p38

[kevin123]

I'm looking at a P38 that a friend of mine was just given for his bday. The giver bought it from a friend, who bought it from a friend whose father had passed away. None of us know what it is worth.

I know pics would help, but we dont have a camera here.

Here is a description.The slide is marked p38 ac42. Both the slide and the frame are marked 48xxj (saw somewhere your not supposed to tell teh whole serial number, but this doesnt look like a serial number). The other side of the slide is marked 359 and has a bird holding something round ( looks like the nazi swastika bird thing but to small to tell for sure). Grips look plastic and has a little loop on the side.

Condition....no rust, a little pitting .

We are looking for any historical info as well as value.

 

[rcmodel]

ac42 is the WWII German code for made by Walther in 1942.

Value = Condition is Everything.

Here are a couple.
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=265998082
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=266143753

Notice neither one have received any bids, so I'd say they are too high.

Also these:
http://www.simpsonltd.com/product_info.php?products_id=22163&osCsid=0352e6c74da353ac656ad6ea7e4fde64

http://www.simpsonltd.com/product_info.php?products_id=4317&osCsid=0352e6c74da353ac656ad6ea7e4fde64

rc

 

[Jim Watson]

As rc said, AC42 signifies manufacture by Walther in 1942.
The Germans were very cagey about coding manufacturers to disguise the source of their weapons and equipment.

48xxj is indeed the serial number AND THE LETTER MATTERS.

(eagle)(swastika)359 is the Waffenamt - WaA - German army ordnance inspector's office - for Zella Mehis, Thuringia, Germany where the Walther factory was located.

 

[kevin123]

Thanks guys. If thereis anything else i can tell you about it that would help let me know.

 

[Slamfire]

This one was nickled and that reduced the value from $1200 to about $400.00.

 

[kevin123]

Do you think it is a good idea to shoot it? If we did it would be a couple rounds.
1 Would it be safe?
2 Would it be a good idea from a collector point of view?

 

[rcmodel]

Condition....no rust, a little pitting .

Shoot it, but no +P, +P+, or steel case Wolf ammo.
Use 115 or 124 grain FMJ-RN ammo.

It won't hurt a thing to shoot it, as the "little pitting" has already pretty much spoiled the high-dollar collector value.

To be a truly high dollar collectable, it would have to be near 100% and still have German fingerprints on it.
Or at least capture papers from when it came home from WWII with the GI.

rc

 

[Jim Watson]

Why is it the conventional wisdom that a P08 Luger needs heavily loaded Euro spec ammo, said to be comparable to US +P but its successor the P38 is to be limited to standard stuff?
Same army, same ammunition back when.

 

[rcmodel]

I always felt the P-08 was a stronger gun then the P-38.

Dust covers and extractors seem to go flying off P-38's more often then off P-08's.
Also the cracked alloy frame P-38's of later years seem to prove the design just wasn't as strong, even in steel.

At least that has been my observation over the last 50 years or so.

The other thing is, the OP's ac42 is nearly 70 years old.
If he breaks it with +P / +p+, or steel case ammo?

The correct matching parts will not be found on sale at Walmart I betcha.

rc

 

[Jim Watson]

Actually, I think you are right, just going at the legend through the back door.
The collectors will tell us not to shoot a 1911A1 of that vintage at all.
Even the steel P38s were known to crack the occasional slide. A friend hurredly sold off a Beretta 1951 because of the similarity in lockup and those horror stories.

Point being that a Luger really does not require hot ammo. A friend's Finnish Luger-Tikka shoots best with my mild subsonic IDPA load.

And there was the old Shooting Times article in which Lee Jurras put some of the allegedly hot submachinegun German military ammo through his pressure gun and chronograph. Pressures were no higher than US and high velocity came only with light sintered iron ersatz bullets. Ersatz powder with no flash supressants gave a lot of flash and bang that would lead you to think you were shooting something special.

 

[rcmodel]

That could be.

But I owned at one time in the 60's, two different very original bring-back WWII Luger's that simply would not function with American ammo of the time.

A noted S&W collector friend, who happened to have many of his guns photographed for the SCoS&W 2nd. & 3rd editions, gave me several boxes of WWII German 9mm Ammo.
All I can remember is, grey black ammo with sintered metal bullets, whatever that stuff was?

Both P-08's not only worked perfectly with it, put put the empty brass in low earth orbit.

Knowing now what I didn't know then?
I would have to suspect higher pressure and fast powder to operate the toggle link hard enough to throw brass that high without blowing cases.

Seems like slower powder would have pushed too much too soon, and unlocked the toggle before the case was ready to come unstuck?

What do you think that ammo was?
Fast powder at high pressure unlocking sooner but hard?
Or slow powder at lower pressure unlocking later but harder?

Myself? I haven't a clue.
Wish I still had some now to do some testing & looking I didn't know how to then.

rc

 

[Jim K]

The German WWII ammo that usually seems to be described as super hot and intended only for SMG's has steel cases with sintered iron (compressed iron powder) bullets and a black band around the case mouth. The iron bullets are late war, used to save on critical supplies of copper and lead, and the black band is tropical pack. The ammo is standard pistol/SMG ammo and is not hot. (One wonders where the "super hot SMG ammo blows up pistols" stories come from. Hitler may have been a lunatic, but the German army ordnance people were not going to issue ammo that would blow up their own pistols.)

Lugers are strong, but they are not proof against hot ammo. One common result of firing hot ammo in a Luger is that the ejector breaks, and they are expensive.

One interesting story on WWII ammo arose from the marking on American (WCC) 9mm ammo returned as surplus from England. The boxes were stamped "NOT FOR STEN". Naturally, macho Americans spread the story that our super hot ammo was blowing up those wimpy Limey guns. The truth was that the wimpy American ammo wasn't hot enough to blow the STEN bolt back far enough to catch the sear, and the guns wouldn't shut off until the mag was empty. But no one ever let the truth interfere with a good story, and many folks on this side of the pond still believe that Winchester ammo blew up STEN's and BHP's.

Jim

 

[Slamfire]

Knowing now what I didn't know then?
I would have to suspect higher pressure and fast powder to operate the toggle link hard enough to throw brass that high without blowing cases.

Seems like slower powder would have pushed too much too soon, and unlocked the toggle before the case was ready to come unstuck?

What do you think that ammo was?
Fast powder at high pressure unlocking sooner but hard?
Or slow powder at lower pressure unlocking later but harder?

Maybe the difference was in the powder the Germans used. Each nation understands the peculiarities of its service arms even if no one else does.

As an example the HK91. It requires clean ammunition and no tar sealant around the bullet. Tar sealant and dirty combustion by products will gum up the flutes. I called PTR and talked with them about this. They get complaints all the time from people shooting dirty 308 Nato ammunition which gums up the action. The common response is that “my surplus ammo is Nato”. Well yes, but the Germans never expected to use it. Their guys were going to be issued nice clean German ammunition, not your filthy "Nato" ammunition.

The Ljungman AG-42 / AG-42B self-loading rifle is another example. The ammunition is supposed to be lubricated, says so in the Swedish service manual. Americans are lubrophobic and their rifles don’t run as well on dry ammunition.

I suspect the Luger required a powder which the pressure dropped quickly before unlock. The toggle action is basically a delayed blowback. Blowbacks are incredibly sensitive to breech friction, if the case is stuck to the chamber walls, due to residual breech pressures, the action does not have reserve energy to continue to function.

 

[Jim Watson]

I recall an obscure article that said early 9mm P was loaded with powder doped with silica to deter the initial burn. Never saw it anywhere else and it may not be so. Sand in the powder? Well, there were primers containing ground glass.

If a .30 Luger, 93@1200 works, then surely a 9mm wimpy US 115@1100 ought to.

First run 1903 9mm was in two loads, a 123 at 1040 light and 1090 heavy. They seemed to work ok. But that was in the old 1902 "fat barrel" guns with ribbon spring.

My only personal Luger, a 1936 S/42 shot reliably with Canadian surplus but hardly at all with Remington commercial when the Canadian dried up. So I sold it to a collector for more than I paid for it but less than it would be worth now.

 

[JT-AR-MG42]

Kevin,

Back to some of your questions.

Over 1,200,000 P.38s were made by the Germans during WWII. It was considered the most innovative handgun design of the War. Our current U.S. M9 Beretta uses the same locking block system (with a proof magnafluxed slide).

The P.38 was not an 'Officers' sidearm exclusively.
The vast majority in fact were issued to all branches of the German Army for use by motorcycle dispatch riders, machine gun crews, MPs, NCOs, as well as officers of the line.

The 42 'j' block P.38s were made in November of 1942. Serials ran well into the 'k' block that year. Walther started fresh every year with 10,000 no letter series -called NLS - then 10,000 'a' block and so on. Estimated 120,000 in 1942.

Reading the right slide left to right, you have an 'eagle/359' which is the army acceptance for the completed slide assembly.
The center eagle clutching the swastica is the firing proof with test high pressure ammo. You will also see this proof on both the barrel lug with the slide retracted and on the locking block (which should have the last three digits and letter suffix of the same serial number on the gun.
The e/359 to the right is the army acceptance stamp of the completed pistol.

The grips are made of Bakelite rather than plastic and one should use care in banging them around.

The correct magazine for it is marked with a 'P.38' (no letter 'v') on the left side and a right side up e/359 on the rear spine.

The loop was for a lanyard that kept the soldier from losing the pistol.
The use of lanyards date to horse cavalry when a trooper needed to be able to drop the pistol to control the horse when wielding both the pistol and saber.
Lanyard use was relatively obsolete by WWII and as a result, P.38 lanyards are considered rare.

Shooting.
If it were mine, I would buy some of the Winchester 'white box' and enjoy it once and a while. These are old guns and like mentioned some slides have been known to crack at the forward left side of the top opening.

The rear sight is NOT adjustable. It holds the firing pin cover down and also retains the safety and hammer drop parts. So don't try to tap it for windage adjustments. That is why the front sight is moveable.

Also, DO NOT use the safety to drop the hammer! The firing pin on the P.38 was a weak point and could be crystallized to the point that the gun could fire when you let the hammer drop. Post war P.38 manufacture addressed this with a new design firing pin.
I would most strongly recommend that you not use this feature as it sounds like you are new to the gun and its design. Just unload it instead.

Value.
Again as mentioned, condition is everything. Without pictures, one can only guess at what slight pitting means. Get to a camera.

JT