but it is as close as I am likely to get anytime soon. Found a used shooter Walther P-1 at the LGS today and took it home. Honest holster wear other wise it looks and feels good. We'll see how it shots.

Looks in great shape, nice catch. Always wondered how they shoot, we'll need a range report. LGS's are dangerous to visit, it can be costly. Larry

I was helping a friend buy a Remington 700 BDL in 270, he got cold feet.

As one might imagine, they feel muzzle light but shoot fine.

Was the grip frame the a crime scene? Enjoy!

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

LGS wraps grips of its used handguns with a band of yellow tape.

It look like it's been taken of,I agree it looks great.

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Life is short,live it fully.

Nice one!
Mines a very accurate handgun for me and one of my favorites. Feeds fires and ejects Rem-UMC 115fmj w/o any problems at all.

I've had mine since sometime in the early 90's. The pistol was mfg in '67. No 'Fat Slide' or reinforced frame hex pin. I shoot it a lot, one of the easiest to manipulate/retract slides. Never any problems w/the pistol.
Enjoy it!

Good for you. Had one just like it. Mine had a smooth double action and good single action trigger. Most importantly, unlike the Lugers I used to have, it was reliable with any ammo I used, including JHPs. Unfortunately, mine did not have the reinforced slide and, even though it was fed only standard pressure ammo, the slide soon cracked through the locking block area.

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NRA Life, COTEP 640

Looks to be in nice shape. It is an early version without the steel reinforcement pin in the frame. Walther added a steel reinforcing pin to the aluminum frame when it was found the frames had a tendency to crack.

Ya did good,
Ive always wanted one but never pulled the trigger in an LGS. unintended pun.

Had a really nice one in the Numrich box. Sold it and really regret it.

P38, P08
Close enough, right?

It's not a Luger, it's not a p38. She's a alloy clone of the p38 called the P1.
Bravo nice choice. I have one nib never shot. For a minute I thought you were going to say you had a Swedish m40 in 9mm. There really heavy. So many choices.

I've had several p38s, they were all Nazi wW2 models. I never
shoot them much but they are a dependable well built pistol.
They do a good job for what they were designed for, a combat
pistol. They are not target pistols. They are very forgiving on
Ammo. I have shot the cheap to hot submachinegun ammo.
Most 9mms will not fire sub ammo with any consistency because
of the harder primers.

Shhh, P1s and P38s are much better battle pistols than Lugers. Don't tell anyone or we'll be burned in effigy.

Looks good. I scored the one below from a local shop a few weeks ago for $375. RTG Parts has mags for around $15 & leather holsters for under $30.

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Watch & Pray

In 1961 my dad (WWII Navy vet ) felt the need for a pistol , after looking through the Klein's Sporting Goods catalog he and a buddy decided to mail order WWII surplus Walther P-38's . I begged him to spend the extra $20.00 and order the sexy looking P-08 ...the Real Luger.....but he wouldn't have it, told me the P-38 was a better pistol.
Dad's gone now , I have the P-38 and we still go shooting. That rascal will feed fire and eject just about anything....even some ammo I loaded with cast 158 grain SWC bullets meant for 38/357 revolver ...
10 shots will make one big ragged hole about 1 1/2 inches wide....Maybe the old man knew what he was talking about....
Now that I've shoot it more , I'm gaining a whole lot of respect for the P-38 .
Gary

Yes, it is not the WWII Steel P-38 or later model the reinforced frame P-1, but with a little TLC maybe my son will be shooting it long after I am gone.

It came with a nice leather holster and I ordered 3 mags off of CDNN for less than $20 each. Thank you!

The P1 was the military designation for this pistol, civilian versions and some identical police guns were marked P38. A few P38 marked pistols made it to the German army, also, and the Bundeswehr did the mandatory proofing for the German police as inter-agency help.
The P1 was originally designed for a life span of 5,000 rounds and militray guns that had slides of frames broken were quickly repaired by the
armourers. It was during the Baader-Meinhoff terror threats in the 1980s that police started shooting more than the 15 annual rounds for qualification and the P1s failed in large numbers, making the improvements necessary.

Despite that, the P1 is a very accurate handgun but because of the weight and its distribution it is not a gun for fast shooting, also most soldiers and policemen could not shoot the P1 as well as its successors.

That led to a lot of blame for the P1 and was usually done by the same people that blamed their swimwear for the fact that they couldn't pass the swimming test.

Don't use Fiocchi or other hot loads in it but rather Remington standard ammo and it will extend the lifespan. Keep in mind they were built to the requirement of lasting 5,000 rounds.

Andyd, Thanks for posting the information on the P1 design lifespan, etc. All new to me. I really liked my P1 and was disappointed that it was not more durable. Now I understand why.

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NRA Life, COTEP 640

Rock,

when the army ordered the pistols they were required to last a minimum of 5,000 rounds. The Nato 9mm ammo that we shot through the P1 was also used in the Uzi, so take the 5,000 rounds lifespan with caution.

I had shot the P1 in military and police state championships and the best score I achieved was 99 out of 100 at 25 meters. I never got a better score than 92 in competitions with the P8, the military version of the HK USP but the USP lends itself to faster shooting and is pretty abuse-resistent.

learn more about it here...
Pistol P1 - the Bundeswehr handgun - Part 1

Well, maybe I should just find a nice corner in the safe.

I have owned a P-38 post war for a number of years.

In my opinion it is a very good service pistol, accurate in S/A; the D/A is good enough. It is a little short of modern service pistols in ammo capacity, but does have a certain coolness factor.

Mine doesn't like Remington Ball Ammo, but loves Winchester White box.

For serious use I have a stash of the old S&W Nyclad hollow points, which feed very well in mine.

What you have to understand is that the Cold War really was not a handgun war. Andy seems to have been in an actual infantry unit that shot their guns, including pistols, quite a bit more than the rest of the Bundeswehr.

The rule was that everybody shot the G3, the standard rifle, during basic, and then you only got to shoot the weapon you actually were assigned. I carried an Uzi and got a fair amount of rounds through mine, but never even got trained on the P1 and didn't shoot one until I joined the reservists association after my active service and participated in their shoots. Same with the MG3. And I was in an Armored Engineer Company (Panzerpioniere), theoretically a frontline combat unit. There was even less shooting practice going on in supply units and such.

The P1 was generally carried by officers, senior NCO's, and specialists like machine gunners, and they hardly ever got to shoot their pistols since whenever we were at the range, they were busy either supervising us enlisted doofuses or using their primary weapons.

So the theoretical 5000 rounds were not just plenty, most P1's long outlasted even 20 or more years of 'active' service since so many saw hardly any shooting, and they hit the surplus market here in excellent condition.

Looks like you got one without the strengthening hex pin and beefed up slide. Shouldn't be a problem as long as you stay with lighter loads, but watch out for any signs of cracking on the slide or frame.

this thread made me pull mine out. It was obtained when they were first coming in, about 200bucks at the time.
it's a 192xxx serial number, and is marked P38 on left side of slide, which is alloy. Unpinned too. I have never shot it. Interesting enough it was reparked over the walther banner, numbers etc, it's still a little scratchy on the inside when you work the action. I have a russian capture p38 WWII, and a couple of others, and they were a superior firearm in combat conditions to the p8. It is an alloy frame, but walther did call it a p38 stamped on the slide. should add 1/63 was manuf. date it also has the P1 marked magazine, fifth variation with the curled "9". it too is reparked with no inspection numbers.

thank you for that website, it answered a lot of questions. my particular one did go through somewhat of a rebuild but not as much as i would have thought. It is marked BW. Original hammer, but fitted with spring ejector. You have to push it down to get the slide back on. reparked. it also has the cast trigger. but the rest of it is all original. They must have not replaced parts on the upgrades equally. It was later in 1963 that they went to the P1 designation.

I was in a Panzergrenadier Batallion. Grenadiers, airbourne , and mountaineering troops shot roughly twice as much as other units and we had to not just qualify but were expected to do better with all issued small arms, including the RPG. When there was nothing else to do, we went to the firing range about three miles away.

I shot the G3 and MG3 at least every two weeks and went through sniper training. The IR scope weighed something like 25 pounds and technology has advanced tremendously since the late 1970s, relegating the P1 to the status of a very shootable collector's gun.

I think it's not just the technology that has advanced since the 1970s .

The end of the Cold War, the War on Terror and a lengthy Afghanistan deployment really changed things.

All we really worried about were Soviet tanks. This video is from 2012. The narration is German, but the footage is self-explanatory. We never practiced anything remotely like this.

I do not want to take the thread completely out in another direction but the video clip of the Bundeswehr pistol training at 1:39 minutes is showing the weaknesses. That is a P8 in 9mm and it should not move during slow fire! I think many American shooters, who do not claim to be a professional are doing much better..