Going rate for a deactivated MP38

[jawes]

Have a chance to pick one up and cannot find any recent sales on the various forums.

Any estimates of general pricing?

Thanks, Jim

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[Sarge]

I wish everyone had to list their home state, or country if not in the US, when they registered on here.
Depends on where you are at!
In the US from $10K up depending on the gun - condition, matching, how welded, usv.
Sarge

[enfield303t]

Sarge 13, I couldn't agree more with your comment of having a location on everone's profile. Several times I have seen a posting and wonder where the person resides as giving "help" so often depends on location. I did mention it to Badger a couple of months ago and hopefully it will happen in the future. I think Badger and Angel were too busy with the new format to even think about the request.

[jawes]

british columbia, canada

[Peter Laidler]

I couldn't agree more. Lets start a petition to get the Country stated on everyones side panel

[browningautorifle]

It still matters on how welded up and how good or bad the MP38 looks. A cock and click will be more desirable than a CFC solid paperweight. Depends on how badly someone wants it, you could get excess of $1000. I saw a 28 Thompson recently for more than that. They claimed it was new unfired...but it's deactivated, what difference does unfired make? Your '38's more scarce than a '28 is.

[conductor]

This post brings back a few memories. Back about 1975, there was an ad in Shotgun News from some guy in Vancouver, BC who was selling deactivated Sten guns for $12.95. Of couse I ordered one, sending the guy a cashier's check for the price of the gun plus postage. After waiting about a month and receiving nothing, I called the guy up, and got a rather non-committal response to my questions. I later got an anonymous postcard from Portland, Oregon telling me that the guy in Vancouver was a straight-up guy, and just to wait a bit, and my gun would arrive.

Needless to say, that was the last thing I ever heard from anyone, and my money was gone for good.

Too bad. Lots of Sten guns like that were cut in half, then "remanufactured" and are now legally registered and fully operational.

[crsoll]

[QUOTE=browningautorifle;133761]It still matters on how welded up and how good or bad the MP38 looks. A cock and click will be more desirable than a CFC solid paperweight. Depends on how badly someone wants it, you could get excess of $1000.
Attachment 52808 Attachment 52826

I've been buying a few model guns lately to fill in the spaces in my military carbine collection. These are the rare and very expensive ones. I always wanted an mp38 with the milled receiver so decided to buy one of these old Japanese Model Gun Corp 68's and have a go at the conversion. It turned out to be a complete rebuild.

Sourced a new milled receiver from a fellow in Latvia, and new ' Bakelite' guards from History Arms. The original model gun was puchased from the Gun Broker site.

The first thing was to cut the tinny mountings from the magazine receiver and machine new rings and weld back on. Attachment 52832The old receiver was simply screwed on with two very small screws that took the entire recoil loading and were worn out. I decided to pin as per original construction, as this locates the trunion securely to the receiver as well. I swapped out the trunion that came with it for the cap firing one from the model gun, so to retain the weapon in that legal confiuration. Very little work was needed, and both the trunion and bolt needed a small amount of machining to fit. The trunion was also double pinned into the receiver as I felt the material used to manufacture the trunion on the mgc was a little week to take the pressures on just one pin. Also cut off the bolt handle and made a new mp38 one from a metric bolt. Positioning was crucial as the ejector channel and extractor had to line up perfectly.

These models were made so millimetre perfect that the new milled receiver went straight in to the housing with only a minor adjustment to the locating lug (these are pushed in and a half turn indexes to a lug at the rear, and a spring loaded locating spigot at the front.

The hand guards fitted perfect as well, but I did need to bush the holes to locate the new handguard in position, as the mgc plastic parts were moulded to the original frame which is slightly narrower than the real one.

The other major alteration was the need to remanufacture the recoil tube assembly. The MGC tube is made in only two sections, but the orignal is three. (This was necessary as when the bolt is pulled fully back on the new receiver the two sections would not compress enough to located the lever in the channel - the mgc one had been located closer to the front for manufacturing purposes). I used tubing to suit, and made a die to crimp the ends.

After bluing and ageing the parts, the end result is a transition model mp38/40 that cycles and feels just like a real one.

Cost all up about $1500. NB photos below are a bit mixed up, but show old and new assemblies and machining.

[browningautorifle]

Nice looking piece of work you have there...

[S-A-M3]

Amazing work Chris, well done. Stuart.