Made by Colt's Manufacturing Company, this model revolver, as the name 'Detective Special' suggests, was intended to be a concealed weapon used by plainclothes police detectives. Introduced in , the Detective Special was the first short-barreled revolver produced with a modern swing-out frame. It was designed from the outset to be chambered for higher-powered cartridges such as the. Although the Detective Special proved to be an instant success when first introduced, [2] lackluster sales saw the elimination of the Detective Special from the product line in John Henry Fitzgerald, an employee of Colt Firearms from to , first came up the Fitz Special snubnosed revolver concept around the mid s, when he modified a.
Reshaping the hammer and the butt allows the gun to be drawn quickly with little risk of the weapon snagging on clothing. The halved trigger guard facilitates quick trigger acquisition, even for shooters with large fingers or gloves. Although historians disagree, it's believed that somewhere between 40 and Fitz Specials left the Colt factory, made from various Colt revolvers, by Fitzgerald himself.
Even after the introduction of the Detective Special in , Fitz continued to make custom revolvers for special clientele. Colt was so impressed with the Fitz Special that they decided to produce a sightly less radical version, the Detective Special , which is simply a shortened and somewhat streamlined Colt Police Positive Special. The Detective Special proved to be an instant success and was made until Colt's Detective Special went through several issues or series. Compared to later production models, the First Series used a narrower frame, with reduced clearance between the frontstrap of the gripframe and the rear of the trigger guard.
Other distinctive features included a shorter ejector rod with an ungrooved, knurled tip; a checkered hammer spur and cylinder latch, a 'half-moon'—shaped front sight, and an overlapping screw and locking pin set-up on the right side of the frame.
The left-side grip shows, in the lower rear portion, a rectangular indent with a cut for the lanyard loop. Inside are three circles, of which the lower two typically are empty. In the upper circle we find the MPBD marking with the Walther company code V7 and the material classification marking 57, 41, 31, or Z3.
The 2nd variation Walther grips started to appear on Walther P38s as early as mid, as well as at the beginning of production on the Mauser-produced P38s. The lower two circles remain free of markings. It has not been proven to date that original grips manufactured by Walther were ever attached to the Spreewerk-made P38 pistols. The majority of P38 grips were produced by AEG. Externally and internally, they had the typical design of the so-called military-styled ribbed P38 grips.
On the outside, they have the same structure as the 2nd variation Walther grips, with six groves broken by the grip screw.
The top one is relatively short. The left grip shows, in the lower rear portion, a rectangular indent with a cut for the lanyard loop. The variation up to mid had three circles on the inside. The upper one had the MPBD marking, with the company code 38 and the compounds classification marking Z3.
The second circle is always blank. The lowest circle contains a typical marking that we find only on AEG grips: The left grip is marked with P and a digit between 1 and 9 beneath. The right grip is marked with P and a digit between 1 and 9.
Grips produced since the beginning of are found with a strongly changed MPBD marking in the upper circle. In these grips, the markings were often not identifiable. AEG grips appeared for the first time on Walther P38s at the end of the 4th variation 0-series. With regard to the serial numbers, that continued with the P38 variations — , ac-no-date, ac40 added, ac40 standard, and ac41 up to about the mid b-block, and in regard to the Waffenamt, that continued until about the early ac42 variation.
Beginning from about mid, we can see mainly the typical early AEG grips without the serial number and Waffenamt on Walther P38 pistols. The Mauser P38 pistols, for the first year and a half until approximately mid, were equipped mostly with the typical early AEG grips. Grips on Mauser P38s never contained a Waffenamt. The serial number appears on the bottom of the grip, the back of the cylinder, and the bottom of the barrel, when the ejector is out of the way.
United States. Under U. In contrast, firearms for sale or distribution require a federal license for their manufacture, and must bear unique serial numbers. The second circle has a number from 1 - 12 in it, these are the grip position numbers in the mold.
These are the mold position numbers as I have seen them, each mold had 12 grips. Left grip have 1,2,3,7,8,9 Right grip have 4,5,6,10,11, This issue listed the following materials in their production. Presstoff Type S and Presstoff Type 2. His other code was gfc Gablonz an der Neisse, now Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech republic The code gfc is not found on the grips.
In his research Dieter H. MD or actually MPD. Dahlem P. There may be other variations of grips out there but I believe this grip information to be accurate for the most common grips that I have observed. Late war grips will often have a lot of filler in the bakelite matrix. The filler was apparently ground cardboard or shredded paper.
The end of the war was a real mixed bag of variations where many things can turn up. Please send me an email, Mark p38guns. Bakelite was the first industrial thermoset plastic a material that does not change its shape after being mixed and heated. Bakelite plastic is made from carbolic acid phenol and formaldehyde, which are mixed, heated, and then either molded or extruded into the desired shape.
Identification of Grips by Manufacturer Mauser and Walter P38s used the same outside grip manufacturer until Mauser switched to the glossy, soft, black plastic in early '44 just before the dual tones.
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