Those Mysterious Forty-fives
 

Still consider myself a new-comer to the Luger fraternity, am fascinated by the .45s and would like to ask a few questions of the experts:

1. Is the current thinking / research that the Aberman gun provenance is genuine? As a beginning student, I think it is highly suspect. I know it is not now believed to be the elusive number 2 trials pistol - first and foremost due to the fact that it is not the correct caliber, and second that there is a host of physical differences between it and the archive photo of the number one gun.

Most authors report a provenance of the Aberman gun back to the Springfield Armory from whom it was supposedly purchased in 1913. But, why would the Springfield Armory have this gun in the first place? The Aberman gun was either manufactured for the .45 ACP, or re-barreled for the cartridge after the trials were over and forgotten. It seems logical to me that if there was a second trials pistol, a dejected and defeated Luger would have simply stuffed it in his bag after the trials and returned to Germany, thus ending any involvement of the US Armory in the .45 Luger.

2. Is there any documented provenance of the second, believed-to-be-genuine .45, the so-called "Norton" gun? It seems logical that if the DWM Tool Room made a handful of .45s, that a survivor or two could migrate to the US, but I would like to know how far back the documented history of this gun goes? When and why did it get to Canada?

3. Do modern researchers believe there are any others out there, hidden by elusive collectors?

To me, these two .45s certainly remain some of the most mysterious guns ever. I wonder if in Luger's wildest imagination, he could have thought that the .45s would evoke such fascination by students 100 years after the fact.

In Central Powers it is discussed at length, and on Jan's forum, there was a huge discussion before the book came out.

Not sure where you felt that the 45 was rebarreled and chambered to 45 / this can easily happen from 7.65mm to 9mm but the 45 requires a bigger gun.

The pictured 45 has a different grip angle than the two surviving 45's.

You can see the Norton at the Shreveport, LA museum. The Aberman I can't remember who has it now, a private collector, but not sure where it went after it was sold and then not sold.

I personally have always believed that if they were making up guns to be used at trial, that 3-5 would have been made; seems logical that 3 would be here in the USA and 1 or 2 left in Germany.

There is much speculation that others exist, but these are generally just wild rumours or modified 9mms.

Ed

Ed, you just scratch the surface. One has to mention the two different grip angles on the original prototype and later to be production gun that never materialized. A good resource to read is the last series of Charles Kenyon's Lugers at Random column in the now defunct Gun Report. Also, required reading on this subject should be pages 457-467 of the Pistole Parabellum by Gortz and Sturgess (the first edition). I think that most of Steve D.'s questions would be answered by these references. Also, the Aberman .45 luger rests in deep seclusion in the safe of a brewery magnate in Southern California after its acquisition at a recent Greg Martin auction.

yes, others are welcome to give their opinion,,,

I commented on the different angles of the grips?

My knowledge on .45 Luger is limited to the first 3 posts of this topic. Following is wild thinking .

Different angles of the grips could be valid: for test gun, German most likely built and submitted a few samples with minor difference in configuration.... "Each one has plus and minus, and you pick up the one that fits you" type of theory. On GMA catalog, the gun is in super condition and does not look like that it went through a very tough testing process. That could be valid as well.... like a team player in Olympics Games does not have to compete in the actual game as a backup member, he/she could still win a medal by sitting there when the team wins. Even the team loses, he/she still officially joined the Game of year xxxx, as a member of a team. Nothing wrong with that. GMA Luger might be in the similar situation.

The "Aberman" gun in its present condition could not have been associated with the 1907 trials. It is chambered for the .45 ACP round, while the trials pistol was chambered for the .45 M1906 round (1mm longer than the .45 ACP). Additionally, the Aberman gun does not have the "stepped chamber" - patented by Luger - of the Number 1 trials gun. If it was indeed a supplied trials gun, it must have been re-barreled at some later date.
Gortz and Sturgess report that the magazine for the Aberman gun fits the slightly longer M1906 round which lends credence that maybe it was a trials pistol later re-barreled for the standardized M1911 round, possibly so that it could be fired as a serviceable pistol.
The "Norton" gun exhibits commercial German post-1912 proofs. It was probably re-barreled for the .45 ACP and then sold commercially as factory odds and ends. (Gortz and Sturgess report the discovery of several non-proofed .45 barrels after WWII). The Aberman gun is not proofed, which leads me to believe that it may have been re-barreled (or possibly simply re-chambered?) in the US after it was sold by the Springfield Armory in 1913 according to its provenance.
It might be interesting to conduct a microscopic examination of the fudicial mark on the barrel/receiver of this pistol to see if their is any indication that the barrel has ever been removed.

Steve,

"first and foremost due to the fact that it is not the correct caliber"

Can you point me in the direction for documentation of this statement? Must say its the 1st time I have heard this.

Regards,
Mike

Mike - I referenced Gortz and Sturgess, Vol. 1, pp 457 - 467. Quoting from P. 461, "If either or both of the surviving examples of the Model 1907 Parabellum had been used for the US trials or as development models, both must have been re-barreled, since they both now have chambers, without the Kropfungsliderung step, cut for the US standard 1911 (.45 ACP) cartridge and not the 1906 cartridge used in the trials, which is 1mm longer."

That said, Stills (Central Powers Pistols) lists the caliber of the known (only from a photograph) trials gun as .45 ACP (Table 1h, page 7). Wikipedia also says that the 1907 trials utilized the new Browning-designed .45 ACP and makes no mention of an earlier, longer .45 M1906 round.

Keep in mind I consider myself a beginner. I deferred to Gortz and Sturgess as the final authority as to what round the 1907 US trials actually utilized, but there may be some controversy there. They do show a photograph (page 460) of several Parabellum barrels discovered following WWII, at least one of which is chambered for the longer .45 M1906 cartridge. Maybe more research needs to be done on origin and use of that round.

As a side note to picking and choosing researchers - imagine my dejection when Gortz and Sturgess said in the same three volume set that Mauser NEVER used brown grips, as I have a beautiful 1940 42 code Mauser with brown Kreighoff grips! But then Hallock and Van de Kant (The Mauser Parabellum) come along and report brown grips in my same serial number range! So I guess I'll go with the latter researcher on that one!

Steve, if the guns are of this other round, couldn't a person shoot 45 acp through these guns, but the other cartridge you state could not be shot out of a 1911?

Edward - I'm not a gunsmith, but I would guess, no. It's not like shooting .22 shorts in a Long Rifle chamber. The .22 is a rim fire which headspaces on the rim, while the .45 is a rimless cartridge which headspaces on the entire case. A shorter cartridge (.45 ACP) would enter the firing chamber of the .45 M1906 too far as the headspace would be too long and would probably not allow the extractor to to grab on to the rim to pull it out as the gun recoils.

Interesting...I pulled out POTW and looked up developement of the 45 caliber auto - This is a quote -

Model 1905 .45 Automatic

"...The 45 rimless round, which was developed for the new pistol, turned out to be less powerful than was really needed, and this was to lead to the .45ACP cartridge, though this round was still some years off when the 'Model 1905' appeared..."

I looked through HMOCC and could not find any reference to the .45 rimless round...But this reference in POTW does lend credence to an earlier .45 rimless cartridge...

Here's an Internet site with a 'history' of the .45 Auto Cartridge -

http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/histor...ge_History.htm

One interesting comment in one of the .45 cartridge sites was that the .45 ACP round was developed from a cut-down 30-03 case (not 30-06)...I had never heard of that round...(But I've read about it now)...

Interestingly [to me], I made 44 Automag cartridges out of commercial 30-06/.308 Remington brass back in the 80's or so; cut to length and seating the 44 bullet...I would hazard a WAG that the M1906 .45 cartridge was made the same way (either from a 30-03 case or the then-new 30-06)...(It is also possible to make a .45 ACP cartridge by cutting down a 30-06/.308 case the same way)...

In this thread, Mike Irwin states -

The .30-06 cartridge was created by shortening the neck of the .30-03 by .07". No other changes were made to the brass itself.

It seems the 30-03 [cartridge & chambering] was only used in military rifles in those three years [1903 - 1906], when the 30-03 chambered rifles were recalled and the barrels were shortened (at the breech) and the chambers re-cut...for the 30-06...

Fascinating stuff... ;)

Steve D, I would bet that the brown KH grips on Mauser or DWM lugers, were field armour's replacements. Long ago, I picked up a GI bring back WW1 DWM with the brown plastic KH grips. Most likely installed from a LW spare parts kit. Tom

Steve, do you have the reference for the M1906 .45 round that gives dimensions and/or where it came from/what it was developed from??? Inquiring minds [mine!] would like to know... :D

I posted an S/42 with HK grips some time ago and George Andreson as well as Jan Still confirmed that they were a legitimate Mauser variation, as the grips appear in only a very narrow serial range.

Postino - The web site you posted, http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/histor...ge_History.htm has a table comparing the dimensions of the various precursors to the .45 ACP. Excellent write up on the history of the .45 round. It shows once and for all that the 1907 field trials in which the .45 Luger competed did not utilize the .45 ACP round. If the Aberman .45 Luger can be proven to have been sold by the Springfield Armory in 1913 and was indeed a pistol brought to the trial by Luger, it must have been re-barreled either before or after it was sold and four to five years after the trials were complete.

Lugerdoc - Alas, and - sigh - you may be right on the brown grips. Although my 42 Code falls in the correct serial number range where approx. 3% of the production pistols reportedly received brown grips, the toggle pin is nu-numbered and although the barrel shows the correct serial number and gauge mark, a close look at the index mark indicates that it may be a replacement. Interestingly, a very close examination of the front sight fudicial mark shows that the blade has been moved ever so slightly. I doubt that anyone other than the Mauser factory or a field armorer would have sighted in the weapon that precisely, so maybe the gun is a legitimate war-time field or factory repair. On the other hand, maybe just a hodgepodge of parts.

Would a field-replaced barrel at an armory level have been marked with the pistol SN and gauge marks?

Pardon my ignorance, Steve, but what is a fudicial mark? Are you perhaps talking about a fiducial mark? I should tell you that neither term is commonly used in reference to firearms. Regards, Norm

Yes it does, and the dimensions don't match your statement -

1mm longer than the .45 ACP would be .938" (using .898" as case length for the .45 ACP) which is not the same as the .918" shown in the table...

...Which is why I asked...I don't believe everything I read on the Internet (much less in Wikipedia) unless I see it multiple times and it is discussed in length...

Which is not to imply that I don't believe what you've written...I'd just like to see/know where you got it from... :D

(For instance, you may have read it in COTW - a book which I don't have...and I would believe that over the Internet site "45 Auto Cartridge History"...)

I sure don't agree with this statement; it may be convincing but I don't think many folks have held the .45's in their hands, let alone done measurements (except Mike Krause who made / makes 45 Lugers that were measured from the Aberman). I just don't think things are so B&W, but I will pull out my books and re-read those sections plus Meadows.

And from wikipedia :D 1mm is very small, 1.0 mm — 0.03937 inches or 5/127

And the brown grips were interspersed throughout the ranges, if armorer replacement, they could have been put on whatever was in service at the time, that means a WW1 gun could have them on it, and technically be correct, you would just never know unless a bring-back from someone you knew.

Norm - My spelling error. Gortz and Sturgess in their three volume reference work refer to the mark struck across the underside of the assembled barrel and receiver as a "fiducial mark". Maybe "index mark" is a more commonly used term?


Postino - Checking the chart, you are right. The M1906 case is 0.56 mm longer than the .45 ACP case. I was, again quoting Gortz and Sturgess (Vol. 3, p. 459) who reported the difference as 1 mm.

It just seems very odd that DWM or anyone else would rebarrel 2 or 3 or 4 pistols for the .45acp round...machining a couple new barrels for sample pistols just to recompense a few dollars, at a time when DWM had many other irons in the fire?

And for what it's worth, I'd bet a Luger that indeed had a 1906 chamber would fire standard .45ACP ammo fine..... the diference would only be about .022, and I've got many times fired .45 cases that vary as much as .012 from each other

Or, to put it in real world values, about 10 sheets of lined notebook paper... :D

That is still enough to prevent a M1906 cartridge from chambering in a .45 ACP chamber; or to prevent a .45 ACP round from being reliably fired from an M1906 chamber...(One doesn't go in far enough, the other goes too far in)...

Purely hypothetical, unless you have a time machine...<looks at door to see if Postino has returned from the future>...

The cartridge reason is so strong.

1m/m difference in head space is big difference. From Steve's post, "Additionally, the Aberman gun does not have the "stepped chamber" - patented by Luger - of the Number 1 trials gun". Sounds like the head space on Aberman being a variable (or, no strict head space), could that explain it might be able to fit 1m/m longer cartridge?

Greetings from a newbe Lugermann. Regarding the 45ACP US Army trials Luger, a friend and I had a discussion the other day over the possible auction price on such a rare pistol. I realize this may be a tough question, but curious as to what the experts on this site may peg as a reasonable (?!) price for such a rare bird, say in 90% condition.

My friend, who is no stranger to collectable firearms would fix the winning bid at around $100,000. My opinion is that some very wealthy collector would pay between $500,000 and 1 Milllion dollars for one of these historic pistols. Which of us is closer to the truth? Thanks in advance for your replies. Cheers.

He'd be out of luck.

Do a Search here and at Still's forum for "The Million Dollar Luger".

I seem to remember that the last time that the 45 Luger was on the market it went for somewhere between 7-8 hundred K. Less than the last time it was sold.

That is my recollection as well.

It would be very practical to fire a .45 ACP cartridge in a barrel chambered for the 1906 .45 cartridge. Consider the Astra 400, chambered in 9mm Largo. It is claimed that a cartridge as short as a 9mm Parabellum can be shot in this pistol, and and I have done so. The pistol functioned reliably, although the empty casings were extremely dirty from the powder blowing back into the chamber from the excessive headspace. The headspace difference between the 9mm Largo and the 9mm Parabellum is orders of magnitude more than the difference between the .45 ACP and the 1906 .45.

--Dwight

Luger barrel replacement was not a field-level repair, as the replacement would need top be to be re-proofed. The replacement would assuredly have been serial-numbered.

--Dwight

:bigbye:On the issue of firing the .45 ACP in the longer chamber:

With some years of gunsmithing to include re-barrelling and re-chambering well behind me (by a couple of decades)... IMHO, while it may be true that the firing of such a combination may not be "reliable"... it would certainly be safely possible, and the taper of the .45 ACP case dimensions, would also lend itself to providing an "alternative" headspace surface that would likely hold the case sufficiently for the extractor to slip into the extraction groove... There would be plenty of headspace friction between the cartridge case and the chamber, and the holding power of the extractor should not be overlooked.

I would personally have no problem attempting to fire the .45 ACP round in the longer chamber.

Somebody send me their .45 Test Luger from the trials, and I will be happy to make a video of me shooting several boxes of modern .45 ACP ball ammo through it and post it here. I would even pay the return postage to send it back to the generous collector who would take me up on this offer! :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :cheers:

Also IMHO, My friend Dwight Gruber's analogy to the Astra 400 mentioned previously is quite valid... shooting shorter cartridges in a longer chamber may not be recommended practice, but it also isn't much of a problem. While the revolver cartridges are headspaced on the rim, Shooting .38 special in a .357 magnum chamber, and .44 special in a .44 Magnum chamber is done all the time.

Dwight, John, this can't be true, I already said that it was possible and probable and several folks told me no way...

Look, if I can and have shot my S&W 25-2 (45 acp) without moon clips, then you can shoot 45 acp in a Test Luger.....

Ed, What "can't be true?"

I have to stand by my assessment... unless the ammunition is undersized, I can't see how it couldn't work.

As far as shooting your S&W 25-2 without half-moon clips... Sure you can... look in the chambers and you will see that the case headspaces on the shoulder in the chamber... the half moon clip is so the extractor can eject the empties...without the half moons (or even moons... I have seen full moon clips for that gun and the 1917's) there is no way for a revolver to grab the cases for ejection.

The "clips" (properly named... as they are not "magazines") have nothing to do with headspace on your revolver.


Postino! We don't need no stinkin time machine! To quote the late great Elmer Keith, "HECK, I was THERE!) :D

Would somebody who has the information please be so kind as to post dimensioned drawings of the two cartridge cases so everyone can see the differences?

Thanks for your replies on the 45ACP Luger. I will pass this along. Cheers.

I couldn't find a drawing for the 1906 Colt 45 Auto [precursor to the 45 ACP] but I did find the dimensions in COTW, IIRC...I think I posted them to the other thread; I'll see if I can find the reference again...

Someone else here seemed familiar with the 1906 Colt 45 Auto cartridge; perhaps they have a really old book with a dimensioned drawing...

John,

Ed was being facecious. The way I read his post, Ed totally agrees with you.

heh heh

John -

Here's the chart referenced to in the previous page...The M1906 is dimensionally different from the final M1911 cartridge...

Ed is pretty good at that "facecious" stuff! :D

Postino, I agree that according to the chart the case length is different, as is the size of the extraction groove... but what about overall diameter of the case at the case head, and the mouth? angle of the case taper? What is the standard bullet diameter? .452" ?

If an SAAMI specification .45 ACP loaded round is inserted into a 1906 specification dimensioned chamber will it drop into the chamber with excessive headspace from the base to the breechface?

or will it likely stop based on case taper close enough for the breech to allow the extractor to work? and close enough for the firing pin to enable cartridge ignition?

IMO if the firing pin is long enough to reach the cartridge wherever it is, it will fire...Recoil will fit it to the breech face & extractor...(Yes, I'm contradicting my earlier comment)...

My Colt 38 Super has something like .036" headspace, but the firing pin is long enough [protrudes through the breech face] to reach & fire the cartridges...With no noticeable ill effect or excessive recoil...

and ya'll thought me nuts when I asked about the 400 ;) Thanks for the confirmation Dwight and John!

Isn't the .38 Super considered Semi-Rimmed, and actually headspaces on the "rim"? At least that is what I THINK I remember... and .38 ACP was "rimless" like most of the auto pistol cartridges, as I recall...