Newbie With First Luger:
 

Hello. First post, first Luger.


I just bought this:

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vie...Item=492625595

sort of on impulse but I've always wanted a Luger and I liked the oddity of this one and got it at $950.

From my own quick research (I know zip about Lugers) and feedback from some Luger-guys on another forum (non-Luger) I guess this is a "Blank Toggle". Also a P08. I was told it was or became a police gun. There are some indications on the gun it may be a Simson and was a DWM or is a DWM and Simson had nothing to do with it. It's serial is
4685 u

The seller knows little about this gun. Think it's a store.

Anything you can tell me about this I'd greatly appreciate. (Also what your opinion is on price I paid).

Thanks!

Nice buy- I missed that one! Good buy, I would have bid on it- probably more.:)

You are correct, 1929 DWM P 08 with blank toggle and chamber; has police sear safety added, so yes it say police service.

Any markings on the grip straps?

Receiver markings are as "weak" as I have seen, and these "u" suffix pistols suffer badly from these indistinct inspection/proof markings on the right of the receiver.

Enjoy your pistol and welcome to the forum.:thumbsup:

"The serial number is 4685 and it is on the frame and the barrel and in both places, there is a cursive "u" under the serial number".

I don't think I've ever seen a pic of a barrel serial having the suffix...and no land dimension... :confused:

Toggle axle pin has an odd wear pattern...

Good buy! :)

Jerry

Quite a nice Luger, pity for those indistinct inspection/proof markings on the right of the receiver.

These guns made by BKIW (DWM) if I'm not wrong were manufactured in 1927-28 years for a contract with the Riff Tribe in Morocco, but apparently this contract could not be honoured because of political considerations, and those guns with a blank toggle were probably delivered to the police.
Apparently they don't know for sure the exact number of pistols that were produced for the Riff tribe contract.

My 2 cents.

All the best


Sergio

Thanks so much!

From the photos I can't tell about grip straps.

These are the two marks, faint one is receiver, heightened in photo-eiditor. The faint one looks like a Simson mark but someone on that other thread said Simsons didn't have serial numbers going up that high ("4685 u").

[IMG][URL=http://s836.photobucket.com/user/gvff/media/CloseUp_zps0sdwppqv.jpg.html]http://i836.photobucket.com/albums/z...ps0sdwppqv.jpg


Simson Marks

[IMG]http://i836.photobucket.com/albums/z...ps2iz4kmc0.jpg

Thanks!

I wasn't kidding when I said I was a Luger Newbie: what do you mean about "no land dimension": ("I don't think I've ever seen a pic of a barrel serial having the suffix...and no land dimension... ") ?

Now THAT'S what I call specific information! Why did they have blank-toggles? Something to do with the "Riff Tribe"?

I though a lot of this "disappearing names" and Simsons had to do with Nazis when first in power trying to hide arms from the Allies in WWI because of the Peace Agreement which put stringent limits on Germany's arms

Boy, you could sell these guns just with the historical stories!
Fascinating - thanks so much for the Riff Tribe info...

It's the bore diameter measured from land to land, in millimeters...and with a comma, not a period...8,82 seems to be the usual...

If i can't find a pic quick, I'll take a pic of mine...

It is not a Simson receiver, but one made by DWM later BKIW and perhaps assembled by the , the "u" suffix is well known on police lugers in this range.

The faint, indistinct eagle is the same as the one on the barrel, and similar but different to the Simson eagle.

May have been made in 1927-29 and are referred to now as
1929 DWM formerly called "sneak" luger.
I have 3934u and 4506u, both with police sear safetys. Both have the "crappy" inspector markings on the right chamber!

land dimensions are numbers, like 8.82 stamped on the bottom of the barrel after proof firing and guaging the land diameter.

Thanks! And that's usually near the serial stamp?

Thanks also! Do you mean DWM and it became BKIW? Also what does "perhaps assembles by the" mean? Assembled by BKIW?

Thanks again! That's one of the reasons I bought this gun: seems a mystery exactly what its past was. Love it....

DWM became BKIW. This would be one of the last guns assembled at the DWM factory in Berlin before they transferred the manufacturing to Mauser in Oberndorf starting in 1930.

Jerry

Sorry but today I didn't manage to answer any earlier.
If I'm not wrong according one of my "Luger Bibles J C Still WEIMAR AND EARLY NAZI LUGERS, those guns were called BKIW-MAUSER TRANSITIONAL DWM LUGERS (Abbreviated 29DWM although many of the Lugers we call 29 DWM were manufactured long before 1929) most were made by BKIW and involved also surplus parts. Lugers in the s, t and u suffix serial range have characteristics and markings that distinguish them from earlier BKIW (DWM) production.
The majority of guns reported in the t and u suffix have an unmarked toggle, and have long been termed 1933 MAUSER Sneak, but in real terms these are "transitional" between the last of BIKW production and early MAUSER production. The blank toggles are almost exclusively found on Lugers in the t block and lower half of the u block and this suggests us that perhaps about 15,000 of them were produced.
Probably the so called Riff Contract pistol production started in the late s suffix serial number range which would suggest that at least some of this range was manufactured as early as 1927, but apparently we still don't know for sure how many of them were actually manufactured. Since these were not delivered, they may have stayed in BKIW's unsold inventory until 1929 and appears that additional blank-toggle Lugers were manufactured to fullfill Prussian police orders for pistols for the Landjägerei, Schupo and Police Schools, perhaps for uniformity to match those from the Riff Contract.

Sergio

Thanks again so much for this wealth of highly specific info.
So is it certain exactly why the "T" and "U" Lugers were Blanks?

From this statement of yours: "[It] appears that additional blank-toggle Lugers were manufactured to fullfill Prussian police orders.." that there was intentionality in "Blankness", i.e. Sneaks to avoid WWI Allies knowledge. That wasn't the ultimate purpose, the purpose was to make guns for the police, to sell to others (Riff Contract for example) or whatever. But they were made as anonymous, they was their "style".


The other more prosaic explanation I've heard is the Blanks were those guns randomly thrown together from unmarked parts. But that doesn't really explain why they were Blank. Colt 1911s were said to have been thrown together from a pile of parts and then used for soldiers in training camps. But they still were stamped COLT.

So, is it certain Blanks were made to be Sneaks?

Thanks.

Jerry
"gvf"

Sorry about all these questions, but do any of you know where I could find the S/N for my Luger, what list. I've Googled it but no luck.

As was seen in the photos the serial is "4685 u"

The "u" is in script.

There is nothing but that number/letter. (The "u" is under the number)

Thanks!

I'm not sure I follow your question, you have the serial number,
it is on the frame, as you say it is 4685/u.:confused:

D. Gruber has made a list of observed commercial numbers,
yours is not on it, but will likely make the next list.

The P 08s to either side are police sear pistols, issued to various
Landjaeri units when they were being armed with the P 08, as has been noted and mentioned in one of the posts above.

Does yours have any markings on the grip straps?

How about more pictures when you git it?

Sure I'll post more pix, especially that signature of Eva Braun.

Joke of course. I've never heard Eva was a shooter. Too bad, she could have taken her boyfriend out early on.

What I meant about S/N was how whatever the record of it described the gun. Just curious...

Jerry et al, I've alway believed that the BKIW (post DWM) M29 blank Po8 toggles had the DWM markings intentionally wiped off, to avoid any liabitity to former DWM owners. TH

In the Mauser Parabellum (and our book), there is very strong evidence that these were made for the Riff contract, but it did not work out.

After this I wouldn't see much else to add.


Sergio

By the time the "Riff contract" blank toggle Lugers were ready to ship, the Riff tribes had been defeated and their revolution was over. There was no one to accept (or presumably pay for!) the guns.

--Dwight

Uh Oh
 

I just saw something on a pix of my about-to-be-delivered Luger that made my stomach muscles tighten. The photo of the barrel end shows it chipped, or worn asymmetrically:


[IMG]http://i836.photobucket.com/albums/z...psxpkodshk.jpg[/IMG]

And the one thing I neglected to ask the Seller about, of course, was the rifling in the bore. Since I've never owned or examined a gun with this kind of fault in the barrel-end I don't know what it means as to the bores internal condition. On a hunch I'd think they were not necessarily connected.

And If it meant nothing to the internals I wouldn't care. I don't often look at my gun from the barrel end.
WHadya think?

Thanks

It is the lands and grooves of the rifling you see. Nothing wrong.

Thanks so much. I'd like to buy your book. Where can I purchase it?

Thanks again,

Jerry
("gvf")

An Oddity:
 

After you look at some meaningless visual pattern for awhile you can think you're seeing something intentional. Perhaps this is what's going on here but it does look to me when you blow-up the photo of the left side of the gun and photo-edit it there is writing:

http://i836.photobucket.com/albums/z...pszvknmdui.jpg

In the square of color, looks like "NE" with a column of other smaller letters the the left of that:

O
A
O
etc.

On the other hand, it's getting late.

Ed states -

Edward Tinker
************
Veteran Bring Backs Vol III 2012
Co-Author of Police Lugers 2012
Author of Veteran Bring Backs Vol I & Vet Bring Backs Vol II, a collection of stories on guns & equipment brought back by GI's.
Co-Author of the book Simson Lugers
Have all books available for purchase

...And it's Ed Tinker AND Dwight Gruber's book... :)

You could write a review of it...I Searched but couldn't find one... :(

If "you have all books available for purchase" just pm me with details of payment etc.

thanks
jerry "gvf"

The muzzle of rust blued Lugers is generally in the white. As mentioned, you've been looking at the end of the lands and grooves in the barrel. That said, the profile of the barrel crown looks unusual, and it may have been re-crowned at some point.

You should wait until you have the gun in hand and can take some good sharp closeup pictures before you speculate more. Take them using a camera with a closeup / macro setting and take the pictures in shaded natural sunlight without using a flash. Use a tripod and the self timer to keep the camera steady. If you have a SLR, you can take even better pictures.

Marc

That's Ed Tinker's quote, not mine...It's his signature...Included with his every post...You can contact him at ed_tinker@hotmail.com ...Don't bother trying to PM him as the Private Message system here is broken... :rolleyes:

Thanks I will take photos and as per your suggestions. May take a bit of time though. I just bought a new digital camera (I usually use film) and I haven't learned it yet. As you know, digital cameras have manuals the size of the Manhattan Yellow Pages.

Extract from Walters' "The Luger Book"...

That's great info about the Riff Contract. But it isn't known which BKIWs were going to be shipped. That right? And second some here believe the gun I bought is one of them?

You guys know so much about Lugers it's amazing!

My gun is in, was delivered Monday to my FFL. Fast shipping.

I came up with a couple of different "manuals", although the first does not deal in field-stripping. For that I've bookmarked a video on YouTube that's good.

Any other manuals you know of that are particularly good for the P08. That's what I used, a search for type of gun. I imagine there are more available than for one manufacture. Besides, it is not known with absolute certainty who the manufacturer was for mine. Seems either a BKIW or Mauser.

There's considerable evidence that the blank toggle pistols were delivered to the police from BKIW in 1929-30.

And some of then could have before that been earmarked for the Riff
Contract, and when that fell through have gone to the police?

I'm trying to weave the various strands of the likely history of my Luger into one. Might not be possible though - a long time ago.

I saw my gun today but in NY State permits are not a general carte blanche to Carry/Shoot any gun but only those guns one owns which are put on the Permit. So I saw and handled it at my FFL dealer's and tomorrow (Thurs.) will complete the paperwork at the Permit Office and then I take possession of the gun.

I'll post more when I have it and a bit after that post photos. It is darker blue than the Seller's photos, the mag is steel colored and I see no number, the parts shown in the Seller's photos were all stamped "85".

The gun looks very good, high degree of finish left etc and it does cycle properly.

Can you dry fire these?

More later.

Jerry

I usually go to the range at least once or twice a week (not with Lugers though), if we were talking about dry firing a GLOCK I would say don't worry too much, but we are talking about a vintage Luger.
Modern metallurgy has enabled engineers to produce stronger steel, but especially vintage guns like yours were not really designed for dry firing, so why should you take any risk?
Snap caps allow you to fire nearly any weapon without risk of damage to your firing pin, or any other part of the firearm, so get yourself a set of snap caps, they are cheap and will help you to preserve an old gun that surely is not that cheap.
My 2 cents.

Regards


Sergio

Dry firing a Luger once in a while may be okay, but certainly not a steady diet of dry-firing. That is NOT recommended.

Snap Caps as Sergio has recommended is the way to go... if you don't have any, you can use a fired empty case to soften the impact of the firing pin...

If, like me, you don't want to alarm anyone at your local gunshop, just stick & hold a long/new pencil w/eraser into the barrel until the eraser hits the breech, then dry fire it into the eraser. You'll feel it hit. :)

(Sometimes I shoot the pencil into the air...) :D

Doesn't work with 7.65 Lugers. :rolleyes:

Correct. It is generally believed that all or nearly all went to the police.