One of my favorite old Germans

Crazy to think this was my service pistol back in 1999. They still had their Nazi markings which were poorly scratched out. We didn't care. This was when the P8 was only available to the "cool guys" in the business (KSK and perhaps some other units). Same with the G36, but I always preferred the G3 anyway.
 
Let's have a little love for their long guns too.

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Early German engineering and machining was, and probably always will be, second to none. This little .25acp Ortgies ca. 1925 is an example.





Not a screw was used in the Ortgies design. Over 30 years ago I bought a non-working Ortgies .32 pistol at a flea market for $5. It was missing a couple of parts in the trigger linkage. I figured out what they looked like and I fabricated replacements using files and a Dremel tool. It worked, but I didn’t keep it very long.
 
love shooting mine

My P-38 is more accurate than my Luger or C-96. I took it to a pistol match (25 yards, and scored higher than a lot of others. I was in top 25%. Very reliable gun also.
 
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More on this Old German known as the ‘Family Luger’:
Before I knew the story behind the P-08 I was asked a question about it by the young lady I was dating at the time.
She was moving out of an apartment into her own condo and her father thought she should have a gun for self protection.
She asked me if a Luger was a good choice for a novice gun owner. While she had been deer hunting with her Dad, she was not a ‘handgun person’. I opined that a 6-shot .38 revolver would be a better choice for her situation.
Skip ahead to the two of us eloping to Reno to get married. My new FIL was very happy that we saved him some big wedding costs
that he gave me the Luger as a wedding gift. 41 years later my wife still calls it “the bribe”.
It turns out the gun was a WWII bring-back by his brother. The brother died in Korea and the pistol went to my FIL.
So now I am keeper of the Family Luger. BTW, it is a very fine shooter!

The knife is an old handmade German Hubertus Solingen classic Shell-Puller field knife
with Stag scales that I won! It was offered as the prize on a gun collectors forum as first prize for a firearm photo.
 
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Are all Lugers "P-08's" or only the 9mm ones "P-08's"?
Larry

Technically, they are not "P-08s" but P.08s. That designation refers to standard 9mm Lugers with 4-inch barrels that were official military sidearms - Pistole 1908 - Germany's standard sidearm at that time.

Those were made by a number of manufacturers. This one was manufactured by Mauser in 1936, and the holster is also marked 1936 - a matched set.

John

 
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Nice early (AC code) Walther ,
I had the same one but foolishly sold it ,
btw the early guns are easy to spot because the frame below the trigger pivot pin is straight, the story goes that it was a weak spot on well worn weapons used on the eastern front, later made frames dip down just below the trigger pin to strengthen that area .
You can see the dip on ISCS YODA's P4 posted above ( btw cool P4, a very interesting and not frequently encountered evolution of the P38-P1).

I have a Spreewerk CYQ 44 that is a very good example of how cosmetically crude the weapons were being pushed out the door as the war was going badly and US bombs were dropping on their factories.
My other is a BYF code Mauser 43 IIRC.

I have a few post war versions including A a very early 50's aluminum frame gun marked as a P38 .
On a side note the late production P1's are probably the high water mark of production (at least the aluminum frame ones) as the factory added a strengthening bolt in the frame, thicker frame rails and wider sights with white dots.
 
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Nice early (AC code) Walther ,
I had the same one but foolishly sold it ,
btw the early guns are easy to spot because the frame below the trigger pivot pin is straight, the story goes that it was a weak spot on well worn weapons used on the eastern front, later made frames dip down just below the trigger pin to strengthen that area .
You can see the dip on ISCS YODA's P4 posted above ( btw cool P4, a very interesting and not frequently encountered evolution of the P38-P1).

I have a Spreewerk CYQ 44 that is a very good example of how cosmetically crude the weapons were being pushed out the door as the war was going badly and US bombs were dropping on their factories.
My other is a BYF code Mauser 43 IIRC.

I have a few post war versions including A a very early 50's aluminum frame gun marked as a P38 .
On a side note the late production P1's are probably the high water mark of production (at least the aluminum frame ones) as the factory added a strengthening bolt in the frame, thicker frame rails and wider sights with white dots.

I also had a Spreewerke P.38 vintage of 1945 - for one day.

I took it to the range, loaded one round in the magazine, applied the safety, pointed the gun downrange and released the slide to snap forward.

BANG!

I wanted a P.38 not an MP38, so I took it back to the guy I bought it from at a gun show and got my money back.

Moral of the story: Check out any late war P.38s, especially the Spreewerke versions, very carefully. The safeties can crystalize with use and be non-functional, allowing the hammer to drop on an unprotected round and fire it when the slide is closed with the safety on. If you load more than one round in the magazine, it will go full-auto.

John
 
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One of the weaknesses of the P-38 design is its safety decocker , ( don't forget this was the first DA 9mm military handgun and its design dates to the mid late 1930's) ,

Besides the trigger pivot point the other problem that reportedly surfaced was that while the firing pin is blocked it isn't out of battety when decocked, well worn P38s used on the eastern front that were repeatedly loaded and decocked dropping the hammer on the safety could cause enough wear that eventually it could allow the gun to fire when decocked on a live round ,
Many of the P38 safety decock, drop fire issues were inherited in the SW Model 39/59 series, these were addressed in the SW 2nd gen series.

Walther addressed the issues in the next iteration of the P38/P1 in their P4 series, these had a visibly shorter barrel but what you can't see is they changed the safety so that the firing pin raises up into battery only when the trigger is pulled fully backwards, they also cut a channel in the hammer face so there is no possability of a decocked hammer drop striking the firing pin, the safety operates differently as well as it does not stay down rather it springs back up after decocking.
I don't think the P4 series had a very long run but all those improvements were incorporated into the P5 series which was a fairly big jump in the P38 evolution.

Two side notes, P5 owners should be aware that although the P5 series uses a different magazine than the P1 it was intentionally designed to be easily modified to accept the P1/P38 magazine by simply swapping its heel mag release with one from a P1/P38.

Second while the barrel locking system is very different than your typical Browning tilting barrel design its been used successfully in a US military sidearm the Beretta 92 series, if you break down a 92 next to a P38 the similarities become very obvious.
 
VERY NICE & complete P.38 Rig !! You know I'm sure that your example is an Walther ( AC Code) version, & being of the 'g' Series was probably produced closer to the beginning of the year than the latter. Naturally, if you wish to research it, there's a wealth if related reference on the P.38 Series on the Web. If you feel like photographing all of its Proof Marks & Numbers, etc., I'll be pleased to at least give you an overall idea of what you have, from a collector's standpoint of course. Sadly though, the prices of such weapons have risen to seemingly ridiculous levels over the years, thereby precluding a great majority of novice collectors from even starting a collection of them, & or any other military WW1 / WW2 Handguns. But, anyway you look at it, your particular P.38 Rig appears to be an prime example of the type, & you should take care of it accordingly. My only remaining P.38 is an Post-WW2 P.1 variant, made on French Contract for West German Polizei useage. Mine was let's expressly for issue to, & use by the West Berlin Polizei, as due to its French mfg., it was able to circumvent the Allies restrictions banning any German produced weapons being used by, & in Berlin. Mine has the correct 1963 proofed Flap Holster, as issued to the Berlin Police, along with 2 Police mk'd Magazines #'s .1 & .2, in the Police fashion. But sadly, that's by only remaining P.38 / P.1, although I b did manage to keep a few other P.08's, etc. So, let me know if you need any information on your P.38.

Best, Dom P.
 
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