P.38 ac42

Picked up my first P.38 today, a nice addition to my WW2 Axis handgun collection I think. I've never put much thought into P-38s over the years, but as I've been concentrating lately on adding to the collection, I figured I should have a representative example of such an iconic pistol. This one popped up nearby on Armslist, so I decided to take a look and ended up paying $825 for it, which is not a steal but probably a fair price. All the serials match, it has a great bore, decent finish and came with a magazine that's probably more correct for a slightly later AC. But overall, I'm pretty happy with it and it will fill a nice slot in the accumulation. It's also a nice companion to my bringback BCD42 K98. Now I'll have to start looking for a proper holster to go with it!

That's a very nice P-38 and not such an easy one to find. Your pictures are very good also.

Nice P38. My favorite pistol. You did good on the price. Enjoy it!

Looks good! If that came up for sale in my area for that price, I would've bought it.

Looks very nice! Here's where to find if the magazine is correct for the pistol. It may or may not have been serial number marked, but it would have been 359 stamped:

http://www.atarian-alps.com/pdf/magazine_guide.pdf

The magazine is marked P.38v with a single e359 high on the spline, which I think indicates it was originally from a little later production, probably for an AC43 or 44. The correct mag for this gun would be prior to the elongation of the tube that was identified by the addition of the V mark. Being a J block AC42 it was made after the elimination of serialized magazines earlier in the production run (about B-C block IIRC).