I’m still getting some requests from our readers for more review articles on all-metal handguns, and any more, this is getting harder and harder to do. The trend has been, for the past 20+ years are polymer frame handguns. I must admit that, my small collection has fewer and fewer all-metal handguns, and more and more polymer-framed handguns. When the first Glock came out, it was called the Glock17, and even though the magazine capacity was 17-rounds, that’s not why it was called the 17, it was because it was the 17th patent issued to Gaston Glock. Even today, it can be very confusion on the Glock model numbers – guess you need a score card to keep up with all the various model numbers.
The first successful double-action/single-action handgun to be made was the Walther P.38 – and it came out in WW2, unfortunately, the Walther factory fell into the hands of the Nazis and they produced a lot of model P.38s during WW2, and those guns are still commanding big dollars, because of the Nazi markings on them. (Both the pre-war and post-war production guns do not have the Nazi Waffenampt markings.) About 35 years ago, when I lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado, there was a fairly new gun shop in town, which for some strange reason, always had German Lugers and Walther P.38 pistol for sale – and they all had Nazi Waffenampt markings on them. Someone who knew a heck of a lot more than I did, discovered that these two fellows were stamping their pre-war and post-war production guns with Nazi markings, making people believe they were buying Nazi Germany era-produced pistols. In short order, the BATF helped put these two fakers out of business.
Back to the Walther P.38, as I mentioned, was one of the first commercially made pistols that fired from both Double Action and the Single action modes. This meant that you could chamber a round, and de-cock the hammer – after that, the first shot was from the long trigger pull double action mode. All shots after that were in the single action mode – with a much shorter, lighter trigger pull. And, if you were done shooting, you could use the de-cocker to safely lower the hammer, and your next shot would be back to the long double action trigger pull mode. This was something that the Browning Hi-Power lacked. The P.38 de-cocker broke new ground in the gun world. Around 1949 or 1950 – records are conflicting on this — the U.S. Military was in the market for a 9mm Double-Action/Single-Action handgun to replace the grand ol’ Colt Government Model 1911. This is where Smith and Wesson entered into the competition, not that there was any real competition.
S&W came up with the Model 39, and it was a single stack 8-round 9mm pistol, with an Aluminum frame and it weighted in at about 28-ounces. This was ground-breaking at the time, a full-sized 9mm handgun, that was lightweight, and it fired the 9mm round – wow! In 1954 the military again expressed interest in the S&W Model 39. But by today’s standards, it was rather rough around the edges. At some later point, the military decided to stick with the 1911. In 1955, S&W released the Model 39 for public sales, and it really didn’t take off — at least not right away.