German P 38 accuracy and accessories

Gave mine to my brother when he got married

In the early 70's I bought one from a gun shop in Greenville, SC and tried it out. The pistol came with a holster and extra magazine. The salesman sales spill was that it was double and single action. It was my first semi-auto. I most likely bought the cheapest ammunition that I could find and got very poor accuracy out of it. I was comparing it my brand new Ruger Security Six shooting wadcutters. I think back on that not a very good comparison. When my brother got married I gave it to him as wedding present. Last time I talked with him he did not want to part with it.

Lemmon
 
I have a newer P1 (German post-war police version of the P-38) and it shoots as accurately as any other modern police/military pistol, so far as I can tell. The main drawback is the 7-round capacity, but it is a nice little gun for the price ($320 with holster and extra mag, about 5 years ago).
 
Interesting in finding out that besides Walther, Mauser and Spreewerk (as another guy mentioned) were put into production rotations...and that Spreewerk were somewhat obstinate about quitting production of the P 08 Luger in favor of the 38.
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Basically how it happened was that Walther shared the blue prints with Mauser then Spreewerke. Mauser started production in 1942, Spreewerke in either late 1942 or 1943. From then on, they each made them until the end.
Walthers are marked 480 or AC, Mausers BYF or SVW (changed to SVW from BYF in 1945). and Spreewerke CYQ.

Regarding ceasing the P08 production, I assume you mean Mauser because I don't think Spreewerke ever made a luger. The spreewerke factory was in Czechoslovakia actually.

Your gun, an AC 41, should have matching serial numbered mags, in a perfect world. Walther stopped serial numbering mags with the 2nd run of AC 42.

They are great pieces of history and were one of the best designed sidearms of the whole war.
 
ks_waywardson:
I thought the P38s preferred the 115gr ammo? If I remember right all the guys at the P38 website always talked about the 115gr ammo as being the standard to use. I have had a couple of hiccups with it but thought it was just the fault of my reloads maybe not being hot enough. At any rate not enough problems to worry about.


Joe
 
The collectors are worried about damaging their babies so they use 115. A very common bullet weight for German 9mm para in WW2 was 124gr

Did they use others? I'm sure, but that 124 is going to tend to operate the P38 more reliably
 
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Isn't a 3" group at 50 feet or 50 yards good enough to give a feral pig incentive to change his "heading"
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You're kidding, right? Some feral pigs are flipp'n huge and a 9mm won't do much more than increase the grouchy factor to 11.
 
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