Luger's Unsafe to Shoot?

[ithacaartist]

Alex,

Some comments... I think the majority of the meat of these concerns is urban legend, born of lack of knowledge of the gun, which is the norm outside of those who actually study, understand, and use the pistol. The forums are major islands of information and collective experience that is not usually available to the uninterested/inexperienced/ignorant.

1) I don't think the Parabellum has cornered the market on finicky. The parts for the firing and safety systems of the ol' reliable 1911 aren't "plug-and-play", either, and require careful fitting. With springs refreshed, a hundred year old matching gun will probably do fine, barring other actual damage or excessive wear. The Luger's design suggests that it will wear less than a 1911. Susceptibility to mud and sand was tested by the Army's trials before the 19111 was adopted and it didn't reveal a significant problem. The action is resistant to infiltration of debris when closed, and any pistol will screw up if dumped into the mud with its action open. The army's beef with what was tested centered around the caliber, due to concerns about "stopping-power." Using the correct ammo, which required sourcing powder from foreign manufacture, was also problematic.

2) This is true of any old gun. State of the art metallurgy was used all along, and changes/improvements followed as they became available. The last built were likely the best in this respect.

3) Well, if you ignore the "loaded chamber indicator" function of the extractor--don't look at it or feel for it... So, this is nonsense.

4) The Luger's safety system is very effective, and it's quite safe to carry it loaded and cocked with the safety applied. An exception would be something like a first issue, un-altered Navy. Early grip safety pistols' safety levers worked in reverse of what is found on the P.08, and could be nudged off safe when inserted into a holster. But with the grip safety, you could probably haul the gun out of the holster by its trigger and still be OK until squeezing the grip.

[Josafoot]

Originally Posted by ithacaartist

Alex,

Some comments... I think the majority of the meat of these concerns is urban legend, born of lack of knowledge of the gun, which is the norm outside of those who actually study, understand, and use the pistol. The forums are major islands of information and collective experience that is not usually available to the uninterested/inexperienced/ignorant.

1) I don't think the Parabellum has cornered the market on finicky. The parts for the firing and safety systems of the ol' reliable 1911 aren't "plug-and-play, either, and require careful fitting. With springs refreshed, a hundred year old matching gun will probably do fine, barring other actual damage or excessive wear. The Luger's design suggests that it will wear less than a 1911. Susceptibility to mud and sand was tested by the Army's trials before the 19111 was adopted and it didn't reveal a significant problem. The action is resistant to infiltration of debris when closed, and any pistol will screw up if dumped into the mud with its action open. The army's beef with what was tested centered around the caliber, due to concerns about "stopping-power." Using the correct ammo, which required sourcing powder from foreign manufacture, was also problematic.

As expected lots of very well informed posts and replies. Thanks. I valued each post and they were inline with my thoughts. The quoted post has some information I found very interesting.

First, I agree that my "experts" are not as experienced with the luger. Mine may have been the first they have handled in person. I do not hold this against them as they were very clear that they are NOT luger experts and had only read about these things.

A personal hobby of mine is to disprove the idea that the Luger was an unreliable firearm due to its "over-complex" design. As I mentioned in the original post, most of the accounts for Lugers failing (WWI) seemed to be coming from the Commonwealth nations. I have yet to see a report that the Germans complained about the firearm's reliability being an issue. I truly believe this is British propaganda and well executed. I never thought about looking at the US Army's trials for more evidence.

Honestly, I did some research on the firearm before purchasing. Not enough apparently because I picked up a Commercial .30 when I wanted a 9mm. Got to say, I could not be any happier with the .30 cal. It is an excellent pistol to shoot, stays on target, works flawlessly and knocks over the steel targets just fine. Ammo is a bit hard to find in California and getting harder.