So I accidentally bought a California-compliant P22 yesterday at the gun show.  The show is over, and I don't have receipts for the dealer (forgot who it was).  I wanted the P22 to suppress later on, but the geniuses in California don't allow threaded barrels.

I called up Walther today, and it turns out that all they did was do a chemical weld of the barrel nut onto the barrel.  Customer service was very helpful; in fact they went out of their way to answer my question.

They'll remove the stupid California barrel nut, clean up the threads, and give me a normal barrel nut for around $25.  

At first they challenged me to do the barrel nut removal on my own (heat it up and twist it off) but I think I'll just leave it to them (unless anyone has any good ideas of how to do it)

Just an FYI for anyone else that may have accidentally bought a gun that complied with Californistan's laws.

I think that is pretty much it.  They said they'd soak it in some break-free liquid, heat it up and twist it off, clean up the threads and put a new (real) barrel nut on.

The cust. service guy guessed at $25 but said to call back two weeks after I sent it in for a real estimate, and then they'd have it back to me in two weeks.  Yes, a 4 week turnaround is a long time but at least they are helpful enough to do this.

BTW if you call make sure to tell them you are not breaking any state laws by making your gun "scary."

Quoted: I think I'll call them and see if they'll send me a free barrel nut. My eight year old wouldn't like me sending off *HIS* barrel

Let me know what they say.  

How do you intend to remove the nut that is on there?  Cust service pointed out the obvious and warned me not to just lock the frame in a vice and ply away at it...

My idea was to soak the end of the barrel in a breakfree compound after using a dremel tool to create two flat sides on the nut so that I could put a wrench on it after heating it up.  

All this will end up being a mental exercise as I will eventually break down, cough up the few bucks, and have S&W do it.

Quoted: I just called them up and they said they'll send me the standard bbl nut out free of charge.

S&W/WA service strikes again.  Of any product I have ever purchased, used, operated, or owned where I had to deal with tech support, RMA, returns, refunds, exchanges and so on, , my P99 has been the most pleasant ownership experience ever.   Their customer service is GOLD.