Hi,

I'd rather think that any artilleries that surfaced in Belgium actually were WW1 stock, impounded by the Belgians after the Germans left.

A number of artilleries and navies, taken from German Vessels in the Antwerp port harbour and other coastal areas, were offered for sale on the open market in the early 20s. The Dutch government bought a number of artilleries and navies in that era as well.

Your Belgian proofed part could have come into Finland in that time frame ( less that 100 pistols came in from Belgium at that time )

Three finish Lugers are in the pictures and with all the same type of black plastic grips. The undersides of the grips all have the same markings from the molds. The upper two Lugers are both 9mm Tikka barrels and are in different lengths. The lower pistol in the picture is 30 cal. and is the one that is shown in the link above. I realize that I did not do a good job with these pictures in the artificial light this evening. :(:(

couldn't figure out how to insert multiple pics in the message!

under sides are all the same.

Yes, my grips have thoseexact same cast marks and swirl patterns from machining. Not sure if the backs of the grips were machined, or if the mold had the machining marks and they were transfered to the grips??? But anyway, they are definitely a commonly found Finn Luger feature.

By the way - did those aluminum mags come with those finns? All the Finn Lugers I've seen have had wood bottomed mags, and I've seen a good many now...

Yes the aluminum mags came with the pistols from Finland. Also I just fond that 4 of my Finn Lugers have the black plastic replacement grips not three. This fourth set shows much more use ( chips ) and some fitting adjustments.

Geez - how many Finns do you have!? ;) Just kidding - I'm green with Envy. I'm fascinated by most Russio-Finnish conflict guns.

I do have a like new set of these Finnish made grips available @$100. I also have a few sets of used Portusese made (courser checkering) black widow grips, that are often seen on their 42 BYFs, @$50/set + $5 S&H in US. hellerarms@webtv.net

Hmmm... I have a new theory about the Belgian proofs on my Luger's barrel extension.

According the Walter's "The Luger Story" page 148, Anciens Etablissements Pieper of Herstal-lez-Liege was subcontracted to produce some Luger parts for Erfurt. Since my barrel extension is Erfurt proofed and also bears Belgian proofs, could it not be a Belgian produced part? Barrel Extensions are not expressly listed as being made there, but "many small parts" could potentially include barrel extensions, could it not?

What say the experts?

Hi,

I doubt it. The proof is a Belgian ' import' proof and would be found on pistols that were not produced in Belgium, but were proofed their as part of an import into the country. As the Belgians would not only proof the receiver, but also the barrel it's more likely that the original was a seized pistol, which was proofed in Belgium after WW1 had ended, had both barrel and receiver proofed and was later sold and ended up in Finland.

The barrel has been changed out somewhere along the way, destroying any proofs that were on it originally.

Cannot help much on this subject, but what I know for sure is that the fancy L inside the exploding bomb, is the belgian stamp for the LIEGE (city east of bruxelles) weapon proof & test "agency", every gun that go trough belgium has to go there, is test fired, and if pass the test with success, the L is stamped on barrel and slide. It doesn't mean the gun has been in Belgium between 1939_1940, if you buy or sell a gun in belgium now, it'll get this stamp. It's the law. Hope this help, even a little.