The Machinepistole 38, or MP 38, was a further development of the German submachine gun Machinepistole 36, MP 36 and was succeeded by the Machinepistole 40, MP 40. As with the MP 40 the gun was developed by Heinrich Vollmer and came with the Schmeisser magazine.
Compared to the MP 40 the specifications were almost identical, a magazine with 32 – 9 x 19 mm parabellum cartridges. It was an all-metal submachine gun with full auto firing mode, a 500 rounds per minute maximum and an effective firing range up to 200 meters. The big difference is that the parts of this gun are machine constructed and it weighs just a bit more than the updated version, the MP 40. Unloaded it weighs 4,2 kilograms, 3,97 for the MP 40.
It was fabricated from 1938 until the MP 40 became available in 1940.
