s a fitting Next gun for a guy whose whole story is about earning something on purpose. The Q5 is the tool that made him the shooter he is. Coming back to it isn’t nostalgia. It’s a thank-you.

Listen to the Full Episode of First Last Next

Chris is one of those guests who reminds you why we do this show. He didn’t come up in the industry. He came at it, hard, from outside. He’s allergic to the imposter-syndrome trap and beats it the only way that actually works, by doing the reps. He’s honest about the gift he was given, deliberate about the family he’s building, and unembarrassed about loving the guns, the brand, and the friends he gets to work with every day.

Big thanks to Chris Long and the whole Walther Arms crew for stopping by the Silencer Shop booth at SHOT Show 2026. Catch the full episode of the First Last Next Podcast wherever you get your shows. And if you’re running a PPK suppressed, tag us on Instagram.