WALTHER P4

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Difference between the Walther P38/P1 and the Walther P4 in measures.

P4

By 1974 the West German Police commission made it clear that the next handgun adopted for the police service in that country would use the 9mm Parabellum cartridge.  Walther then introduced the P4, considerably modified from the P38 in hopes of attracting police business.  At it introduction in 1974, the P4 might have been dismissed by the casual observer as a P38 with a shortened barrel.  It was after all an 8-shot pistol in 9mm parabellum, it used the same magazine, it had the same breech locking system.

The frame on the P4 was almost identical to the P38 in appearance, but in designing the P4, Walther made 3 important changes in the frame.  One was the addition of a hexagonally shaped, hardened steel pin located where the locking block under the rear end on the barrel recoiled into the frame upon firing.  This steel re-enforced pin strengthened the lightweight aluminum alloy frame at the point where it received the greatest stress.  So successful did this simple addition prove that Walther has since used it in all of its service pistols based on the P38’s short-recoil system.  It has even retrofitted the reinforcing pin into the latest version of the P38 itself.

Walther also shortened the hammer on the P4.  Not only did it retain the capability for shooters to use thumb cocking for a single action first shot, it did not form as prominent a spur as one finds on the P38 hammer.  This also enhanced the P4’s concealed carry capabilities.

Walther also replaced the P38’s excellent smooth trigger with a grooved type better suited to target shooting than to service or self defense shooting.  The most obvious difference was in the barrel, which Walther made half an inch shorter than the standard P38.  The chief intent in doing this was to improve the P4’s handling while still offering acceptable ballistics. 

Official use of the P4 was limited to the West German police which took approximately 6 500 P4’s.  The West Berlin police also received 200 of these pistols, each marked by Manurhin and assembled in France by parts supplied by Walther.  The West German police was not allowed by treaty to use German made weapons.  Assembling the guns in France was simply a loophole. 

 Although the pistol was hardly a commercial success, Walther’s experience with the P4 was valuable to the company in several important ways.  First, Walther used what is learned from the P4 to create its next generation of combat handguns.  The company also incorporated the P4’s safety system, which it took almost unchanged from the PP Super and with only slight modifications in the location and arrangement of operating controls, used in the later P5 and P88 series of handguns.  Second, what Walther learned from the P4 ultimately changed the P38.  While the P38’s safety system remained unchanged, Walther eventually incorporated the P4’s improved sights and strengthened the frame into the P38 series, making that pistol a more accurate and stronger weapon.