East German Manufactured P38

[Wilhelm]

Next are the grips. The majority of East German reworks use recycled WWII grips but they did make new ones and, if you know what you are looking at, they are very easy to spot.



To my knowledge, all East German made grips are dark bakelite, many times with some slight red/orange blotches seen in the proper lighting. If you look at the insides, there are never any markings, only some mold release pin marks. No WWII grips look like this.







On the outside, they look like typical grips at first glance but there are differences:



The escutcheon molded into the right grip is simplified compared to its WWII counterpart. The inside diameter bevel down to the threads is much less pronounced.

On the left grip, the last groove just underneath the thumb rest is very short. While there are variation in wartime grips, none of them have such a short groove to my knowledge.
Here's a closeup of the little dude:




So, if you can take the grips off of a pistol to look at the insides, you can tell right away if they are Eastie made. If you can't, you can still tell by looking at the outside of the grips but it's a little harder to tell.



We'll examine the slide in the next post.