The byf's are also the last 08's to come out of the Mauser factory. To me that makes them attractive.

Hey Guys, just some more thoughts.

* How long was the troop build up before the Russian invasion?
* How long was the supply chain from Mauser to the troops?
* How large was the Luger stockpile?

If one were to ASSUME:

* The stockpile was short!
* The build up was 3 months!
* The supply chain was 3 months!

Then, the new troops heading for the Russian front in late March or early April 1941 were supplied with Lugers from late December 1940 or early January 1941. Granted, some troops already had pistols or were already near the Russian border (Poland) or were transferred from the already occupied countries.

No way to know what the real story is, but it's fun to speculate!!!

:D

I don't think that there was any concern about or concentration of Lugers for Operation Barbarossa. The Germans were arming their forces both from within and with masses of captured weapons. The Mauser factory was still building P08's for export in 1941 and 1942.

I bought a copy of "Standard catalog of Luger" last week at the NRA National Firearms Museum. For each Luger listing it gives a rarity rating. The byfs are rated as uncommon. Maybe many did go to the Russian front.

I wondered about that too when I saw byfs listed as "Uncommon" in the Standard Catalog of Luger. With the number originally produced you'd think Davis would have said "Common" instead. Frank's probably on to something there!

Please read this review http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthre...ghlight=aarron before putting too much stock in what is printed in The Standard Catalog of Luger. 126,000 byf 41 and 113,000 byf 42 cannot be considered "uncommon" in anybody's book.

--Dwight

bb

I wouldn't think they would be uncommon based upon the number of them that I see for sale on the internet, but maybe they are not as common as some of the other models.

239,000 Lugers might seem like a lot, but how many survived the war and if you spread those out amoung the Luger collectors and they begin to look a little uncommon...

Well forgetting the book's errors, I still think Frank's on to something about the Russian front. For all we know the Russians now use byf receivers as tuning forks!