P38K: The Real One, not the Nazi Fantasy Piece

The P38K is both a fantasy WWII concept and also a real pistol made in small numbers by Walther in the 1970s. The idea is simple; just cut down the barrel on a P38 to barely in front of the slide (2.8 inches on the real ones). This does make for a shorter gun, although it retains the large frame and limited capacity of the standard P38, and it’s not really much more concealable than the original.

The real P38K went into preproduction in 1972, with several dozen guns made for Munich and Bremerhaven police in 1972 and 1973. It was really not so much a P38K as a P1K or P4K; it uses the aluminum frame of the P1 and the solid slide of the P4. Full commercial production began in 1974, with serial number 500101. The first 400 guns formed a first variation – these have dovetailed-in front sights and unreinforced frames. From 500501 to the end of production (502595) they would get a hexagonal reinforcing pin in the frame and a front sight milled into the side as a fixed element. Production ended in 1981, with a total of just 2495 production examples made (mostly in 9x19mm, with about 200 in 7.65x21mm).