I read that they made around 7000 P4's, an interim pistol until the P5.
I am told this is a West German police from 70's and 80's.
They are supposed to be accurate, but no proof until I get it to the range.
I shipped a load of 9mm, of varying sorts, down to FL. So, i shall give it a work out.
While looking for grips I found the following research done by someone. The credit is not mine.
Back in the late 70's, Germany was actively looking for a new police pistol.
With the infamous Olympic massacre, and the various Bader Mienhof terrorists groups shooting the country up, the police decided they needed a more modern, high-capacity gun than the old Walther P-38.
The search was on, but Walther didn't have their new models ready yet.
To "fill in" until the new models were ready, in 1975 Walther did a update/redesign of the P-38.
The resulting gun was the P4, sometimes known as the P-38-IV.
The frame was exactly the same as the late P-38, with only the slide and barrel being different.
The barrel was shortened from 5" to 4 1/2".
The major changes were in the slide and safety mechanism.
The slide dispensed with the spring steel top cover which held the rear sight in place, covered the firing pin and loaded chamber pins, and deleted the loaded chamber indicator pin.
The new slide had a solid steel top with the rear sight held on with a screw. This is NOT a windage adjustable sight, contrary to popular belief.
The safety system was changed to a de-cocker.
The P-38 safety was simply spring loaded, so that when it was turned down the hammer was dropped, as usual, but then the safety springs back up in the form of a de-cocker.
The firing pin was changed to move completely out of the path of the hammer, making it impossible for the hammer to touch the firing pin. This eliminated the old problem of the P-38 hammer actually striking the firing pin when the safety was applied.
The hammer was changed to a shorter spurred design, with a hole to prevent it's touching the firing pin unless the trigger was pulled.
Other than the hammer, all frame parts are interchangeable with older versions of the P-38, including many parts with the WWII guns, including grips.
Virtually no slide parts will interchange.
The P4 is a much better design, eliminating the weakness of the top cover assembly, which always had problems with blowing off, scattering internal parts.
The de-cocker and firing pin design eliminated any chance of broken or worn parts allowing the gun to fire when the safety was applied, and the de-cocker insured the gun stayed in a ready to fire mode.
As a fill-in, the P4 was actually superior to the P-38, and was popular with users.
The P4 was only made from 1975 to 1981, with few commercial models imported into the US.
A larger number of ex-police models were imported in the late 1980's, and these were sold at bargain basement prices.
Many if not most of these guns had seen little to no use and were one of the best gun deals ever.
