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p-38 and p-1

brettmusxat
was at a gun show today and saw a p-1 walther that caught my eye. Was asking 300 , a few tables over two other vendors had what appeared to be the same gun same holster and extra clip for 645 and 699. The one for 300 appeared to be in better condition and was dated 10/79. the other two did not have dates (that i could see at first look) but did not appear to be p-38's. One thing that was different on the one for 300 was that the walther letters on the side were gold in color and not stamped in black. Why such a huge price variant?? Liked how it felt as it reminded me of my grandfathers luger which is a totally different gun, but are both 9mm and felt much like it when gripped. Tapered barrel kind of has the same shape too. Thanks for any input.
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  • rufe-snow
    The difference is in the age and material the Walthers are made of. The P 1 was made in Oct. 1979 and has a aluminum alloy frame. If the other ones were the P 38's made during the Second World War they were all steel except the grips.

    Although some of the early post W W II production alloy frame Walthers were marked P 38 also. These mostly were made for commercial sale rather then use by the West German army, as the P 1 was the West German army designation.
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  • nmyers
    The P-1's are police trade-ins, imported about 10 years ago. They sold in the $250-300, so the asking price sounds reasonable. There was a problem with the frames cracking, so you might do better if you get the later version with the steel hex-shaped insert in the frame in front of the slide release.

    Neal
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  • brettmusxat
    Thanks guys ..the other two that were there may may have been 38's, would the p-38 have been heavier in weight? Also were the slides alloy on the p-1's too, or was just the frame alloy. The slide on the other two seemed shiny where as the slide on the 300 one was more of a brushed / black anodized look. The slide width appeared to be the same on all three but did not measure / caliper.
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  • rufe-snow
    quote:Originally posted by brettmusxat
    Thanks guys ..the other two that were there may may have been 38's, would the p-38 have been heavier in weight? Also were the slides alloy on the p-1's too, or was just the frame alloy. The slide on the other two seemed shiny where as the slide on the 300 one was more of a brushed / black anodized look. The slide width appeared to be the same on all three but did not measure / caliper.


    The slides on both war time and post war, 9mm P 38's and P 1's were steel. Being that the frames of the war time P 38's were steel they would have been heavier then the alloy framed P 1's.
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