I have never heard that GT is a pita...he is one of the nicest guys you will ever work with and always gives more than he gets.

Lol, I was joking hence the smiley face....figured he'd see that and get a laugh

PITA..........Pain In The Ass

I don't know you....But I certainly have never read anything of that description of GT by anyone else on this board.

I am not pleased you would refer to him in that manner and attribute it to "others on this board"........

Tom

I know GT...I was joking..I know he reads stuff here ...we talk on the phone...he has helped me out. I sent him a BDay note (12th)...chill out gents.

Just got off the phone with him...he laughed about it and knew I was joshing. I am sorry I upset some of you.

My apologies, I should have noticed you were joking.
Ron

None required Ron, perhaps not as obvious as I initially thought.

Moving along. GT supplied me with a very nice Navy rear and offered to mount it etc... I think he sent the nicest one he had. I like to tinker so decided to mount it myself. It took a bit of filing in places to replicate the feel of the original but is not overly difficult.
The barrel is now 11.75 from the breech with a very nice crown.
I tested it with 115 gn. (All), Win. White box, Speer Lawman, and Speer Blazer...the Win/Lawman are 1190-12 ish and the Blazer Brass 1140. It ran perfectly with all 3. Really pleased.

Next comes the front sight ramp, again from GT, that replicates the profile of the original Carbine ramps. He sent this gratis..thanks.

I will have to mod it a bit I think, due to the heavy barrel profile but the Navy rear does stand higher so maybe not much. Anyways, really pleased to have a non firing Luger to work with reg. ammo. Just needed to lose some weight and get a better center of gravity.
I appreciate everyone's input.

Ok, no laughing!
I've been working on the height of the front sight blade and measured 6/8ths of an in. from center bore to top of blade to match the height of the navy rear.
I cut down the junk front blade that came with to the appropriate height and used duct tape to secure it...lol, I know. However, it worked, the front sight did not move during shooting. Six rounds at 30 feet. I'll leave the blade a bit high when mounting as I can always reduce it but a good start point. I live in the country and can shoot on my property.

Rube Goldberg would be proud! (How many of you are old enough to understand that comment? :))
Ron

Me . Bill

Me too Lol...

uh huh.........

My father made Rube Goldberg look like an amature when it came to jury rigged concoctions. He kept things running years past the time when most people would have long ago junked them.

When I lived at home, it was my job to dump the wash water after Mom did the clothes. I carried two 5 gallon buckets up a flight of stairs and maybe 100 feet across the yard to dump them; four or five trips each time.

When I left home, Pop ran a garden hose out of the basement window that was attached to a submersible pump. He rigged a cutoff switch that stopped the pump when the water level reached a certain point. The switch was made of a wood base, a float, contact points etc. A counter balance weight was the cylinder from a cap pistol suspended by string. It worked and he used it for years.

The nut doesn't fall to far from the tree
 

My dad was born in 1917 in a small South Dakota farm town... real small! He grew up thru the depression and they didn't have any electricity on the farm at the time. He rigged up a windmill to an old auto generator from a junk car and ran two copper rods thru the roof to a bulb so thay had lights when ever the wind blew, and that's all the time in SD! :eek:
Only problem is when it blew too hard, the generator would over produce and burn out the bulb? His solution was to install a hinge in the back rails of the windmill and install a big coil extension spring in the front. If the wind blew too hard, the windmill would lean back and sluff off energy by becoming inefficient.. a primitive regulator...
They were the only ones in the county that had lights! I miss him.... best, til....lat'r....GT...:cheers:

Doubs & G.T.
Your stories really made me smile. Over the years I have put together some jury rigged contraptions that looked crazy but got the job done! :cheers:
Ron

Thank you Ron. My father was born in 1910 and graduated high school in June, 1929. Like most Depression era folks, he was very self sufficient and frugal.

Let me add that he liked his Lugers and owned at least four or five in the 1920's and early 1930's.

Rube Goldberg CLASS of 1951 :roflmao:
Also loved Professor O. G. Wotasnozzle ... anyone remember him ??

Spangy...you and I are in the same class...1951! I forgot to show the string and tape measure I used to figure the center bore to blade height..... string thru the navy rear and then 'eyeball'.... science.

I enjoy doing this stuff like that... makes it fun rather than sending it out. I've drilled and tapped rifle receivers mounting scopes with the string method and it has always worked so far....then again, this is a shooter so what the heck.

It has gone from a 'collector long barrel commercial Stoeger you must have for your collection' (that didn't cycle) to Rube Goldbergs amazing cycling shooter....

Dad was circa 1916. Served from 1939 to 1963 in the USAAF and USAF retiring as a Senior Master Sergeant. He understood Rube very well. Dad had an inventive mind and used it profitably with a couple of patents for machinist tools. One that most of you that tap threads in metal would be familiar with, is the piloted tap wrench originally marketed by the Walton Tool Co. I have his prototypes and use them almost every time I fire up my lathe. Yep, I understand. Woody

I am really happy that my "Rube Goldberg" comment triggered some great responses! Thank you guys for supporting my nostalgia.
Ron

Ron, I've been Rube Goldberging with firearms forever...just making things that would 'kind of be' historically correct but fun shooters...like this Luger. This is off subject but an example.
As my 72 year old eyes like scopes now, and I've always liked to shoot distance and use military arms this intrigued me.
Krag scoped rifles...the US Military tried a few and so did the Norwegians...the two are those. The one by itself is the one I made (donar side plate, everything can be returned to stock) and my Krag has a beautifully pristine bore. I just love making things work. An old German mount from pre WW2 that looked kind of period and a 2.5x scope mounted with my string method and shoots really well.

You are having waaay too much fun. :)
Ron

Thanks for taking a look.

Ron, here's another for ya.

Below is a pic of George Rhoads' "Odyssey of the Spheres." I spent almost ten years as a technician building this kind of thing for him. The uninitiated would invariably cite Goldberg when they saw one of these machines--"rolling ball sculpture", "audio-kinetic art."

Goldberg's most recognized works are not like these machines, though, because the former are a one-shot deal with a beginning, and an end after the complex actions and reactions have run their course--more like one of those domino projects that are touched off and do their thing once.

Our work would run as long as the motor was on to return the balls to the top. But they weren't boring because a certain amount of unpredictability was designed into their operation--sometimes a ball would take one track, sometimes another, as it made its way through the structure, dinging dingers, whacking whackers, bouncing and being caught, chiming chimes and ringing bells, etc. along the way. There is a legend about one of the mid-sized ones in Boston's Logan Airport, that a pilot was so engrossed while observing it that he missed his own flight.

One of my favorite Goldberg machines is shown on the opening for Elementary, the modern Sherlock Holmes TV series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7JT3iMzS4k&t=10s

I lived in New Guinea for a few years. The hot water for the shower was a box on the roof painted flat black inside. In the box was an old radiator also painted flat black. Cold water from the bottom of the tank connected to the low side and hot water from the top of the radiator back to the top of the tank. Being in the tropics there was almost always hot water for free. The only time not so hot was in monsoon when we would get multiple days of rain. After 3 rainy days it was kinda lukewarm.

[QUOTE=Kiwi;347833]I lived in New Guinea for a few years. /QUOTE]

I passed through Papua Papua in January, 1976, on the way to Australia and New Zealand. I was at Ohakea RNZ Air base for a couple of weeks.

All I recall of Papua Papua is the heat, the mountains and the tropical vegetation. And a couple of old DC-3 aircraft on the tarmac.

I went to air shows at Ohakea when I was a kid. My mother was in the bathroom when an F101 Voodoo broke the sound barrier over the airfield - and all the windows in the bathroom, funny, for us.

PNG in January is in the North West Monsoon - humidity you can cut with a knife. I was there in'76

My time at Ohakea was interesting as we exercised for two weeks with the RNZ Air Force. They had A4 aircraft and we had F-4D's, some that had shot down Migs in 'Nam. Spent some time in Palmerston North and a Kiwi Sergeant named Roy Carmody took us on a tour of North Island. Great guy and wonderful time.

Below is a picture of one morning on the flight line at Ohakea.

https://i.imgur.com/AOfMZme.jpg

Nice Doubs...have had fast mover support in RVN....'snake and nape' from dif platforms. Thuds/F4 and Spads.


GT, thanks mucho for the front sight blades.!!!

ici

Ok, the final product. I had my neighbor gun smith (has a shop at his house, how nice is that) Set up the front sight after milling the ramp to the Luger spec dovetail and aligning it with his tools and affixing the proper ramp (provided by GT with the appropriate Luger front sight blade).
He also cut down the barrel to 11.75 in. (Luger Carbine length) and did a great job with the muzzle.
I replaced and fitted the Navy rear myself and found that an easy job(also provided by GT) for the new rear sight.
We (collectively and thanks to all) made a non cycling bastard of a Luger into a very nice cycling (semi bastard lol) that has at least a proper appearance and works with white box 9mm Winchester just fine.
I shot it at a short distance today and it was spot on...range next week. Regardless GT gave me (gratis) 5 different front blades so there will be no issues. Great to see it come together and working nicely.
Pic is of what was taken off.... barrel length (way too much weight to cycle)...crappy aftermarket sights...and the fine Navy rear toggle GT provided. This will be a very fun shooter now.
Pic shows what was removed. (go to page one to see the initial pistol)

Several years ago I had John V. Martz build a 9mm luger carbine with a 12" barrel and a forearm for me using a S/42 1937 dated mismatched luger. I was able to buy (from SARCO) a repro. Navy type rear sight and installed it on the luger. That is one fine shooting piece with its almost 18" sight radius and my own reloads using 115 gr. bullets. A 25 pound shot up propane bottles set at 150 yds. can be made to go "CLANK" nearly every shot.

Just some random observations for you guys.
A 9mm "carbine" can be made with a 16" barrel and function. I've constructed several.

Also "factory" recoil springs vary greatly in strength, you can selectively fit one that will fine tune function if needed.

The pressure inside the cartridge/barrel is not strictly relevant for a recoil operated action like the luger. People talk about the "balance" of the luger function and they refer to the recoil impulse which is affected by many factors including bullet weight, velocity, and the mass of the recoiling
parts(barrel + receiver extension+ sights+ any added fore grip).

The 9mm 16" barrel only functions well with the fore grip/arm that is attached to the luger frame, not one attached to the barrel itself, as such a grip adds too much weight and additional resistance if held in the hand. The original .30 luger carbines had the very "weak" flat recoil springs and needed the additional auxiliary spring in the forearm to return the barrel assembly to battery.