P04 help please:

[9x19]

Hi Ron,

Thank you for the pictures, but I am going to leave my model as it is.

My reasons for that decision are several:

1) The geometry involved.

2) Your example was clearly hand filed, not machined, and if you look at the at the side view and project forward the deepest point of the "groove" (which is very close to tangential to the side of the slide, as per my model) to the very front of slide I believe you would get exactly what I have modelled.

3) Depending on when the gun was made, and by whom, different methods of production were employed. In fact I have seen examples where the "grooves" do not match from side to side.

Interestingly enough I have drawings of a horizontal groove cut in the top front edge of the slide (forward of where you see 1920 on your gun) that does not appear to have any use. I have seen it on several guns, but it is absent from others. I am beginning to think that there are far too many variations of the P.08, especially as quality dropped later in the war.

Please see the attached image of an actual gun slide that is pretty much a match for my model. This particular gun is clearly made to a high standard as all the tooling marks have been polished out:

Regards,

Dave