In 1975, the writing was on the wall for the German police to start replacing the Walther P1, then largely the standard 9mm pistol on the hips of poliezi across the country, with something more modern. Guns marked as such are seen in the US for $900-ish. They served notably with the West Berlin Police. In the 1950s, smelling a deal, West Germany negotiated the long delayed delivery of these dusty guns from storage, redubbed the P3 police pistol. Hey, anything is better than a pointy stick.Īfter the War, the Spanish still had more than 10,000 of these guns in storage that could never be delivered to Hitler. A blowback design (think Hi-Point 9mm), it had a stout recoil but its long barrel gave it a good sight radius and it proved reliable enough to be well liked by the German Army during the war. At 8.1-inches overall with a very distinctive 5.3-inch barrel, the 600 was a chunky gun, tipping the scales at over 40-ounces when its 8-shot magazine was fully loaded. The 600 was a 9x19mm version of the Spanish Army’s Astra 400, which was chambered in 9x23mm Largo. One deal they brokered was with the Spanish firm of Astra for nearly 60,000 of their Model 600 pistols. As such, each of the guns that passed the testing was classified with a P-designation.īecause of these standards these pistols, stretching from the Walther P-1 to the HK P-10, have shared a number of common attributes… What these guns had in common In 1950, the new Republic of Germany needed guns for their police forces and went about setting a standard for these guns to be acceptable for service. The Soviets occupied the easternmost portion of the land, and formed the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. The US and her allies occupied the Western two thirds of the country, which became the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly referred to as West Germany.
What is the ‘P’ designation about?Īt the end of World War 2, Germany was divided into two separate countries. But what you may not pay much mind to is that all of these guns get their ‘P’ designation from being adopted by the West German police back in the bad old days and, for students of history, that’s more than enough to raise an eyebrow at. You know the ones, the Walther p1, SIG P6, HK P7 etcetera.
If you’re a handgun hound, chances are you’ve set eyes on a whole line of imported European 9mm cop guns over the years. On top, the P5, left, P7 and, bottom, P6 commercial model.
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