Gun Question! (P1/P38)

mowart

Since post war, P38s were made with alloy frames like P1s were, what is the difference?

watrulookinat

The original P.38 was an all steel German military pistol. It was the most common handgun used by the German military, all branches, during WWII. It was made by Walther (ac), Mauser (byf) and Spreewerk (cyq). A few SVW marked pistols were assembled by the French immediately after WWII.

The postwar guns (late 1950s onward) used an aluminum alloy frame. They were originally marked P.38 and with a Walther banner. These original, new manufacture, guns exhibited a rather distressing flaw, the frame tended to crack when the pistol was fed a steady diet of NATO spec, 124 gr., ball ammo.

To "fix" this problem, two things were done. A steel, hexagonal, pin was inserted into the frame behind the take down lever. Also, the steel slide on the left side of the pistol was raised, more steel was added. These two things worked, the frames stopped cracking, and all newly manufactured pistols had these "fixes" incorporated during manufacture.

Sometime during this time the designation of the pistol was changed from P.38 to P.1. Arguments can be started when trying to fix the exact date or serial numbers when this change took place.

Some of the existing P.38s were retrofitted with the fixes.

Therefore, the difference between the majority of postwar P.38s and P.1s is that P.38s have P.38 stamped on the left side of the slide and P.1s have P.1 stamped on the left side of the slide. Also, P.38s have the date stamp on the right side of the slide and P.1s have the date stamp on the left side of the slide.