[nicktheflick]

My P38 just came in today. I opened her up to check for rust matching serials etc. upon looking at the grips I see initials.
L. J. H.
S. J. H.
Odd to have two different initials. Any ideas folks? I’d love to think it is provenance of the soldier issued or the GI who brought her back. But I’m sure no one knows for certain. Hopefully it wasn’t old Jud who got excited to own one and carved his excitement into the grips.

Also, when using a paper towel I saw black powder inside and in other areas. Would it be safe to say she’s been fired recently? I am not sure if the powder would look old if it wasn’t. This kind of looks too fresh to be from the war. The slide release mechanisms also have dark ‘sludge’ from gun powder. I can’t see how it would stay like that for even some post-war firing. Looks too wet and fresh. Suggests to me this was fired recently before it came to me. Which I like because it means it is safer to shoot without broken parts etc Thoughts?

There is some rust on the magazine release spring box area as pictured.

I am going to do a complete tear down and clean her very well. I’ll be using Hoppes 9 and balistol to coat everything in a film to protect from rust. Anyone have advice or better suggestions for cleaning? No brass brushes just good old nylon brushes and elbow grease.

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Hi, the grips are the polyamide 6 grips, these are the type 1 with the mould sprue on the inner surface of the RHS grip, these do not have any company codes and seen on late Mauser and to a lesser number Walther P38's. As for the initials I have no idea apart from some previous owner/s scribbling! With the Eagle/140 proofed frame, denoting that it has a frame manufactured at the Browning factory, FN P38's (which are hard to find) making this an AC44 pistol. A teardown, as you suggest, would be interesting to see if the S/No's are consistent to the internal parts.