Walther P38 value change

[mooncoon]

I just bought a P38 and the cover for the ejector pin comes off with a few shots. I want the gun to be same to shoot factory 9 mm in. One of the possible fixes is to drill a cross pin through the slide and cover.

Question is, how much does this effect the value of the gun? One claim being that it decreases the value significantly. Another fix I suppose would be to heat the cover red hot and widen the spring clips and re temper to spring temper but that is a bit of a gamble when working with an unknown steel as well as leaving the same inherent flaw of a poor way to secure the cover in the first place

cheers mooncoon

 

[SIGP2101]

If it is original P38 it will definitely effect value negatively. But I am little confused, what is ejector pin cover?
Ejector rests in the mag well connected with the sear pin. P38s do not have spring while P1s do have spring attached to ejector.
Are you referring to FIRING PIN & INDICATOR COVER?

 

[mooncoon]

I guess it would be the firing pin indicator cover, although what the pin actually seems to indicate is whether or not there is a shell in the chamber. I was thinking that in part it pushed the shell out of the extractor but am probably wrong in saying that because the spring on the pin is far too light for that function. The basic cover seems designed to fail because inertia during firing must surely nudge the cover forward. I also find it strange that the magazine does not have a sliding button on the side so that you can compress the magazine spring while loading it. It seems much more awkward that loading a luger. I am probably spoiled by also having a luger.

cheers mooncoon

 

[MTF]

The cover on the top of the slide must be the firing pin and indicator pin cover. The indicator pin's only function is to let the shooter know that a cartridge is chambered. In the post-war models, that cover was eliminated because of what is happening to yours. Before going through the process of trying to pin it, why not just find another cover from Numrich or someone who carries P-38 parts. Those covers will function for a long time just as they are. As to the magazine, supplying buttons was a fairly costly manufacturing step that was eliminated to keep the cost as low as possible (like the wood bottoms on Luger magazines), and because it wasn't considered essential. Lugers -- as good as they are -- are really 19th century technology, are much, much more expensive to manufacture, and in battlefield conditions are not as reliable as the P-38. P-38s were state of the art in WWII and influenced a lot of other countries to use double action as a standard feature in self-loading pistols. The current military model of Beretta uses a kind of modified P-38 action. It would be nice to have a magazine follower depressor button, but a MagLuLa loader will help a lot. P-38s are neat old guns and I think you're lucky to have one.

 

[tiriaq]

Try to obtain a replacement with spring fingers that will keep the thing in place. Drilling it will really pooch value.