What say ya'll ?
 

Ran into a Walther P38 with minty holster and three mags at a gunshop this morning. It has an aluminum frame and was built in 11/61.
I would assume it's ( was ) an East German Police weapon??
The gun is nice and crisp with a very good bore. Not too much holster wear either. It's stamped "Interarms."
The shop wants $400.00 for all of it.
My first instinct was to steer away from it because of the aluminum frame, plus, I don't think it would be too exciting to own a P38 that wasn't much older than some of the stuff way in the back of my ice-box ( fridge to you youngsters out there! ).
All in all the whole thing was clean and nice, but I'd kinda like to save my pennies for a Luger 9mm shooter to pair-up with my .30 cal DWM.
Any and all thoughts are welcome,
Thanks in advance,
Adler Auger

Interarms is equivalent of Stoeger in our era, not a surplus dealer, mainly sells new guns. It's a postwar commercial P38. I think it's better than those surplus dumped from Germany, at least it's original (could be original), all those surplus that I have met were refinished ugly stuff, but surplus is usually in $200-300 range, a little bit cheaper. So plus and minus. It's a well built gun, I fired 5000+ rounds from my Interarms when ammo was cheap. Averagely, the malfunction (all were failure to feed and failure to eject) interval was 412.

I could be wrong, but I've never heard about an East German P38 with aluminium frame. THis could be a West German P1 frame
Is it marked P38?
Nowadays you can find a P1 in mint condition from Bundeswehr surplus, never issued, still in the original wrapping!
The P38 was named P1 because is was the first Pistol (Pistole 1) officially adopted by the Bundeswehr (except some other pistols used at the early beginning after the Bw was founded in 1955.
It was the workhorse of the Bundeswehr for over 40 years.

Actually, Interarms was a surplus dealer and effectively one of the largest of it's kind in the 1950-1990 time frame.

After the restrictions on the import of surplus guns, Interarms contacted several old world suppliers, like Walther and Mauser and arranged for new production, as these were not subjected to any import schemes.

Walther in turn used Manurhin (France) as a subcontractor for many years, when it was forbidden to produce pistols in Germany.

Manurhin produced for example alot of PPKs

IIRC, the aluminum frame was changed at some point to include a "hex" steel cross-bolt in the frame to help resist cracking/deforming under recoil...

I don't know exactly what year the cross-bolt was added...

Getting one *with* the cross-bolt would be a "must" in my book... :thumbup:

Gander Mountain in my area had the aluminum P1 for the same price, minus holster and extra mags...

Thanks. Now it's a better business.

How can those companys like Century, Cherry, B-West, KFS (?).... still import those surplus in like crazy these days? mainly from Eastern Europe, originally prepared for the 3rd World War, now all dumping here with import mark.


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[Edit] Sorry for the above. I was a little bit upset to hear this. The bright shiny image of Interarms the Great, collapsed in my mind for half an hour :) Not a problem anymore. Now my mood returns to normal.

Don't shoot hollow points in the aluminum frame version. They ding up the feed ramp.

FN

The aluminum framed ones were new made west german P1's, at the beggining they were steel framed and at some point became aluminum.


Just a year or so ago they were going for around $250, but I see that FGS has them for $369.50


Ed

Aluminum frame could be P.38 as well. Many years ago, I had a NIB Walther "1886-1986" marked postwar pistol with "P.38" on slide, that one has aluminum frame. Also had another plain postwar aluminum Interarms marked "P.38". The magazines of those are not numbered to the gun, but marked P.38. The current one in my self-defense plan is an Interarms P-1 though, having P1 marked magazine. Basiclly, I have never played a steel frame P38 nor P1 :( and curious on its weight.

Hi Alvin, My aluminum framed Interarms P38 weighs 27 1/2 ozs compared to the steel framed variety which weigh in at 33 3/8 ozs. Regards, Norm

Will the real P 38 please stand up !
 

Wow, I never expected so much response, and so packed full of great information.
The P 38 in question had what appeared to be ( old eyes and forgot my magnifying glass ) droop-wing birds stamped on it; I don't remember just where. I'm almost certain some of the stamped figures had been X'd out, like Russian capture weapons.
There is the exact same gun now on GUNBROKER, under the
Auction # 151583782, and it too comes with a holster just like the one I saw at the gun shop today. The only difference I could see was the date of manufacture on the gun in the shop was earlier than the one on Gunbroker.
Thanks guys,
Adler Auger

That's a P4; shorter barrel than the P38/P1...and there's the hex cross-bolt...

Alvin, are you sure that the 100-year-special-edition P38 with the "1886-1986 100 Jahre Walther"-Banner had an aluminium frame?
I've bought one in 1989 or 1990 and it had an all steel frame, not an aluminium frame.

As far I know, the P4 was used by the German Custom, maybe some Police units, too. But not by the military, they had the P1.

I note a few misconceptions above. Walther began postwar manufacture of the alloy frame P38 in 1957 for commerical sales. The military also purchase these same pistol, but they will also have military Buro (acceptance) markings. Around 1963 the guns contracted for the the military were marked "P1" to distinguish them from the continuing P38 marked commerical production show above. Over time, there were some changes to the slide logo and serial number locations, leading to many variations for collectors, but these were basicly the same pistols. I'd recommend Dieter Marschall's "Walther Pistols" book for further details and perhaps he will chime in with some more definative info. TH

test sending photo.
 

I'm attempting to post a picture and hopefully it will work.
Sorry for the distraction.