Furthermore, the manufacturer's markings had to be applied in code for the weapons delivered to the Wehrmacht from 1940 onwards. Mauser also phosphated gun parts and produced stamped sheet-metal grips. A small change in the frame shape brought more material around the hammer pin hole, the slide stop lever was also produced in a variant from stamped sheet metal, and towards the end of the war Spreewerk installed a hammer featuring coarser serrations. Walther did not actually start mass production until 1940, the year when the pistol was officially approved for production.Īfter the start of mass production in 1940, modifications to the gun remained minor. In total, some 1.3 million guns of this type were produced between 1938 – the year the P.38 was accepted as a new service pistol – and the end of the war. Parts were also supplied by FN in Belgium. The P.38 was not only to replace the already legendary Pistol 08 in the Wehrmacht stocks, it also remained Wehrmacht's standard pistol until the end of the war and was manufactured – besides Walther's plants in Zella-Mehlis – also at Mauser's in Oberndorf and at Spreewerk's in Zittau-Grottau. With the P.38, the former Carl Walther gun factory in Zella-Mehlis saw the high point in its company history.
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