An all matched upper with an all matched lower makes a good shooter. I have one like that acquired from LugerDoc years ago.

Your lower is from a slightly newer Mauser framed gun (later in 1937 through 1942) since it has the hump. The Mauser made Lugers make excellent shooters because of the metallurgy.

This "two tone" is something else again. It will certainly get attention at the range!

Contratulations... Marc

Jim,

Your two tone looks good!

I've bought several mismatched upper/lower lugers- how they got that way is anyone's guess.

I bought the mismatched pistols for different reasons, in no particular order:
-good price
-upper had something I needed: the barrel or receiver or even one had a navy toggle in it
-something special about the lower.

I don't recall how I wound up with yours(1937 made as Mark guessed), but I maybe used the upper for my carbine build.

If you get tired of two tone, you can always have it blued; or, the lower nickeled!

Thanks.

The color, and the flaking, would lead me to believe it is a "bumper chrome" job. It wasn't too unusual back when auto plants were everywhere, and surplus pistols were common, to have guys at the plant co-operating in this.

You'd hand your cardboard box o'parts to your buddy at the start of the chrome baths, and he'd dump them in, in an empty tanks. (the tank was empty for many reasons, including because you asked him to plate your pistol)

At the other end, another buddy would fish the parts out, and put them into the cardboard box.

Things were different back then.

Whats wierd is, under the places that the chrome flaked off, it still looks blue underneath. Jim

Chrome must be plated over copper, it won't stick to steel.
Nickel can be plated on steel.

Could be either, with just black "rust" underneath, black rust is ferric oxide and not the more common red rust which is ferrous oxide(if I remember my chemistry correctly). Depends on how much oxygen is present when the rust is formed.

Under plating there is "less" oxygen.

That info and a $1 will get you a cup of coffee somewhere!;)

I was looking at some of my old posted pics. turns out one of my magazines is a 1936 mauser. So a 35 upper, 37 lower and a 36 magazine, all mauser. Nothing matching but kind of interesting how it all comes back together after all these years half a world away. Jim

Finally got a chance to shoot the pistol this afternoon. Only shot one magazine and had a failure to feed. It looks like the bolt went right over the bullet. I held up the magazine and it worked fine. Magazine was a mec gar mag. I wanted to try another mag but we ran out of time. So next time out Ill bring two or three mags and see what happens.

Try pressing up on the base of the mag. as yu shoot to see if it works better with the mag. a bit higher in the mag. well. If so it may need a different magazine or a different mag. catch.
Keep us posted.
dju

Jim,
that is usually a sign that the bolt is not recoiling all the way back.
A "light" round or marginally loaded rounds coupled with a strong mainspring will do it.

What ammo are you shooting?

Thats what I was thinking. Also when I disassembled it to clean it last night, any place there was metal to metal contact on the upper. The chrome or nickle was flaking off in sheets. Next time out Ill take all my mags and some different ammo. I used perfecta 9mm, will take some Winchester also. Jim

What a pretty convertsation piece!

on the subject of why uppers and no lowers - IMO several reasons

-- most likely is guns that were seized by police and the lower is the 'frame' and was destroyed - some places the entire gun must be destroyed and some allow the parts to be payment for destroying the frames. I have a friend who gets guns off and on - I bought luger parts, a 1911 upper from him

--- for some reason the frame was left in water or just was horribly pitted, so people part them out. sometimes its weird the way pitting and rust will affect part of a gun, maybe an upper, maybe a frame

----- probably not too many lugers, but parts could come into the USA a lot easier, so guns were broken down and brought into the USA as parts

Dumb Question~ Are most parts of a generic luger interchangeable??

Yes, within the limits of parts tolerance.
Some models are different though in one or more parts.

If your Luger functioned correctly when you lifted the mag up in the mag well, then short stroking would be way down my list as to the problem. I would look at the mag catch and the mag.....also the mag well.

So the thinking is maybe the magazine I tried is sitting a bit low keeping the round from getting stripped from the magazine. I have a original mauser mag to try and a few mec gar mags. Jim

Try them all; and different ammo.

I would say that luger parts are not interchangable and usually need some fitting. I've had some barrelled receivers that were very tight in the frame, sometimes from rebarrelling, that required a lot of lapping, to avoid the excess friction from being too tight. TH

Generally not without fitting. Even from the same manufacturer in the same time span.

To add even more confusion, the slide over-riding a round in the magazine can just as easily be a symptom of an under strength mainspring which allows the toggle to cycle so fast that the mag doesn't have a chance to push a round up into position. This is the problem that I had with my Finnish 1923, which I solved with by replacing the old weak mainspring with a new spring....