Posted June 5, 2019 6:30 am by Comments

By Chris Eger

This Mauser-made P-38 9mm up for grabs from the Guns.com Vault bears WaA135 Waffenamp inspection stamps and the byf44 manufacturer’s code used by Mauser for these WWII-era guns. (Photo: Richard Taylor/Guns.com)
One of the first 9mm combat handguns, the single-stack Walther P-38 has seen continuous military service for over 80 years.
Springing from the mind of Fritz Barthelmes and Fritz Walther — the pair had earlier worked on the Walther Police Pistol (PP) — the patents for the P-38’s prototypes were filed in 1936 and made it into production by 1940 to replace the German Army’s vintage toggle-action Lugers.
Note the fixed barrel, similar to Walther’s previous PP/PPK series pistols. (Photo: Richard Taylor/Guns.com)
The first production semi-auto pistol to use a double-action/single-action trigger system, the P-38 had a 5-inch fixed barrel, which aided accuracy, and an 8+1 capacity.
About a third of P-38s made during WWII were produced by Mauser. (Photo: Richard Taylor/Guns.com)
Weighing in at about 34-ounces, the P-38 was about as heavy as the American Colt M1911 .45ACP and Soviet TT-33 7.62x25mm handguns. However, when compared to the revolvers used by Great Britain and others, it was a much more modern design.
In all, over 1 million P-38s were made in Germany during World War

Source: Guns.com

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