[ Walther MP Prototype ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at Morphy's
taking a look at a fantastically rare,
very early Walther prototype MP pistol.
Now "MP" is actually a designation that covers
... three different patterns of Walther pistol.
So if we go back a little bit,
Walther was manufacturing police pistols during the inter-war period.
... In the 1920s, after World War One, Walther had its model of PP, or police pistol.
... They got it working really well, it became very popular.
And Walther then pivoted to, at least internally, working on military pistols.
And for a military pistol they really needed it to be chambered for the 9x19 Parabellum cartridge.
Now the Treaty of Versailles did not allow Walther to manufacture military pistols.
There was only one company that was allowed to make pistols for the army,
and that was Simson.
But Walther was willing to circumvent the stipulations of the treaty,
they hid this work, they didn't publicise it, they didn't advertise these pistols.
But they did the work internally so that they would be ready to actually develop something
and put something on the market when the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles expired.
Now these all came under the label of "MP", or military pistol,
as opposed to PP, or police pistol.
The first one was essentially just a copy of the Walther PP scaled up to 9x19 simple blowback.
And I actually have an entire video on that pattern.
There was then a third pattern which marks truly the beginning of Walther P38 development,
and it looks very much like a P38, but internally it works a bit differently.
That was also called the MP.
Well there was ... at least one other pattern that we know of in between those two,
that is sort of this missing link between the police pistol and the eventual P38.
And we actually have one of those, also called an MP, to take a look at today.
And this thing is almost a Pedersen style of locking system, it's very unusual.
Let's take a closer look.
This thing is super cool. So plain wood grips.
Unfinished. It's not entirely clear if this was polished, or the finish removed at some point,
or if it was simply just a gun manufactured in the white and never given a proper finish.
It was however definitely given proper markings.
... There's the Walther banner.
And we have Waffenfabrik Walther, Zella-Mehlis in Thuringia.
Patent, calibre 9mm, and Model MP for military pistol.
The elements of this pistol really seem like a hybrid of the PP and the P38,
and it's really cool to see this as sort of a missing link.
In terms of controls, we have a slide lock here.
We have a safety, forward is fire, down is safe.
The magazine release has been moved to the bottom of the grip, where it would remain on the P38.
The early model MPs had a magazine release up here, like the PPK.
Unfortunately the magazine for this pistol is missing, we don't have it.
Serial number is marked on the frame right there, 105.
And the sights are pretty simple, just a dovetailed U-notch,
and a front windage-adjustable barleycorn.
Now this is actually a fairly difficult gun to rack, ... there we go.
Once you get it unlocked, it runs,
but if you let the slide down gently you'll see it doesn't quite go into battery.
You have to really let it slide all the way forward to lock up. Now let me show you why that is.
Disassembly on this is very reminiscent of the PPK.
Pull the trigger guard down, lock it to the outside.
And then I can pull the slide all the way off the back of the frame.
You can see that this is hammer fired, it's got a concealed hammer.
There's the space for the hammer in the back of the slide.
Instead of having the recoil spring around the barrel, as it was on the PP and the early MPs,
this has the recoil spring below the barrel on one side.
This looks like a P38 setup from this side,
until you go to the other side and realise that there's only one recoil spring.
And I expect it was lessons from this pistol that led to the use of dual recoil springs
on the guns in the beginning of the P38 line.
Also reminiscent of the PP series is the fact that the barrel is integral to the frame here,
it's all one component, you can't take the barrel out.
We do have a double action firing system.
You can see that at work there.
But the really interesting bit is the locking system.
So if we look in the slide, you'll see that we have a breech block that is separate from the slide, ...
right there.
When this is locked in battery that (we'll call it the bolt), is all the way back.
And you can see that when it goes back it drops down.
And we have a locking shoulder right here at the back.
Also worth pointing out, we have a firing pin back here.
So if the bolt's not all the way in battery,
the firing pin can't protrude far enough to actually fire a cartridge.
But when this is all the way down ...
(if I can coordinate myself here), then the firing pin can come forward and protrude out.
But anyway.
So our bolt drops down and locks behind
this element right here, that's the locking shoulder.
Now there's something a bit strange about that, because it's got this open area behind it.
Well, the way this actually works is when the gun is locked,
like this, the bolt and the slide are effectively one solid piece.
Upon firing, the pressure in the chamber is going to push backwards on that as a solid piece.
And it's actually going to push back against this piece, which is spring loaded.
You can maybe see ... it's ... a really, really heavy spring, there you go.
You can see I can just barely move it a little bit with that plastic punch pressing on it.
Well, what happens is the pressure of firing is enough to fully compress this
up against the back of the frame, about 2mm.
When it does that,
it gives the slide about 2mm to start moving, and that puts some inertia into the slide.
So when this is fully compressed backward the bolt will stop moving,
but the slide is now in motion, and will continue to stay in motion.
And as it stays in motion it's going to ... retreat back away from the bolt.
Which is going to cause the bolt to (relatively speaking) come forward,
and the cam track in there pulls the bolt up, unlocks it.
And then the whole thing can continue backward to eject the empty cartridge
and pick up a new one from the magazine.
So this is a short-recoil tilting bolt.
Basically this is like a FAL in pistol form, more or less.
Really an interesting system to build into a pistol.
There is another internal safety right here, the firing pin can only go forward ...
so far. Basically it can't move unless this is depressed.
Then the firing pin can move all the way.
And that safety is depressed by this bar.
So once again, if the slide's not fully in battery
there is also a firing pin safety as well as a trigger safety.
Taking off the grip panels, you can see a few other elements here.
One of them is our out of battery safety.
So when I pull the trigger I am pulling forward on this lug,
and that is going to catch and release.
Now you can see that little lug there,
we have a little cutout in the slide for it.
And if the slide is not fully in battery,
this can't lift up into that cutout, it's pushed down.
And you can see right there, that pushes the trigger out of engagement
with the rest of the firing mechanism. So that prevents you from firing out of battery.
This over here is our single action sear.
You can see the little cut right there that's going to lock the hammer.
So there's the hammer rotating, and if I manually cock it,
it's going to lock in place, right like that. So that's your single-action system.
Being German, the Walther designers of course opted for
the most complicated possible system for spring loading their magazine catch.
So there's a centre guide rod with this cylinder over it with a coil spring inside.
And then an angled surface on the magazine release button
that acts to push against that spring, thus tensioning that.
OK, that works, ... I suspect there might have been simpler ways to do it,
but I suppose ... that does the job.
And there you go, there is the second pattern Walther MP all disassembled.
We don't know exactly how many of these were made, but I suspect
it would be somewhere between 5 and 10.
Like the first and the third pattern MPs these were not commercial guns,
these are guns that were done for internal development.
All of the Walther MP patterns were made in very limited numbers.
These were never marketed, they were never sold, they were just
basically Walther's internal development prototypes really.
So the first model MP that was just a scaled-up PP,
... there are two examples that are known to survive today,
their serial numbers are 5004 and 5009.
This pattern, there are also now two known examples, number 101 and this, number 105.
And then the MP that actually signalled the beginning of the P38 development
is a little bit better known.
Anyway, this is extremely cool to get a chance to take a look at,
to get some insight into all of the different things that Walther was
tinkering with and trying out during this period
before they finally settled into what would become the P38.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.