I had a “mid-WWII” P38 sitting in my safe I’d been wanting to shoot. The P38/P1 is truly one of the great military sidearms of the Another 600,000-plus P1s were manufactured by Walther in their new Ulm factory and sold to other countries as well as the Bundeswehr (which used the P1 until the mid-’90’s). The Walther P1, adopted in 1957, differed from the older P38 primarily by having an aluminum frame and strengthened slide. After WWII, the German Bundeswehr wanted the combat-tested P38 as its NATO service pistol. Over a million were made by Walther, Spreewerk and Mauser before the war’s end. Produced using inexpensive sheet-steel stampings, the P38 set the standard for future military sidearms. These included a loaded-chamber indicator, a large open-top chamber, a decocking safety lever, external slide release and a double/single-action trigger allowing safe carry with a loaded chamber. It was a locked-breech, double-action 9mm employing several very innovative features which would become common in later postwar 9mm pistols. In 1938 the Wehrmacht adopted a new Walther-designed pistol, designated Pistole 38. It wasn’t particularly reliable and was vulnerable to stoppages from dirt and foreign matter.
Difficult to manufacture, the Luger P08 needed extensive hand fitting and assembly by a highly skilled workforce. Germany’s legendary Luger (Pistole Parabellum 1908) was never a great service pistol.
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