Walther Model 53 Serial Numbers
Military Versions from 1912 to 1945. Manufacturer/Serial Number/Date Made Beginning of M1911: 1) Colt: S/N 1 to 3190 = April 16, 1912 to May 31, 1912 2) Colt: S/N 3190 to 7501 = May 31, 1912 to Oct. 10, 1912. (S/N 3501 to 3799 were first U.S.M.C. Pistols made by Colt delivered June 6, 1912.) 3) Colt: S/N 7501 to (approximately) 20,000 = Oct. 10, 1912 to Jan. 1913 4) Colt: S/N (approx.) 20,000 to 83,856 = Jan.
Early (1932) Walther PP 7.65mm. Last Post:, 06:53 PM. Search tags for this page. Walther pp 7.65 serial numbers, walther pp serial number.
19, 1913. S/N 38,001 to 43,900 Navy Model (USS New York) = March 9, 1912 to March 5, 1915. S/N 43,901 to 44,000 Navy Model (USS Texas) = March 9, 1912 to March 5, 1915. S/N 36,401 to 37,650 U.S.M.C.
Model made by Colt = July 9, 1913 5) Colt: S/N 83,856 to 89,801 = Aug. 19, 1913 to July 20, 1914. (S/N 83,901 to 84,400 U.S.M.C. Model = May 12, 1914) 6) Colt: S/N 89,801 to 108,601 = July 20, 1914 to Feb. 8, 1915. (S/N 96,001 to 97,537 Navy Model (U.S.
Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y.) = March 9, 1912 to March 5, 1915) 7) Colt: S/N 108,601 to 290,000 = Feb. 8, 1915 to May, 1918. (S/N 109,501 to 110,000 Navy Model, S/N 223,953 to 223,991 Navy Model, S/N 232,001 to 233,600 Navy Model). (S/N 151,187 to 151,986 U.S.M.C.
Model, S/N 185,801 to 186,201 U.S.M.C. Model, S/N 209,587 to 210,386 U.S.M.C. Model, S/N 215,387 to 217,386 U.S.M.C. Model) 8) Colt/Springfield: S/N 128,617 to 133,186 = 1916 to 1924 ( These models are very hard to properly identify) 9) Colt: S/N 290,000 to 450,000 = May, 1918 to Oct. 24, 1918 10) Colt: S/N 450,000 to 629,500 = Oct. 24, 1918 to April 10, 1919 11) Springfield Armory: S/N 72,571 to 133,186 = April 1914 to April, 1917 12) Remington-UMC: S/N 1 to 15,000 = Aug.
10, 1918 to May 24, 1919 13) Remington-UMC: S/N 15,000 to 21,676 = Aug. 10, 1918 to May 24, 1919 14) North American Arms: S/N 1 to 100 & S/N’s 111, 222, 333, 444, 555 = July 1, 1918 to Dec. They are very rare and rank in value with Singer models. ( None of these were reported shipped to any branch of the military but about 100 regular models and about 5 presentation models were manufactured in Quebec, Canada by the North American Arms Company, Ltd.) 15) A.
Savage Munitions Co. Was issued a contract on July 20, 1918 and canceled on Dec. Some parts were made but no complete pistols. It is unknown for sure if any slides were made and no frames were made.
Beginning of M1911A1: 14) Colt ( Transition Models): S/N 700,000 to 710,000 = 1924 15) Colt: S/N 710,001 to 711,000 = Early 1937 16) Colt: S/N 711,001 to 712,350 = Mid to Late 1937 17) Colt: S/N 712,350 to 713,645 = 1938 18)Colt: S/N 713,646 to 717,281 = 1939. Begining in 1940, the slide’s muzzel end was hardened after the finish was applied but a color mis-match was suppose to be rejected. From 1942 to 1945 all 1911A1 pistols should show a slight to very noticed mismatch of coloring on the muzzle end of slide, and from 1943 the slide lock notch area should also show some discoloration from hardening after the pistol’s finish was applied.
19) Colt: S/N 717,282 to 721,977 = 1940 20) Colt: S/N 721,977 to 756,733 = 1941 21) Colt: S/N 756,734 to 857,000 = 1942 (S/N’s 856,405 to 916,404 were also duplicated by Ithaca but will have “F.J.A.” Ithaca inspection initials.) 22) Colt: S/N 857,000 to 1,609,529 = 1943 (S/N’s 856,405 to 916,404 were duplicated by Ithaca look for “F.J.A.” Ithaca inspection initials. S/N’s 1,041,405 to 1,096,404 were duplicated by Union Switch & Signal. Look for “RCD” US&S inspection initials.) 23) Colt: (Commercial/Military Model) S/N 857,000 to 1,609,529 = 1943 (approx.
There is nothing wrong with a gun made out of stamped sheetmetal, just the same as a gun made largely out of plastic. It can be done correctly (MG-42, this pistol, etc) or incorrectly (M-60, stamped 1911 pistol). The issue is the designer of the gun, not the material. Are they trying to “make a gun from sheetmetal” or are they trying to “make a sheetmetal gun”. I mean, do they understand the material they are using, and do they build the gun to meet it? A good comparison would be Polymer framed pistol (like the Glock) compared to a plastic/resin AR-15 lower receiver. One was designed from the beginning to be plastic, while the other was simply made from plastic at a later point.
One is a fine weapon, while the other can break if dropped or handled roughly. This pistol looks to be very sturdy, and would fire quite a few shots before wearing out. That being said, it had a lifespan and would wear out eventually. For an owner today, this would be an issue. However, the German army in WW2 was probably less concerned with the lifespan, given the loss rate of the guns.
“A good comparison would be Polymer framed pistol (like the Glock) compared to a plastic/resin AR-15 lower receiver”. You fail to realize that the plastic/resin AR-15 was designed 40+ years after the standard Ar-15. The resin technology was not even a option for Stoner when he was doing his design work.
It’s called a step forward in technology. You realize an AR-15 lower was produced by a 3D printer last week and fired 600 rounds. The testers stopped at 600 rounds because they ran out of ammo. Based on visual observations alone, the Volkspistole appears to be well-made ( in spite of its last-ditch role in Volkssturm history ) and definitely shows the high standards in sheet-metal stamping technology and manufacturing which the German firearms industry had achieved late in the war.
Given the exigencies of that period, it is even more impressive that the weapon has a fit and finish that would still be competitive with many guns made with the advantages of peacetime resources and craftsmanship on their side. It reminds me somewhat of the beautifully precise stamped sheet-metal receiver of the StG-44 rifle. If I was to have any concern about the strength of this pistol, it would be the design of the guide rails. That type of feature has a habit of cracking at the base due to the metal being cut and stretched.
Winchester Model 53 Serial Numbers
As for stamped metal in general, it’s very strong and light which is why it’s what all cars are made out of these days. However, the designer has to understand the process and the material, you need good stamping die designs, and you need good quality steel. It’s a good process for mass production because with good tooling design you can run your equipment very fast.
However, despite what some people say it’s not a “low tech” process. You need experienced people who know what they’re doing and good QC to make it work.
3D Printed Lower Receiver Withstands More than 650 Rounds, Gun Grabbers Panic. Austin, Texas 3D printing innovator Defense Distributed has been making headlines the past few weeks for doing what seemed impossible at first: manufacturing quality firearms parts using 3D printers and uploading the blueprints for anybody else in the world to download, and it’s driving gun control proponents (excuse me, “gun safety lobbyists”) absolutely crazy. In January, we reported on Defense Distributed’s groundbreaking printable 30-round AR magazine. Defense Distributed says the schematics for that magazine have already been downloaded over 200,000 times, spreading it far and wide. (Their latest revision of the magazine, the “Cuomo Series,” is available for download here). The organization’s latest landmark gun part is a sturdy lower receiver capable of lasting more than 650 rounds, as exhibited in the group’s latest awesome video. According to the group, it has already been downloaded more than 10,000 times.
That’s a big improvement from their first attempt at a lower, which only allowed them to fire six rounds before it cracked. But this time, they didn’t stop firing on account of a material defect; Defense Distributed says their lower could easily have withstood 1,000 rounds, if they had the ammo to spare.
Ars Technica, in a detailed piece, described how the recent lower receiver improvements came about: “Last year, the group famously demonstrated that it could use a 3D-printed “lower” for an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle—but the gun failed after six rounds. Now, after some re-tooling, Defense Distributed has shown that it has fixed the design flaws and a gun using its lower can seemingly fire for quite a while. (The AR-15 is the civilian version of the military M16 rifle.)” Our January report highlighted Defense Distributed’s gamechanger, a downloadable 30-round assault rifle magazine, and explained how the open-source innovation would be extremely difficult for legislators to regulate. In a sit-down interview that was picked up by Guns.com, Alex Jones got a chance to talk with Defense Distributed frontman Cody Wilson about the success of his group’s downloadable 30-round AR magazine.
“It is a symbol,” Wilson said. “They can try to go back to 94, and ban these things. But there’s new methods of manufacturing and the Internet will preserve that file forever.” Guns.com’s David Higginbotham immediately saw the immense importance of the open-source magazine and what it meant to preserving the demonized firearm, noting, “The 3D printing that seemed like an expensive novelty (or at best a proof-of-concept) may now be an integral means of preserving the AR-15.” Higginbotham goes on to say, “This is the start of something huge. Forgive my sense of hyperbole. I don’t think I can exaggerate this enough.
The AR platform, at age 50, is going the way of the AK 47. What once was a rifle built and regulated by the postwar industrial machine, will now be built, modified, and kept alive by individuals. And there’s little the legislators can do about.” Gun Grabbers Shaking in Their Boots Obviously those wishing to restrict gun rights are none too happy to see these successes come to fruition. Our report from last October noted how various corporate entities tried to stifle the group’s vision early on. (See a more in-depth report in November’s issue of Infowars Magazine.) In a segment Friday, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow used the video of Defense Distributed’s latest successful lower receiver test to disperse fear propaganda, urging Republicans, Conservatives and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to consider regulating the potential 3D printed weapons: Here’s an excerpt from the Maddow piece: These guys are doing this for political reasons. They want guns to be, not only unregulated, but unregulatable.
300,000,000 guns are not enough. More, more, more is the solution. But whether you agree with them or not, whether you find what they are doing exciting or terrifying or both, you have to admit that this does raise all sorts of interesting questions about law enforcement, and gun laws in this country. I mean, how do you go about regulating a gun if everybody can make one themselves at home, alone, one that can shoot a thousand rounds.
There’s no serial number on that lower receiver and honestly nobody bought it or sold it, it’s homemade. How is law enforcement in this country going to grapple with homemade high powered weapons?
What will they do when these guys inevitably distribute the computer code for 3D printing a fully-automatic machinegun? At the risk of sounding like a broken pro-Second Amendment record, I’ll repeat what’s come to be a characteristic gun rights mantra: what part of “shall not be infringed” don’t you get? The UK’s BBC also felt it necessary to weigh in on our country’s gun control debate, crafting a slick Second Amendment hit piece geared to demonize Defense Distributed and their vision. Hi everybody, first of all thanks for the kind words 🙂 Unfortunately I couldn’t find any documents about this late-war pistol. Walther has nothing left today. Most was lost at the end of the war in Suhl or was later thrown away (in a time when historical documents were held in low esteem). I too think that this pistol has been reworked after its return to Walther, but again no documentation about the purchase could be found.
Oh, and yes, I have a little website: Nothing spectacular, just a bit of information about my books, some articles and a download-section with some wartime German manuals and documents about weapons and ammunition. Cheers Michael. Thanks Ian and thank you Michael. The Mauser and Walther volkspistoles are fascinating guns. Their design philosophy is a complete contrast to the line taken by shepherd and Turpin, with their STEN, and (I argue) taken on to its furthest extreme so far by the late P M Luty, with his “Expedient” series, and “BSP” (British Standard (plumbing) Pipe Fitting), which require no lathe work, or milling. Shepherd and Turpin appear to have envisaged dispersed manufacture in small and rudimentary shops, garages and home workshops with bench top mills, drill presses and hacksaws – inefficient and not as productive as a factory production line – but almost impossible to bomb out or close down by invasion, and their design became a favourite with clandestine builders in occupied territory.
Walther Model 53 Serial Numbers
The Mauser and Walther engineers seem to have envisaged factories with teams of tool makers to make and maintain the dies and punches necessary for the forming of those compound curves on the pistol grip and the punching to stitch together that wonderful slide. Factories equipped with power presses, rather than the fly presses and bending brakes needed for a STEN. They also assumed supplies of accurately rolled to thickness, steel of a grade, and in a state of heat treatment and stress, suitable for the required forming operations. Had the materials, personnel, machines, time and un bombed factory space been available, I’m sure that the volkspistoles could have been produced in huge numbers – but absolutely non of those factors were available by that time. I’ve read that Hitler was very happy when he was first shown a captured STEN, as to him, it showed the level of desperation reached by the Brits.
If that is true, then Hitler was both correct, and very wrong at the same time: Correct that the Brits were desperate -most of the high quality stuff had been lost on the beaches at Dunkirk. Very wrong, to have dismissed the STEN and similar weapons, which were every bit as effective as guns requiring far better materials, and tying up more skilled personnel, and machines which could have been used far more productively on other things.
That is the true cost of anything – the alternatives you could have had instead. Taking a closer look at the pictures of the slide, it looks like the bolt/block is made from round stock, probable order of machining was to use a gang of horizontal mills to cut the clearence for the mag lips and ejector, then to use that flat to index the stock for the cut for the extractor. It would have been interesting to see the extractor and how it is formed and attached. And I’m guessing that the single pin which enters from the right side of the slide to retain the bolt, also retains the firing pin. The absence of a hole on the left side of the slide suggests that once that bolt was in place, it was there to stay. Looking at the hammer, has it been formed as an extrusion, or as a long bar milled to profile and (in either case) sliced off like slices off a sausage? Seeing the intermittent punching used to form race ways, did any of the engineers or guns find their way to Spain?
In my reading up on Spanish oddities, I found the same method used to index the bolt of the Star Z62 and Z70 carbines from rotating. There’s a pretty good illustration of it in the exploded perspective view on page 5 of the French patent application, here: Although I think that having the bolt ride on rods, as in the AR18 or the M3 grease gun is a better idea than having it contact the receiver tube – which risks getting dented – I thought that the stitching looked like an excellent way to provide a track with places for dirt to get out of the way. It’s a few years since I visited Spain, does anyone know if the “Civil Guards” (Generalissimo Franco’s Gestapo) are still using Star carbines? Or are they now a Forgotten Weapon?
Keith’s comments about guns designed to be quickly and effectively manufactured in dispersed small workshops without the need for specialized machine tools ( see his post on Mar. 7, 2013 / 1159 hrs.
) reminded me of yet two more forgotten weapons — the British Hefah V Mark I in 0.303″ Enfield caliber and the BSA gas-operated LMG, or Besal, also in 0.303″. The former was developed by the Ductile Steel Company of Short Heath, and was submitted for testing in June 1940 as a possible infantry LMG to supplement the Bren; it used a modified Lewis action with a conventional return spring in place of the Lewis’ clock-spring and rack, a single-lug bolt and bottom-mounted drum magazine to simplify production. The Director Of Naval Ordnance, desperate to alleviate the chronic shortage of AAMG’s for small coastal patrol craft, recommended it’s adoption and the Hefah Company of Wednesfield was founded to manufacture the gun for the Royal Navy. After a relatively small production run, the gun was declared obsolete in November 1944, the once-feared shortfall of Bren LMG’s having long since been resolved through increased production and the Luftwaffe’s failure to adequately target the Enfield production complex ( where the Bren was made ).
Walther Model 53 For Sale
The Besal was designed by one Mr. Faulkner to take advantage of the production capabilities of small dispersed machine shops in the event that the Enfield works making the Bren should be seriously damaged. It used the same magazine as the Bren, and was composed mostly of commercial-grade steel tubing and stampings, there being few machined or forged components.
To further simplify production, the gas piston and breechblock were actually of square section, the block being locked by two lugs that engaged corresponding recesses cut into the receiver. The Besal was cocked in similar fashion to the BESA MG, i.e., by pulling the pistol grip rearwards.
In spite of its obvious and somewhat drastic simplification in the interests of quick and easy manufacturing, the gun still featured an adjustable four-position gas port and a quick-change barrel with fixed handle. The bipod was of fixed height, and a basic two-position rear sight was fitted. By all accounts, the Besal was a very impressive gun in spite of — or perhaps because of — its simplicity. It proved to be reliable and accurate during acceptance trials, and was formally approved for p.