Things you see at 4:00 am

Like many of my friends I work nights and thus I have the misfortune of being awake for a lot more hours than most people and get time to think and write accodingly. These are just reflections on the curent state of everything I have an opinion about.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Hitler's Gun...

Tonight at work two of our patrollers got an arrest on a CCW charge. This is where the story begins about 15 minutes later I get a call from one of them, Hey says they are having trouble identifying the gun, and if anyone would know that it is it would be me. The first clue he gave me was that it looked like something that Hilter would have used. Then he told me it was chambered in 9mm. Ok he just narrowed it down to two guns in my mind the Luger or a P-38 Walther (there was an outside chance that it could have been a .32 that the Nazi's had; a friend of mines grandfather brought one back from Germany it had the eagle/swastika stamp on it.) So the next question I asked him was what does the slide look like because without actually seeing it this would give me the best possible answer he said it looked like a normal slide. I would him without seeing it I would have to guess that it was a Walther P-38 or a clone there of. He relayed this to the officer they were talking to and I heard in the background, "So that is what the P-38 means on the side." A few minutes later I got a picture text message from my co-worker definitely a P-38. Here are two links to pics of the respective guns, Luger and Walther notice the similarity in the general look of the two (Imagine you don't know anything about guns if you have to) you can see the reason that I asked about the slide. I felt kind of proud that I Identified a firearm over the phone for CPD then I realized that if they didn't think I was the resident gun nut before I secured my status this time. Here is a link to what I believe my friends Grandfather brought back from Germany with him Kommer model 4.

4 Comments:

Blogger NotClauswitz said...

Could be/have been, a Mauser HSC? They would have a Waffenamt-stamp. ;-)

1:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who, other than an U.N.C.L.E. operative, would choose a P38 for concealed carry? Incidently, if it was a war souvinier it may well have been stolen. I'd encourage an ownership trace.

9:19 PM  
Blogger CL203 said...

The gun was in fact stolen it was probably part of the whole central ohio to new york gun smuggling ring there was a "hold for prints" banner when they ran the serial number. As for why the P38 the little thug they got it off of probably got it cheap from someone else because it was a 9mm and not a flashy as a glock clone or the high capacity pistols that most of the criminal element prefer today.

4:04 AM  
Blogger James R. Rummel said...

"Who, other than an U.N.C.L.E. operative, would choose a P38 for concealed carry?"

Aluminim frame P-38's were produced after the fall of Germany. They were sold to GI's stationed there who wanted a war souvenir without paying collector prices for them.

A few years ago I bought one of these guns for my best buddy, who is a radar operator on a US warship. I found the gun to be accurate, comfortable to shoot, and very pointable. The sights were large and very visible as long as you didn't mind standard blued steel.

The double action/single action trigger meant that you could get it into play very quickly, and the safety was easy to use and had a very positive feel to it. Although it was a full sized combat handgun, it wasn't too heavy thanks to the alloy frame.

All of the points listed above show that it could be used as a concealed carry gun, but there were two reasons why you could find more suitable choices.

The first is the single stack magazine that only carried 8 rounds. Might as well carry a .45 if that is all the ammo the gun will hold.

The other reason is that the design didn't like hollowpoints. Like a 1911, ball would feed fine while most defensive loads would fail for one reason or another. No reason to give the bad guys a handicap if you can get a more modern design that would use the more effective ammo.

Still, I bought the surplus gun for $230 from Southern Ohio Guns. If someone was short of cash and needed a rugged combat arm, then they could do worse.

(The surplus gun market fluctuates according to the supply at the time, so I have no idea if you can find a similar deal today.)

James

3:15 AM  

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