“Grey Ghost” - The French Occupation Production P38 Pistol (Ad-free)
Added 2024-11-23 12:00:03 +0000 UTCWhen the French took over control of the Mauser factory complex in May 1945, the plant had some 85 tons of pistol parts on hand - 7.3 million individual components in various stages of production. This was enough to make a whole lot of guns, even if many of them were not completed parts. So alongside K98k rifles, HST and Luger pistols, the French restarted P38 pistol production at Mauser.
German military production ended at about serial number 3000f in April 1945, and the French chose to start back up at 1g. They would make a total of 38,780 P38s by the early summer of 1946, completing the G, H, and I serial number blocks and getting mostly through K as well. A final batch of 500 were numbered in the L series after being assembled back in France at the Chatellerault arsenal.
French production P38s are generally recognized by the French 5-pointed star acceptance marks on the slides. They will have slide codes of svw45 and svw46 (the French updated the code to match the year in 1946). Many of the parts used were completed prior to occupation, and various German proof marks can be found on some parts.
Comments
A friend years ago picked up one in Germany (of all places) at an American Air Force base gun club. He said he paid $79 for it. It had some weird markings (Nazi or WWII markings were and still are a No-no in Germany. Thru the club you could buy some really nice stuff as long as it didn't have a Nazi era markings. Pre or Post war was fine. I've actually got to shoot the gun, which inspired me to buy a post war P-1 (made in late 70's with mod to frame for possible cracking issues) with German police markings. His gun was only identifiable as a post war built French gun due to lack of markings and the serial number (which we traced in a book on P-38's). Otherwise, it looked like a really early post war P-38 (no mod to frame).
Mark S
2024-11-24 18:04:03 +0000 UTCIs there a link from these guns to the Manurhin P38's?
Richard Joy
2024-11-23 15:38:02 +0000 UTC
