![]() Unique, and, like the DA system, one of a precious few handgun features not invented by John Browning. ![]() ![]() Instead of the customary Browning-style tilting barrel, the P38 barrel slides forward and aft in recoil, with a locking block beneath the barrel that rotates up into locking notches on either side of the slide. The loaded chamber indicator of the pocket pistols was retained, as was the clever plunger-retained extractor debuted on the Walther Model 8. With memories of trench warfare still fresh, the grips were grooved horizontally so they would readily shed mud, a calculus omitting how much slicker that makes the grip. We were, after all, bombing the foolishness out of any German manufacturing facility we could fly over at the time. Like the PPK, P38 grips are wraparound plastic ranging in color from brown and green to black, and at times made of sheet metal due to the exigencies of war. ![]() Breaking one on an empty WWII-era gun is safer, but as I learned the hard way, expensive. Unfortunately, the square early firing pins were fragile, and one breaking when the hammer fell on a loaded chamber would be spectacularly dangerous, as the gun would likely dump its entire mag. The heel magazine release securing the P38’s single-column, 8-round magazine was a step backwards from the pushbutton of the PP/PPK family, as was a safety change where the hammer falls onto a locked firing pin instead of the safety cross shaft on the PP family. ![]()
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