Walther p1 cleaning kit
In 1975, the writing was on the wall for the German police to start replacing the Walther P1, then largely the standard 9mm pistol on the hips of poliezi across the country, with something more modern. Guns marked as such are seen in the US for $900-ish. They served notably with the West Berlin Police. In the 1950s, smelling a deal, West Germany negotiated the long delayed delivery of these dusty guns from storage, redubbed the P3 police pistol. Hey, anything is better than a pointy stick.Īfter the War, the Spanish still had more than 10,000 of these guns in storage that could never be delivered to Hitler. A blowback design (think Hi-Point 9mm), it had a stout recoil but its long barrel gave it a good sight radius and it proved reliable enough to be well liked by the German Army during the war. At 8.1-inches overall with a very distinctive 5.3-inch barrel, the 600 was a chunky gun, tipping the scales at over 40-ounces when its 8-shot magazine was fully loaded. The 600 was a 9x19mm version of the Spanish Army’s Astra 400, which was chambered in 9x23mm Largo. One deal they brokered was with the Spanish firm of Astra for nearly 60,000 of their Model 600 pistols. As such, each of the guns that passed the testing was classified with a P-designation.īecause of these standards these pistols, stretching from the Walther P-1 to the HK P-10, have shared a number of common attributes… What these guns had in common In 1950, the new Republic of Germany needed guns for their police forces and went about setting a standard for these guns to be acceptable for service. The Soviets occupied the easternmost portion of the land, and formed the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. The US and her allies occupied the Western two thirds of the country, which became the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly referred to as West Germany. What is the ‘P’ designation about?Īt the end of World War 2, Germany was divided into two separate countries. But what you may not pay much mind to is that all of these guns get their ‘P’ designation from being adopted by the West German police back in the bad old days and, for students of history, that’s more than enough to raise an eyebrow at. You know the ones, the Walther p1, SIG P6, HK P7 etcetera. If you’re a handgun hound, chances are you’ve set eyes on a whole line of imported European 9mm cop guns over the years. On top, the P5, left, P7 and, bottom, P6 commercial model. Life is filled with enough regrets without something like this being one of them.German Police guns.
(You may get lucky and get one by luck of the draw, but why take a chance?) If you're spending any money at all on a gun it would be foolish not to spend the extra few dollars and have something you really want and really feel confident and happy with.
And yet, because of the name "P.38" and general lack of knowledge on the part of many people, you may pay upward of $150-$200 more just for the name "P.38" when in fact it still has the aluminum frame WITHOUT the steel reinforcing lug in the frame, better slide and all the other improvements made to later-model P.1's.īottom line: If you're going to buy one from AIM, cough-up the extra $10.00 for hand-select and specify you want a later model with the steel reinforcment lug in the frame. It may be safe to assume that these later-production pistols, with all the design improvements, may provide increased functional reliability than the earlier models, including, ironically the post-war P.38's which never had these design modifications incorporated as did the P.1. (See the photo somebody posted elsewhere on this page to see what I'm talking about.) They also incorporated a slightly thicker sidewall on a section of the slide (commonly referred to as a "fat-slide" though it's not really distinguishable at a glance) and several other changes as well. In later years (sometime in the 1970's), Walther incorporated several important design improvements into the P.1 including the infamous steel hex-pin through the frame to lessen the impact of the locking-block on the return of the slide into battery.
Apart from that one notable exception, ALL post-war Walther P.38 pistols have the same aluminum frame as the P.1. Well, only those made through 1945 under the Third Reich and the relative handful assembled by the French immediately after the war using captured German parts. You'll hear all over the place how P.38's supposedly all have steel frames. All post-war P.38's are more or less identical as far as I know to the P.1, including an alloy ("Duraluminum") frame. The post-war P.38 and P.1 designations were largely superficial and used to designate pistols for the police forces and Bundeswehr (the armed forces), respectively.