Walther P38

The Walther P38 (originally written Walther P.38) is a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol that was developed by Carl Walther GmbH as the service pistol of the Wehrmacht at the beginning of World War II. It was intended to replace the comparatively complex and expensive to produce Luger P08. Moving the production lines to the more easily mass producible P38 once World War II started took longer than expected, leading to the P08 remaining in production until September 1942 and copies remained in service until the end of the war.

As the previous service pistol, the Luger P08, was expensive to produce, Germany started to look for a replacement as early as 1927, settling on the Walther P38 in 1938, which offered similar performance to the Luger P08 but took almost half the time to produce. The first design was submitted to the German Army and featured a locked breech and a hidden hammer but the Army requested that it should be redesigned with an external hammer.

The P38 concept was accepted by the German military in 1938 but production of prototype ("Test") pistols did not begin until late 1939. Walther began manufacture at their plant in Zella-Mehlis and produced three series of "Test" pistols, designated by a "0" prefix to the serial number. The third series pistols solved the problems for the German Army and mass production began in mid-1940, using Walther's military production identification code "480".^{[citation needed]}

Several experimental versions were later created in .45 ACP, and .38 Super but these were never mass-produced. In addition to the 9×19mm Parabellum version, some 7.65×21mm Parabellum and some .22 Long Rifle versions were also manufactured and sold.

The P.38 is a semi-automatic pistol design, which introduced technical features used today in commercial and military semi-automatic pistols, including the Beretta 92FS and its M9 sub-variant.

The P38 was the first locked-breech pistol to use a double-action/single-action (DA/SA) trigger (the earlier double-action PPK was an unlocked blowback design, but the more powerful 9×19mm Parabellum round used in the P38 needed a locked breech design). The shooter could chamber a round, use the safety-decocking lever to lower the hammer without firing the round, and carry the weapon with a round chambered. The lever can stay on "safe", or if returned to "fire", the weapon remains safely "ready" with a long, double-action trigger pull for the first shot. Pulling the trigger cocks the hammer before firing the first shot with double-action operation. The firing mechanism extracts and ejects the first spent round, cocks the hammer, and chambers a fresh round for single-action operation with each subsequent shot; all features found in many modern handguns. Besides a DA/SA trigger design similar to that of the earlier Walther PPKs the P38 features a visible and tactile loaded chamber indicator in the form of a metal rod that protrudes from the rear of the slide when a round is chambered.

The moving-barrel mechanism is actuated by a wedge-shaped hinged locking piece underneath the breech. When the pistol is fired, the barrel and slide recoil together, until the hinged locking piece drives down, disengaging the slide and arresting further rearward movement of the barrel. The slide continues its rearward movement on the frame, ejecting the spent case and cocking the hammer before reaching the end of travel. Unlike most autopistols which eject empty cases to the right, the Walther P38 ejects empty cases to the left. Two recoil springs on either side of the frame and below the slide, having been compressed by the slide's rearward movement, drive the slide forward, stripping a new round from the magazine, driving it into the breech and re-engaging the barrel; ending its return travel with a fresh round chambered, hammer cocked and ready to repeat the process. The hinged locking piece assisted breechblock design provides good accuracy due to the in-line travel of the barrel and slide.

Initial production P38 pistols were fitted with walnut grips, but these were later supplanted by Bakelite grips. Sheet metal grips were used for a time on pistols produced in France after the war, being called "Gray Ghosts" by collectors on the account of their distinctive parkerizing and sheet metal grips. Post war P1 grips were made of black colored plastic.