Here's my submission for favorite shooter.

This is my Ruger Old Army .45 caliber cap and ball revolver. The grips are imitation ivory from Dixie Gunworks and are engraved with my initials. I looked into having some custom metal engraving done, but found the cost extremely prohibitive.

Charged with 30 grains of "Triple Seven," six to eight inches of red flame issues forth from the muzzle followed by a loud "ker-boom" and an impressive cloud of white smoke. The recoil is gentle and on a good day, I can put six out of six inside a 4" circle at fifty feet.

The Luger "commercial" shooter I purchased from Hugh Clark comes in a close second and provides a very nice technical contrast to the Ruger.

Dave in TN.

Here's my other "shooter..."

It's a .44 caliber "screw barrel" boot pistol that uses 12 grains of black powder.

At 20 feet, it will put a ball through a sheet of 3/4" plywood. But that's assuming that you can hit the sheet of plywood at 20 feet (notice the lack of front and rear sights.) The effective range of this pistol is about five feet which is roughly the distance across a poker table.

I would hate to be caught with an ace up my sleeve and be on the receiving end of this piece....

That's either a very small gun or some gigantic hands;)

Hehe, i like it, does look like fun ^

Rick,

Very interesting post ... thanks!

When I shoot my .30 with Starline Brass I usually call a "cease fire" and the other guys stand back behind the red line and allow me to sweep my brass back behind the line.

Heck, I sweep all the brass back from the indoor range and do a bit of a clean up so I usually only loose about 2-5% to where the heck did it go? .... or sometimes less.

Shooting outdoors makes it harder to find the spent brass.

Mark

Rick, you always write such interesting articles slanted toward the unusual engineering aspects of Lugers. I enjoy them thoroughly... especially the photos... thanks for your contribution!

Rick,
You have passion! Thanks
Piet

Great article Rick, interesting reading. Sounds like you are close to having your own 'wildcat':)
I know you love the 7.65mm Luger, but have you concidered making a barrel in 7.63mm Mauser ?

Waffen Wele have posted some of his creations on Youtube. Thought you guys might enjoy watching these;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8htM...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOVNX...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQsaeeoRm_s

Shown it before, but this is my standard shooter. Reliablility is unbelievable. And it's more accurate than my eyes :)

Painting a Luger with Duracoat definitively puts it in the non-collectable category.. Sorry if it causes any nightmare :)

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Steiner,
Bizarre and cool !
Three colors of duracote?
Duracote fill defects in metal?
Thanks for sharing
Bill

I like it, in a twisted kind of way :D

I think that the sand color especially looks good.

My one and only Luger so far, a 1917 Erfurt. It is all matching except the magazine. It was buffed, re-blued and broken when I got it. It shoots well with W-W white box. Joe

Nice Luger JCP! With some original valnut grips, I would call it a collectable.


For my Duracoated Luger, I used the left overs from this project. It's three colours of "tactical matte", which is a non-reflectable colour.

The idea was to make a camouflage pattern without actually beeing so (on the Ruger that is). Also, as the rifle is intended for hunting and not self defence, so I wanted to make it bit less "military looking". Painstaking work ..and it would probably be a better result if I just knew when to stop ;)

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A refinished double-date DWM one which I bought last weekend, with what I think is a WW2 era barrel (somewhat rusted in the past. alas)

http://www.fototime.com/56EB404B2EBF1E6/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/E319950CBEFB5AD/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/87F21ADCE8C258A/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/B6ED9903515EFAC/standard.jpg

Shooter Luger and Target
 

This is my shooter Luger from a few replies above. The target is a 100, 6X from 10 yards using W-W White Box 115 grain. The trigger is not the greatest but I jerked the three that are not in the group. I haven't shot it at 25 yards because of the tiny sights and my middle aged eyes. Joe

This is my 1916 shooter I recently acquired. It is all matching except the magazine. It has been buffed and re-blued. Shoots great and I don't have to worry about my 1938 S/42 my dad brought home.

1940 chrome P08 GI bring-back given to me by a lady with whom my wife works. She inherited this from her father, who brought it back from WW2. She couldn't tell me much about it, except that it had no mag (I have since bought a Mec-Gar) and that her dad didn't tell her many war stories, but that he told her it suited him just fine going ashore on D-Day wearing one of the Germans own Lugers to use against them. She said he got a big kick out of that.

1940
42 on top
ser # 27
655 grips, no orig mag
all matching numbers


Obviously it was in rough shape, and still shows the pits from the rust it had before being plated. There's deep pitting at the rest for the trigger finger.
It is all-matching numbers except of course for the missing mag. It wore walnut grips when I got it, smooth ones, that I thought were some made after the war. But after reading here, and getting out the magnifying glass (and my strongest reading glasses-HA!) I see a tiny emblem, and a 655 below it, on the back of the grips. I do not see a serial number on the back of the grips. They have almost no checkering, are very smooth, oil-soaked at the top. Also, they appear to have been painted white at one time, as there is what looks to be white paint in some of the pores of the wood. When my camera batteries are charged, I'll get more pics. I currently have some repro black plastic grips on it, as the walnut grips are a bit loose.


It has the bolt-hold-open in it. Most of the markings that should be on it are gone, like the ones on the right side of the receiver. It is smooth. The only marking on the outside is the eagle on the left side of the toggle (being in a recessed area, it escaped the buffer), the number 27, 1940, and a 42. Inside are all sorts of markings and proofs.

{I have to wonder, given the almost complete lack of any German or Nazi markings on it, if they were removed deliberately.}

It shoots very well, feeding WWB 115 gr flawlessly, both FMJ and HP. At 7 yards it put 4 bullets in a tight cloverleaf circle, with one hole being overlapped by the other 3 around it, an old metal baking sheet with the HP. I haven't had a jam in a couple hundred FMJs and a hundred or more HPs over the course of about a year.

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/g...o/DSC03951.jpg
http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/g...o/DSC03940.jpg

'Looks like I'm going to resurrect this old thread. Here's a photo of my "shooter" (recently discussed in the New Collectors Forum):