I want one of those P-38Ks so badly.

Retro moviestar looks. Very cool.

Robert Culp carried a P38K on 'I Spy'. How rare are those?

That's a nice looking pistol. Gots a little wear in all the right places. I should have picked one up years ago when I had the chance. I never realized Beretta had the same type of locking system.

Are the DA triggers as bad as everyone says?

quote:

Originally posted by mr kablammo:
Robert Culp carried a P38K on 'I Spy'. How rare are those?

Relatively speaking, P38-Ks are quite scarce, with a total production of just over 2600 pistols from 1973 to 1981. However, Robert Culp didn't carry a P38-K, despite what IMFDB says. Culp carried a shortened P38, and that's what's pictured on their site.

That TV series ended five years before the very first pre-production P38-Ks were produced. I've never seen an actual P38-K in any film or TV show.


These are P38-Ks



Solid top slide, no firing pin cover. Bobbed hammer. No manual safety. Instead, the pistol has a decocker. The common assumption is the P38-K was derived from the P4, but, chronologically, the P38-K appeared before the P4, so its actually the other way around. For the German Police Pistol Trials, Walther lengthened the barrel of the P38-K and moved the front sight from the slide bridge to the barrel. The P38-K has a rear sight capable of windage adjustments via a pair of Allen screws. The P4 rear sight is windage-adjustable (unlike the P38 rear sight, which is not windage-adjustable) but adjustments are made by drifting the entire rear sight in the dovetail. Other than these things and the slide markings, the P4 and P38-K are identical

And yes, those are my pistols. Like many low-production postwar Walther pistols, prices for the P38-K have gone into the stratosphere. The same is true for the P5 Compact.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: parabellum,

Beautiful Para. Always thought the P38 series of pistols had one of the most comfortable grip shapes of any single stack.

I bet carrying the P38-K is nice and the weight distribution for shooting looks ideal.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
Are the DA triggers as bad as everyone says?

Yes.

OTOH, the single action pull is excellent, with the shortest of resets.

The single action pull is quite nice. It’s a bit of a startling contrast between the two, but I chalk it up to kind of the standard German approach to double action triggers. I don’t believe I thought to check the reset on mine, as I still haven’t shot it yet, but I will in a minute when I take some pics.

Another noteworthy difference is the omission of the chamber-loaded indicator.

That's an interesting point about the P38-K preceding the P4. I also always thought it was the other way around.

From what I understand, the decocking lever as used on both of these pistols was first developed by Walther and implemented on their PP Super chambered for 9x18 Police.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
I never realized Beretta had the same type of locking system.

My Mauser C96 even has an early version of it.

quote:

Originally posted by kaschi:
Another noteworthy difference is the omission of the chamber-loaded indicator.

Yes, there was no need for an LCI, since the P38-K was intended to be carried always with a round in the chamber. This, combined with no manual safety meant the pistol was intended to be carried ready to fire with the pull of the trigger.

quote:

From what I understand, the decocking lever as used on both of these pistols was first developed by Walther and implemented on their PP Super chambered for 9x18 Police.

Yes, the first PP Super prototypes were manufactured in 1971. I have an extensive collection of photos of Walther pistols and a pic of a PP Super V-series prototype (in 9x17, not 9x18) shows what appears to be a decocker. I say "appears" because, interestingly, there is a red dot inside the decocker cutout, just like P38 and PP-series Walthers (which have manual safeties, and the red dot indicates that the manual safety is in the off position). Production PP Supers, P38-Ks and P4s lack this red dot, as it was superfluous.