A friend of mine recently acquired a family-owned WWII GI bring-back P38. He took it to the range and it went full auto on him. Needless to say, it has issues.
He turned to me for advice and handed me the pistol. I did LOTS of research.
I determined that it's a July 1944 Spreewerk (aka Sprewerke) late-war production with matching serial numbers and German proof marks (CYQ and eagle/88).
After disassembly, I found the following issues:
Bent/deformed slide stop return spring, broken (sheared) safety catch/lever, and broken firing pin spring.
The hardest replacement part to find was a WWII-era firing pin spring, but I found one in Russia. Waiting for it to arrive in a couple of weeks. All other parts I found on Numerich
(gunpartscorp.com).
According to Atarian’s Wartime and Post‐war Slide Part Compatibility Study, the post-war firing pin spring is compatible with this model, but I wanted to stay as close to original as possible.
Pretty sure the grips are not original as I believe they should be brown in color for the manufacture timeframe.
Anyway, here's a few photos and hope this info helps anyone having a similar issue with a P38.