somd_mustangs
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- Jul 1, 2012
- 5,739
A lucky recent acquisition from a long-time collector that's selling off his P.38's...
At first glance this looks like just another scruffy P.38 and could even be confused for a post-war pistol.
Closer examination shows the war-time commercial slide logo, complete with "Mod HP" designation for "Model Heeres Pistole" (army pistol), similar to Colt's commercial designation of "Government Model" for the 1911.
Still not incredibly exciting, although the commercial Mod HP was a pretty low-production pistol with only about 23000 made**
(compared to the hundreds of thousands of military P.38's made in WW2).
The early high-polish finish makes it more interesting... but...
Taking a peek inside, the frame is actually made from an aluminum alloy (Dural) ...
Whoa, that can't be right, war-time P.38's were all-steel, right ?!!
Speculation is that Walther experimented with an estimated 100 Mod HP's with Dural frame but no evidence exists as to the actual numbers.
So far only 18 of these have been reported, and are evenly distributed in a block from S/N 6870 to 6932 (early war).
Chances are that due to the lesser strength, many of the original batch were damaged and disposed of while testing.
The Dural frame has the section of frame at the front left mostly intact for strength, while the corresponding standard steel frame is milled out to reduce weight.
Otherwise the machining is identical to the steel-frame counterpart.
The Dural frame reduced the overall weight by about 6 oz - which happens to be about the weight of a loaded P.38 magazine.
Walther also made PP's and PPK's during the war with Dural frames, which are much more plentiful (but still relatively scarce in the grand scheme of things).
** As an aside, it was extremely difficult for a citizen to acquire a 9mm "military-only" caliber handgun in Germany in the years leading up to, and including the war (sound familiar?). Commercial sales were slow; mostly to foreign governments and private purchase by "special" officers and party officials. Ironically a good number of the commercial production Mod HP's wound up being procured by the army anyway (denoted by an acceptance E/359 Waffenamt on the slide).
At first glance this looks like just another scruffy P.38 and could even be confused for a post-war pistol.
Closer examination shows the war-time commercial slide logo, complete with "Mod HP" designation for "Model Heeres Pistole" (army pistol), similar to Colt's commercial designation of "Government Model" for the 1911.
Still not incredibly exciting, although the commercial Mod HP was a pretty low-production pistol with only about 23000 made**
(compared to the hundreds of thousands of military P.38's made in WW2).
The early high-polish finish makes it more interesting... but...
Taking a peek inside, the frame is actually made from an aluminum alloy (Dural) ...
Whoa, that can't be right, war-time P.38's were all-steel, right ?!!
Speculation is that Walther experimented with an estimated 100 Mod HP's with Dural frame but no evidence exists as to the actual numbers.
So far only 18 of these have been reported, and are evenly distributed in a block from S/N 6870 to 6932 (early war).
Chances are that due to the lesser strength, many of the original batch were damaged and disposed of while testing.
The Dural frame has the section of frame at the front left mostly intact for strength, while the corresponding standard steel frame is milled out to reduce weight.
Otherwise the machining is identical to the steel-frame counterpart.
The Dural frame reduced the overall weight by about 6 oz - which happens to be about the weight of a loaded P.38 magazine.
Walther also made PP's and PPK's during the war with Dural frames, which are much more plentiful (but still relatively scarce in the grand scheme of things).
** As an aside, it was extremely difficult for a citizen to acquire a 9mm "military-only" caliber handgun in Germany in the years leading up to, and including the war (sound familiar?). Commercial sales were slow; mostly to foreign governments and private purchase by "special" officers and party officials. Ironically a good number of the commercial production Mod HP's wound up being procured by the army anyway (denoted by an acceptance E/359 Waffenamt on the slide).