P.38 Tests.
Hi, guys,
Well, in spite of certain other opinions, the 1943 P.38's were pretty good, though lacking in finish. By that time, the bugs had been worked out and the pistols were still well made and fitted. The story that all wartime P.38's are junk is simply not true, and no one who knows anything about them would make such a silly statement. Even the very late pistols were serviceable, though often badly fitted.
But there is a persistent story that if the hammer drop safety of the P.38 is used, the safety will break and fire a chambered round. Much of this seems to be based on a statement in Small Arms of the World about one incident, but the author offers no indication of when or where the incident happened, if there was any real investigation, or if other factors were ruled out. Others have repeated the story, often embellishing it to "several" or "hundreds" or "thousands" of incidents, again without any real evidence. No one, oddly enough, has ever mentioned the strange occurrence which would inevitably follow if this happened in the normal loading situation.
Obviously, I cannot prove or disprove a negative, but I have probably handled well over a thousand P.38's and have tried the hammer drop on many of them with no problem.
But just to see what would happen, I decided to test the theory that the guns are junk and the safeties break all the time. So, I decided on a little experiment.*
I took the following P.38's: ac41, ac42, ac43, byf44, cyq45, svw46, postwar P.38 and postwar P.1. The latter two have round firing pins and a slightly different safety.
I removed the firing pin and safety from each and studied the parts under magnification to determine if there was any sign of cracking, undue wear, or machining errors. There were none.
Then I installed the safety, firing pin, firing pin spring and firing pin retainer in the slide, attached the barrel, and inserted a primed case in the chamber. I put the safety in the down position, blocking the firing pin. I then placed each barrel-slide in a padded vise, barrel down, and hit the back of the firing pin, using a large drift punch and an eight ounce hammer. I did this repeatedly, striking much harder than any pistol hammer could possibly do.
Then I removed the firing pin and safety again, and checked for damage, cracking or breakage. There was none, and no significant difference from the original inspection. The primer showed no marks.
It seems very unlikely that the relatively light blow of the pistol hammer could break a safety when blows from a half-pound hammer did not. Nor does it seem likely the light blow of the pistol hammer would cause any sort of peening or "work hardening" that could lead to failures. Certainly at least the older guns should have shown signs of peening or deformation if that were the case.
This does not prove absolutely that the dangers pointed out by others cannot happen. I do think it shows that those who claim to have experienced many and repeated failures are somehow confused or are embellishing a dubious story to pretend to expertise they do not have.
Jim
*At some considerable risk of financial loss. P.38 safeties are running around $75 when they can be found, and firing pins are about $25.