I am surely not alone in how I approach firearms related topics, which is to say with a voracious appetite and a willful lack of self control. All I had to do was enjoy the culinary delights of “flavor packets” for a few days and I can enjoy the sensation of scratching my thumbs on the slide mounted safety guilt free. Otherwise the gun remains mechanically almost unchanged and retains all the joy of a single stack, heel mag release, skinny barreled Walther with the additions of snappier recoil and a marginally better trigger. The steel frame has been swapped for aluminium, the barrel is lighter and features a steel liner, and the grips are now all black plastic instead of the sexually attractive wood pulp based comeliness of bakelite. The P1 is, for anyone familiar with the P38, relatively unremarkable. Enter the Walther P1, the Get the Led Out version of the original classic. Several gun shops and shows scouring tables later I had my solution. After multiple range trips where the P38 was avoided to save it from wear I decided once again that eating Cup-A-Noodles between paychecks was acceptable if it got me a shootable Walther pistol with none of the guilt associated with beating up a geriatric gun. Being familiar with the mechanical longevity of many other C&R firearms in my personal collection as well as in the open world, I was less worried about the pistol equivalent of a hip replacement than I was about scratches, dings, cracks, and rust from normal use and cleaning. Combined with it’s history making it the belle of the ball each range trip it began to beg the question Am I really going to beat the heck out of a WWII collectible? A steel frame, decent hammer fired SA trigger pull, and a perfectly usable 25m zero made the P38 an absolute joy on the range. So you can imagine my mental conflict as I discovered something else P38’s are really fun to shoot. Once “re-appropriated” by his opponent, they kept track of their own in a grim contest.Īlthough my own thoughts on war fall much closer in line with General Sherman’s perspectives, my morbid curiosity and desire to preserve history made me recognize that there might be something quite special about this P38. It is merely conjecture, but if they are all original there is a possibility that the first five can be attributed to the holsters previous owner. Even more intriguing is that they were clearly added at two separate occasions, one group scratched in large and crude strokes, and the ten above it in the same fashion as the gun itself. On the back, underneath a jagged cut to accommodate a much wider belt then originally intended, are not ten scratch marks, but fifteen. This leather first belonged to a Tokarev and was crudely modified to fit the Walther, as evidenced by the missing magazine pouch and torn material. The first indication is simply that it is not a P38 holster. The presence of two different styles of marks on an opposing holster suggests multiple owners. If you plan on just leaving it in your safe, get the P38. Has your 401k doubled in that span of time?Īll I am trying to say is that if you plan on getting one of these, and you plan on shooting it on occasion, get the P1. In addition they are date marked with their year of production so a avid collector could try and get one from each year of production.
Besides the P-1's are very collectable due to the different stampings on them some indicating which German agency used them. But ten years from now they too will probably at least go up in value at least 50 to 100%. Sure the P-1's are relative common today. Today every one of those firearms has at least doubled in value. They said the same thing back in the 1960's and every decade since about every firearm which was imported in any good number. It's funny when guys lament that any surplus firearm will not have any real "collector" value.
Video will be up tomorrow.Īnd what do you mean "fudge your attempt"?
#Walther p1 reviews how to
A mag change isn't hard when you know how to use your European mag release PROPERLY.Īnd I can do a magazine change in under 3 seconds with a P1. I'm talking about beating the time of 3 seconds, not about being faster than a conventional style mag release. But I tell you what, if you can beat this guy, I'll concede the point, and you'll win: A mag release that ties up both of your hands to use will never be as fast as a release system that only requires your thumb. If that were the case, Glock, Sig Sauer, and every other manufacturer would be using that system. You're saying that you can do a magazine change with a Walther style mag release is faster than a modern pistol. It's a ridiculous claim you're making, bro. What are you going to do to "prove me wrong"? Fudge your attempt with another pistol? Not exactly a "bargain" for an 8-round mag.
plus $7 shipping and handling, for a grand total of $18!!!
Have you checked recently? The cheapest one on there today is $11.