So this happened today......

sean69

sean69

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All matching 1943 CYQ ....

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70 years old, build by slave labour known to sabotage, knowingly shooting hot reloads.

My own damn fault.

This is just a flat out stupid mistake that could have been avoided with a bit of responsibility.

Fortunately no one was injured.

Be warned, it ***might not*** be "OK"
 
tig weld.. file... re-blue... keep shooting? I would think that should work.

IIRC you are not the first guy this happened to
 
Actually - I've been thinking it's not worth reloading for 9mm after this. Too easy to get a really hot one in there.

looking at the break [sory no pic] it looks like wihite metal, this might be a handfull of sand gun. I'm sure it could be welded, but it will never be safe again :(

plus the cost of fixing and restoring..... probably best to dewat it. as painful as that sounds.



And yes. I only posted this as a cautionary tale... it's too easy to get complacent and confiedent in what we do a bit of forthought and caution never hurt anyone.
 
Shop around for a replacement slide. Lots of mismatched guns out there you could just be another.
 
sean69 said:
Actually - I've been thinking it's not worth reloading for 9mm after this. Too easy to get a really hot one in there.

looking at the break [sory no pic] it looks like wihite metal, this might be a handfull of sand gun. I'm sure it could be welded, but it will never be safe again :(

plus the cost of fixing and restoring..... probably best to dewat it. as painful as that sounds.



And yes. I only posted this as a cautionary tale... it's too easy to get complacent and confiedent in what we do a bit of forthought and caution never hurt anyone.
Click to expand...

Or reconsider your reloading gear - get a better powder drop with a more constant micrometer based measure. I reload nice soft powder puffs for my '35 Luger. 120pf is what they work out to across my chronograph. But they cycle the Luger just fine. When I'm playing with Milsurp and old stuff, I like to play on the weak and wimpy side of things. We're just punching holes in paper anyways.
 
sean69 said:
Actually - I've been thinking it's not worth reloading for 9mm after this. Too easy to get a really hot one in there.

looking at the break [sory no pic] it looks like wihite metal, this might be a handfull of sand gun. I'm sure it could be welded, but it will never be safe again :(

plus the cost of fixing and restoring..... probably best to dewat it. as painful as that sounds.



And yes. I only posted this as a cautionary tale... it's too easy to get complacent and confiedent in what we do a bit of forthought and caution never hurt anyone.
Click to expand...

Itl be made of steel so it can be welded... But with how it broke being 100% brittle fracture it looks like it wasn't heat treated right to begin with....
 
Usually high pressure loads in p38s cause much different Kabooms. I have seen them with protector plates and sights blown away, extractor/plunger/spring blown away etc. Never seen a broken slide until now. IMHO that was a Kaboom waiting to happen. Not a matter of if but when.

Those pistols were mostly blue pilled at their factories. That one may have missed out or stood up to a couple of blue pills. I have always felt that testing new firearms with overpressure loads may be one of those six of one and a half dozen of the other practices.

Thanks for posting the mishap but I wouldn't take the blame for that Kaboom if it were mine. What condition are the recoil springs in. Are they collapsed at all or broken??? That would be an indication of extreme pressure. Seeing as the p38 uses a delayed blowback operation system IMHO again, that slide is broken in the wrong place to indicate over pressure loads. Your load may have been hot but other things should have happened as well. I see from your pics that the springs are fine so again, I don't believe over pressure is the problem here.

That may have been the result of slave labor sabotage but again, I would be skeptical.

Have you looked in the Numerich catalogue??? They may have spare slides that can be exported through one of the banner ads that offers such services. Even if it costs you a couple of hundred bucks to get the import papers done on top of the part price it should be worth fixing. I have put dozens of P38s together from bins of parts brought in by an importer almost 50 years ago. They were made so parts could be mixed and matched from any maker. Just ask the Russians. They mixed and matched thousands of them.

I still don't understand how a RC p38 can be considered more valuable than a vet bring back or surplus piece with all matching numbers.
 
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I'm currently awaiting a 3rd party transfer of a wartime p38 that has a crack in the left hand side of the slide on this exact spot. The gunsmith I bought it from says that it can be tigged with a heatsink and blended and refinished, and it will be fine.

I don't load hot reloads (4.5gr hp38 or 231 under a Lee TL 124 truncated cone) but now I'm worried :S

Is there a lot of difference between the wartime and post war slides if one wanted to get a different slide? Can all the other parts be used (except the firing pin)?
 
Back in 1980 my then new-to-me cyq P38 broke in exactly the same place shooting Hirtenberger 115gr FMJ - the thirteenth shot, too. There is no fix with the same slide - it was similarly crappy all through, in spite of having passed UK proof test.

tac
 
I saw a P-1 slide that broke in the same location on the left side only a number of years ago.I own a matching number cyq pistol that has a crack about two inches long on the left side of the barrel.The previous owner was firing it when he noticed smoke coming out of the side of the barrel.
 
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