Is My Walther PP or PPK Matching?
First Question about PP or PPK Answered
Hey guys, welcome to one of our educational videos. Actually this is going to be a quick answer to two questions, I had Christian write to me and ask me about how can I see whether or not my PP or PPK is matching. The number is scratched on the inside, he would like me to show him how to do that. So I'll show all of you. So that's question number one that I'm going to answer.
Next Question
And then question number two, we already did a video on it but it was a long time ago. Actually Kurt from Legacy did that video so we're going to show you how I store my guns in the safe to keep them preserved as long as possible. Okay question number one and thank you Christian for writing in.
Figuring out if the NSKK parts Match
He actually has an NSKK PP and he's not sure that the slide and the frame match. I'm also not sure because looking at the pictures it just looks like it may be mismatched. So I told him to check inside for the numbering and he said I can't find it. Great! I'm going to show you how to find it.
We have to look Inside the Gun
Okay, so first the need to look inside is only in the basically the pre-war guns and up to about 1942 they did not mark the serial number on the slide. And that happens on both the PPK and if you look over here this is the PP. But in around 1942 approximately, they for some reason decided or were asked or ordered to mark the slides on the exterior. So because it's 1942 the transition will always be Eagle N guns, so that means all crown N guns are not going to be marked on the exterior and therefore we have to check the interior of the gun. But around 1942 they transitioned.
350,000 Serial Range for the PPKs
Now interestingly you'll see that this is still a high polished finish and the transition happened about at the 350,000 range. So you know basically it can be 340, 350 but certainly by 360 they were marking the exterior.
250,000 Serial Range for the PPs
On the PP what coincides with 1942 is more like 250. So for example this gun which is 202 it is Eagle N, it is not marked on the exterior around 250,000, here's 251 you can see the finish is not quite as high polished. '42 is when they went from a high polish, they transitioned to a more of a matte finish or duller finish, you can see 251 is marked on the exterior. So again this transition happened in about 1942 on the PPK it is about the 350 range, on the PPs it's easy to remember, it's about 250,000 range. Now if you do see one that's marked on the exterior before its time, as we've discussed before that usually means it's a special contract. Could be Luftwaffe, could be police, could be SS but let's get back to the question at hand.
Let's take the Gun Apart
Okay let's quickly take this one apart. I just got a pair of my crappy gloves just for you. I'm not that cheap I just happen to order them online. They looked a lot better in the pictures than when I got them. So I got my crappy gloves on, I'm going to quickly take this apart I already showed you my trick for taking down the PP and the PPK. But basically you can use a business card or a credit card, you pull the trigger guard down, slide the card in, take the magazine out, and back and up comes right off. Now the best place to see it is through the ejection port. So I have to shine a light in here, so usually what I do is I shine a light in here, I look through the ejection port and you will see chicken-scratch.
Do you see Chicken-Scratch?
People say I don't see any mark, I don't see them numbered all I see is a bunch of chicken scratch that's it. So it should be the last three digits of the serial number and so on this gun which is in the 321 range, it should be 925. So the K won't be there it should be 925. Let's see what we can find.
Checking for more Chicken-Scratch
So I'm going to get my trusty assistant. He's going to shine the light on an angle and then give you a shot of the inside. This one I was just saying to Randy off camera, this is really a bad example because it's really hard to see but maybe that's a good example because I have so many people say I know it's supposed to be there but I can't see anything. That's what it is. It truly is chicken scratch. Somebody took a nail or an ice pick of some kind and just scratched it in there and if you've ever tried to scratch it on the metal the numbers go every which way. But hopefully you can see that there is a 925 inside there. Let's take a look at one more and hopefully it'll be a little clearer.
Is this any Better?
Okay so on this one I took the slide off, it should be 015, the last three digits are 015. This is another example. You look through the ejection port and I tell people this all the time, so it's actually a good example. I can't make out the first digit but I definitely see a 1 and a 5, so close enough. The last two digits are 15, the first digit could be almost anything. It just looks like chicken-scratch. But that's all it was people make a lot out of this and talk about how precise the Germans were. But this was just something they didn't pay a lot attention to not even sure why they bothered, but it is scratched in here.
Look at these Letters!
Now let's take a look at these letters and you'll see what I'm talking about. So this is in German [inaudible 06:08] I hope you Germans appreciate my attempt. Often the zero will look like this or like this and I think these were maybe two different people. The ones are all the same with a flag, the two's can be have fancy loops, same with the threes, fours are pretty straightforward, 5 which is on this one, 6 will sometimes have the loop and 9 will have the same loop almost looks like a G, the 8 will have a fancy loop and then of course the 7 to distinguish it from a 1 a lot of times people see the 1 and think it's a seven. Sometimes the flag can be very big like go halfway down and you'll have what looks like a seven but the sevens look like this. So this is just a sheet of what you might see for the people who scratched it in there.
Did this help?
So Christian, I hope you got an answer to your question and you'll go back and get a bright light and check out that NSKK. Christian is in Europe by the way so I'm anxiously awaiting your answer and hopefully that helped.
A Popular Question!
But I thought of a question that actually has been asked of me and I don't know the answer. And the question is after they started numbering the slide externally did they still use the chicken-scratch inside? And I don't know because who cares. If it's matching on the outside who cares if it's matching on the inside but it's a question that I will now answer for all of us. Let's take a look inside this one.
Okay off camera I just checked this is in past the 350 range and the answer is no, there is no chicken scratch or there is no three digit number scratched inside. And then on the PP which is past the 250 range, 251,000 there is no scratch on the interior. So I would imagine there would be some in transition where they had already marked the slides. I believe I've heard of people saying it's marked inside and out so it wouldn't be impossible. But on these after they transition to the exterior they no longer scratched the inside of the slide. So we just answered that question, even though nobody asked except for me.
How do I store my Collectibles?
So let's jump to our second question how do I store my collectible firearms. Now you may have your own method and maybe yours is better than mine. Please comment, I don't claim to know it all but this is what I've been doing for 30 years, it works well for me. However I do check all of my firearms. About once a year I take them out of the safe, clean them, rewrap them, re-oil them up. I have heard of people leaving them alone for five years but I've also seen estate sales where I've gotten guns that had been wrapped in like a saran wrap and after about 8-10 eight to ten years the saran wrap disintegrated and left little marks on the slide. So I just happen to have this gun laying around, so let's take a look at this and I'll show you how I store my handguns.
Storing a PPK Holster and Gun
Okay so obviously we have a PPK here party leader holster and the gun. We want to put this away we want to put this to sleep for about a year let it hibernate a bit because we get tired of looking at it. Not really, it's just that we have so many things to do. What I do is I take any kind of gun oil, I use this Break Free, but there's also Sheath and Hops and a lot of different products. Any gun oil, I oil it up, I take an oily rag and I really soak it in oil. I then take saran wrap, this is happens to be Glad but we're not pushing any particular product not unless they send me royalties, but I just take saran wrap and quickly wrap the gun. Very simple, wrap the gun the reason. The works so well is because it's thin and yet it holds the oil and keeps the moisture out.
It doesn't have to be real tight I usually have it loose and then I just store it in the holster. I would do the same thing by the way with the spare mag. Now this accomplishes two things, one it keeps the form of the holster correct. So if I put this on the safe and things got piled up on top of it or it began to just fall it would get smooshed. This it allows the holster to keep its original shape and then this protects the leather, maybe some acids or coloring from the holster would bleed onto the gun. This protects it keeps it oiled up and as I mentioned I don't button it just because no reason to stretch this or break the leather. So I just store it like that in the safe. I don't cover the leather because the leather needs to breathe and so I store them like that. Now there are people who have the sealers, the automatic sealers. I think they probably are great, like you would freeze-dried meat and stuff like that but this works well for me and I take them out of the safe and check them once a year.
Portable Humidifiers are useful Too
The only other thing I recommend and I have these in my safe these are portable dehumidifiers. They change color when... It takes about a week before this turns green and then I plug it in overnight and put it back in the safe. Keep the moisture out of the safe. You want just enough moisture to keep the leather soft and pliable. So you don't want it to be too dry and dry out the holster, but then the gun stays oiled up with the saran wrap. So that's how I store my guns.
Hopefully I Answered your Questions
Hey thanks for watching! I hope that answered at least a couple of your questions and if you have comments or other questions please we'd love to hear from you we want this to be interactive. Thanks for watching make sure you like and subscribe and hit the notification bell so that you're notified when we answer your question.