black paint on a luger?
 

My Great Grandfather had a Luger (1917 on the barrel) that has a crappy black finish on it of what appears to be paint-I can rub it off with my fingernail. Any idea what this is? He got it in the 1920's (won it in a raffle he said). I would like to remove the paint as the finish underneath appears to be decent bluing, but didn't know if this is a good idea-I can probably do that in an afternoon with my thumbnail.

I can't imagine that, that is a real production finish. I imagine that someone added the paint thinking it would keep it from rusting.

None of my relatives has or had a Luger they could give me [img]frown.gif[/img] so it is always interesting hearing that from others. Is your grandfather still around, where you could ask more questions, that sounds interesting on winning it at a raffle, my father in law's sister won a raffle for a Browning A5, which is pretty much the same type of raffle [img]wink.gif[/img] I know this is still done by groups and must have been common then?

I am not sure what the finish is, this paint stuff, but you can soak the gun in paint thinner, it will not hurt the finish at all. The gun can sit in this paint thinner for months, without the grips of course. Then I would scrub it with a special "Brillo" pad that will not mar the original finish. These cleaning pads can be gotten from Brownels or a well stocked gun shop. As always go slow and take your time.

If you look at the bottom of the barrel, I would guess that you will find markings indicating that the gun was tested to "XX tons/square inch" or words to that effect. In all probability your Luger visited Britan's shores and was proof tested and given a coat of a very durable black enamel over top the original finish. There is an "official" name for this enamel, but it escapes me for the moment. I will try to dig it up.

Found it! It is called "Suncorite".

So Ron, was this a common enamel paint put on guns from British dealers or ??

Don't know Ed. I have seen a bunch of British proofed Lugers with this coating, and a few rifles, but I do not know who did it. Perhaps tacfoley could give us an accurate history lesson.

Ron, would "very durable black enamel" rub off with finger nails as gssmith1986 stated in his first email?

I'm pretty fortunate. I may have two lugers coming as passdowns-My Dad will probably pass down the 1917 Luger (If I stay in good graces), and my uncle who has no sons will probably pass down my Grandfather's WWII Luger that he liberated while in the 101st Airborne.

Whatever is on the Luger certainly isn't what was put on the Enfields and Webleys that I've had over the years. Also was on a Canadian HP. I just went on and got some flat black manifold spray paint and evened the coating out. No way to get that stuff off.
rk

Very nice gssmith1986, check your private mail, I had a question on the lugers, [img]smile.gif[/img]

policeluger,
[quote] Ron, would "very durable black enamel" rub off with finger nails as gssmith1986 stated in his first email? <hr></blockquote>

In all probability, not. Depends on how thickly it was applied and how much surface preparation (degreasing) was accomplished before enameling. I had one such Luger that I could flake off some of the coating under the barrel where it had stacked up a bit around the serial number. But the rest of the gun required a lot of elbow grease and 0000 steel wool to clean it up. Looked pretty nice when I was finished. It was a war horse, worn a little on the high spots but overall not too bad.

Darn! I was hoping you would have some info on the painted Luger enigma. I know it was done because I have seen at least 7 or 8 Lugers with British pressure proofs that were coated with this black enamel, and that was over a period of several years. So I think it was a deliberate process, perhaps involving only a single lot of Lugers but it seems odd that one individual (me) would have the opportunity to see so many from a single lot.

Ron, I too have seen at least a dozen British proofed lugers with the baked on black enamel finish. The story that I got years ago from a Brit, was that his luger had to go thru the proof house to be legally registered to him and that for a slight additional charge, they added this finish, which probably looked good to a non-collector when new, before the enamel began to chip. Tom H.