A little over a year ago, I picked up a mint condition "reworked" Walther P1 at the local Gander Mountain for $260. The gun was apparently unissued and unfired since being reworked as it had no wear marks on all the major contact points and had next to no cosmetic wear on the finish. Here's an image of it taken not long after I acquired the gun:
Given its mint condition, I was somewhat reluctant to shoot it, and the gun was relegated to the role of safe queen--although I did frequently take it out to ogle and fondle it.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, and I was once again at Gander looking at stuff. I headed over to their hunting department to look at their selection of pistols and laugh at the outrageous prices (
$580 for a CZ 75 BD? C'mon, let's get real here!), when I noticed they had dropped the price on their used P1s to just $230. On a whim, I asked the salesperson if he had any P1s that were in excellent condition; he said he did not know, and volunteered to bring a few examples out from the storeroom for me to look at. He returned with 4 boxes of P1s; the first three looked pretty beat up cosmetically with lots of scuffs and scratches in the finish, but the fourth one appeared to be in mint condition. A closer examination revealed that this fourth one was indeed unissued. My next words to the salesperson were, "Where's the 4473?"
Here are a couple of images of the second P1:
And an image of both of them together:
I finally decided that a gun not fired was a gun not being enjoyed, so after a little bit of trigger work, I took the second P1 to the range a few days back and shot it. I had read that most post-war P38s and P1s had a tendency to shoot low, but my P1 was actually hitting the paper about 2"
above the POA at 25 yards (with the windage spot on) using my 115 gr. target handloads from a benchrest. It was, however, grouping under 3" at that distance. Not bad for a $230 gun that sports a 10/80 manufacture date.
I'll probably continue to keep my first P1 in the safe, though. Would I pick up yet another P1? I might, if the price was right and its condition mint. I just hope this isn't the start of another addiction.