Walther P38 1941

[Greg528iT]

My wife's best friend's father returned home from WWII with a Walther P38. After he passed, I ended up recieving it.
Unfortunately it is a non matching Slide and Frame example. My made up story is... "That while in the trench one night, while german soldier A was sleeping, german soldier B fixed his broken P38 using A's frame."
When I recieved it, the sear was fractured. Mid war casting / metal technology issues.
If you didn't mind it going full auto, it worked quite well.

A new sear instlalled and it's right as rain.

View attachment 122292

View attachment 122293

 

[rmfnla]

I've had a few of those; neat guns. 1941 is pretty early in the war and quality was fairly good; it's the 1943 & later examples that got really crude.

What arsenal markings does it have?

 

[Greg528iT]

I had the arsenal markings writen down somewhere. As I remember there were 3-4.. and mine was not the best of them. but hey, for what I paid for it.

 

[searcher451]

The P.38 makes for a great shooter. Winchester WB FMJ 115-grain ammo workes especially well with them. Nice job on the sear, by the way. How about some photos of the pistol itself?

 

[bannockburn]

Greg

If you want more info on your P-38, go to p38forum.com. Great source for just about anything dealing with Walther designed pistols.

 

[BHP FAN]

I am now officially jealous.

 

[Greg528iT]

I'll post some more pictures when I find them / retake them. Get some of the cartoushes / icons / ok proof stamps.

Oh I just remembered, it's an AC..

 

[rmfnla]

Ah, the actual Walther factory; nice!

 

[1KPerDay]

I've got a matching AC41 bring-back that was given to me by an old vet fried of mine. Lovely guns. Surprisingly accurate.

 

[searcher451]

A litle background: Walther was making the P.38 from the get-go. Mauser entered the picture in late 1942 (manufacturing of the Luger was discontinued in October of that year). The Spreewerk plant began producing the P.38 in 1942 as well. It took six months and the help of Walther personnel to produce the first 50 Spreewerk pistols. By December of 1942, the Spreewerk plant managed to produce 7,050 P.38s in all; 5,000 of those were made in November and December.