Yup; I made my base higher.

This is [basically] a C96 Mauser rear sight, which appears much higher than the LP-08...Right now, my rear sight blade top is ~.090" higher than the top of my front sight blade...That's not right, I know, but I don't know the comparative heights of the two LP-08 sights to make mine sight similarly... :(

I will be lowering the rear sight; how much I'm not sure yet...Somewhere between .060" and .090"...

I think your ingenuity and problem solving skills will be rewarded with shots on the paper... Best of luck to you... and will be waiting for a range report.

Great article... and BTW, this forum is not only for collectors... it is for shooters, historians, and people that just appreciate great engineering... both of the Luger, and yours! :)

...But wait!...There's more!!!... :eek:

I decided to make a 2nd rear sight base, somewhat lower than the first...I knew I could gain .071" by milling off the lower sight blade lip, and get another .030" by lowering the sight leaf axis...So I made up a new base...

1st pic, from upper right clockwise...

- Milling a 3/8" trough in the 5/8" x 1/2" blank

- Milling the T-slot, using a 1/8" x 1/2" Woodruff keyseat cutter

- Milling the side reliefs for the rear sight leaf

- Cutting the front dovetail

- Cutting the rear dovetail

- Milling the bottom lip off the sight blade

- Cutting a ramp for the slide (big pic)

There were a bunch of other things done in between operations...Drilling the axle hole; chamfering edges with a 45�º cutter; cutting & chamfering the "artillery receiver notch"; shortening the leaf spring...

The 2nd pic is a comparison of the 1st rear sight base with the 2nd...It doesn't really *look* all that different...but I'm hoping the line of sight will be closer to what it should be... :o

Great Job Traxx, I mean Postino.:thumbup: have you shot it yet?
Hawkeye

Only one "x" in Trax, Hawk... ;)

No, all my 9mm is reloaded "hot" for my S&W 659 longslide...I need to get some 124gr FMJ and reload some for this & my S/42...

Postino,

Fantastic job, all the way around. One thing I noticed is that you ramped the barrel almost exactly as I would do, the maximum amount without leaving any of the thinner part of the case web unsupported, and also the correct angle...at least what I would consider correct.

Last week I was comparing my newly acquired 1937 S/42 and my 1917 DWM Artillery. I was surprised to see that, although most values appeared identical, there was a big difference between the two feed ramps. The 1917 was ramped about like you have done, but the S/42 had very little ramping. I would consider it inadequate. But still, it feeds even my lead RN bullets flawlessly, even though they are over .050" below max OAL length. Why that works so well, I have no clue.

But I still think all handgun barrels should be ramped as you have done.

PhilOhio -

I tried to get the barrel ramp angle as close to the frame ramp angle as possible. It's not as unsupported as it looks; it is almost exactly the same as my Lahti barrel/frame ramp, and much less than my .45 Colt auto. I've had good results with matching the barrel/frame ramps on those pistols, over the years, with no problems (knock on wood)...In any event, I don't plan on shooting any Luger with a full load; I'll load 10% less than whatever Speer recommends.

I just measured (as best I could) my barrel ramp vs my commercial & S/42 Lugers. Mine is ~.012" deeper than those two, it just looks deeper in the pics.

This is such a great thread. Wonderful job!

Charlie

Interesting pic, Postino. The flat on the ramp of my S/42 is only about 2/3 the width of the ramp on your S/42, and about as steep...which is noticeably steeper than on the artillery. Apparently, the people at Mauser had different ideas about how it should be done. On mine, it seems to work.

All of this made me wonder whether there was a minor, but important, change in the specs between the time DWM stopped making the guns and the time Mauser began to use the same machinery in Berlin.

Phil, there were many small changes over the years, minor design improvements, bug fixes, different base materials (steel types), subcontractors, etc.... Some more obvious than others.

Mauser first used up the parts that came from DWM before they started producing themselves, and inbetween there is some overlap (and some DWM parts stock at Mausr lasted for a long, long time).

New standards and new machines and tools also had their effect on the overall shape of individual parts.

Vlim,

Thanks for those comments. I should have expected that the production processes of the Luger would evolve, the same as with any design manufactured over some 40 years. Until recently, I had never really examined these details, although I owned a few over the last half century and have three at the moment...perhaps a few more to come.

What surprised me the other day was when I closely compared my three Lugers, built in 1917, 1930, and 1937. There were very few differences. George Luger was a brilliant man who got it mostly right the first time and was way ahead of his time, much like John Browning.