The Polish 'VIS' WWII pistol

[NIGHTLORD40K]

I've never shot or handled either Luger or P38, what particularly did they lack?

Hmmmmm, aside from the ability to be produced in sufficient quantities?
Well, the P38 had some issues with cracked slides, and accuracy is meh at best, but still not a "bad" gun.
Lugers can be ammo sensitive, as the action requires quite a bit of ooomph to cycle right.
Still, I would not feel badly served with a P08, P38, BHP, or Radom- all are good service pistols. I guess the HP would be my choice based on mag capacity and its pleasant ergos.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

I've had all of the guns mentioned. P-08 P-38, Hi-Power, Radom Vis-35, and a Wehrmacht-marked Star Model B. (Never had a GI-spec 1911, but several others.)

The P-08 was, for me, the most accurate, and lovely to look at. (I had two P-08s, one a Soviet Capture with a badly corroded barrel -- near the chamber -- and it was tack driver. The other was a collectible, later sold for a pleasant profit.) I'll get another P-08, one of these days.

My Hi-Power is a Browning, imported by, marketed, and roll-marked that way. Most of the WWII Hi-Powers I've seen were either Inglis or FN. I suspect that if there were any Brownings used in the various militaries, they were probably privately owned civilian guns that joined up with their owners. I also had an INGLIS that had been rode hard and put away wet (badly abused), and my gunsmith just couldn't get it to live up to the HP reputation. I got the Inglis cheaply, and I traded it for a DaeWoo DP51 and felt I ended up with the better gun

My Radom was nice, but I thought the Star Model B was just about as good.

My only P-38 was a "like-new" Manurhin model, but like the P-38 mentioned above, only so-so in terms of accuracy. I later traded it for a CZ-75 at a gun shop; they thought they were getting the better deal (and in terms of money, they might have been -- but I didn't like it, and that early CZ-75 (pre-B) was a sweet shooting gun.

Never had a Tokarev or any of the Japanese WWII handguns.

 

[PabloJ]

Radom did make a small " special edition of the vis P-35, but that was a number of years ago ( 20 years or more ago ) plus they cost a king's ransom..

That was mentioned in article form Arsenal Magazine few years ago. They did show pictures of .45ACP prototype. The pre-WWII samples with eagle and Polish writing on the slide are shockingly expensive. I would rather put my money into nice early blued Walther P-38.