Walther P38

 I always wanted a Walther P38. 

Part of that came from being one of the iconic guns often seen in 'Man From U.N.C.L.E. '  The major part was that it was the first practical double/single action pistol.  That’s pretty cool when you think about it.  Here is a partial list of double/single action handguns including Beretta , Sig Sauer, CZ75, and HK we have today.  But the P38 was the first, and its influence spread far.  The double-action trigger and new breech-lock system were just two of its innovations.

Our two heros with Walthers, but Solo seems to have some weird  birdcage on his.   

"Without the P38, the development of military handguns would doubtless be much different,"  from Gene Gangarosa  P.38 Automatic Pistol

Carl Walther Waffenfabrik developed it.  Yes, the same company that developed James Bond's weapon, the PP and PPK.  Sadly, these are no longer in production.

There are several features I like.  The P38 has an empty chamber indicator that lets you visually and tactilely determine if there is a round in the chamber.

A small pin extends out from the P38 frame with a round in the chamber

The P38 comes with a metal staple that serves as an attachment point for a lanyard.  It's on the side because the P38 has the classic magazine release on the bottom.  It's a simpler design than a button on the frame and reflects the European notion that magazines are hard to come by on the battlefield.

Most double/single action triggers come in with a high trigger pull.  The double action ran off my scale.  It is greater than 8 pounds.  The single action came in at 6 to 7 pounds.  This means that, in double-action mode, the trigger pull is equivalent to that of a revolver.  You can carry it safely with it decocked, off safe.

The road to acceptance and fame was neither easy nor short for the P38.  Over the years, several models were shown to the German Army and rejected.  Slowly, with true Teutonic patience, Walther Waffenfabrik was again within arm's length of success.  But the Army rejected their prototype, the pistol AP, shortly after 1934.  Walther made changes and incorporated their suggestions to develop the model MP.  The Army liked it, but the MP had an exposed rounded hammer.  Other than that, it was identical to the P38.  The patent was issued in Jan 1938.  By late 1938, a spur hammer was added, and the Pistole 1938, or P38, went into production.  Walther produced 550,000 guns during the pistol's lifetime, ending in a whimper in 2004.

Here is mine.

 

Walter P38

The AC is part of Germany's effort to hide manufacturing during WWII.  It stands for Walter production in Zella-Mehlis, Germany.  The 41 indicates the year of production.  Zella-Mehlis used slave labor to keep up production.  They were connected to the Neuengamme concentration camp.  

AC 41  made by Walther in Zella-Mehlis in 1941

If you think these were guest workers from other countries making a living in Germany, remember what Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler said: "Whether 10,000 Russian women collapse with exhaustion in the construction of an anti-tank ditch for Germany only interests me insofar as the ditch gets dug for Germany."

These camps were filled with anyone the Third Reich didn't like.  The conditions were terrible; deaths in the labor force were expected and seen as a normal, desirable outcome.

The P38's serial number is 9970f.  The serial numbering started over each year and it appears each month was stamped as a letter following the serial number.  If so, this one was made in June of 1941.  The P38 can serve as visual proof that, over time, German quality slipped due to the war effort.  Later models were crudely finished, and coarse machine marks are visible.

Next to the f you can see a smudge that's the proof mark.

The proof mark for the time period was 359 under a very stylized, almost Art Deco eagle.  A Nazi mark is found on the right side of the gun between two proof marks.

Nazi stamp

That’s the official story.  Here's what I know.

It seems the gun was captured or surrendered to the Russians at the end of the war.  They dipped the weapons in preservative, but somewhere along the line, the outside of the barrel got a little buggered up.  Who knows?  Maybe that was from use during the war.  In any case, the weapon sat in an Iron Curtain armory, waiting for the next war.  When the Iron Curtain fell, many satellite countries needed cash and sold their old armories.

My research, based on markings under the beaver tail, indicates it was imported from Ukraine in the late 1990s by the New Helvetia Mercantile Corporation (NHM CO) of Sacramento, California.