First Post, and an Open Ended Question
 

This is indeed my first post, although I have spent some time going through the forums. And here's the open ended question: how would you recommend finding and choosing a good shooter? (Yes, I did see the FAQ.) I already own a number of guns -- some collectors and some shooters -- but I do not own any based on the Parabellum design. In the future I may go in a collecting direction, but for now I just want something I can put some rounds through. For example, how substantial is the risk that a mismatched gun is going to have reliability issues? Any other input? Thank you in advance.

David,
Keep a eye on the for sale section...I have seen a lot of nice shooter for sale there. I am putting together a parts Gun, and it is much cheaper to buy a shooter all together. When you find a shooter ask all the question you can think of, Shape of Bore, How the head spacing, Etc.
Hope this helps :cheers:

pappers1

Hi if you hit 'general information on the left of the opening screen you will find all the answers you need! Most like my self didn't even know its there~~ TKS Ted Green!! Eric

Hi David,
please check your personal mail here on the forum
thanks
Bill

David, welcome to the forum.

This isn't self promotion. In general you will find the best market for Lugers on a board like this, especially if being sold or bought by a long time member with some track record.

Pricing is generally fair here since you're not paying for a dealer's overhead and professional profit. Insist on a multi-day non-firing inspection period with right of return for full refund.

Gun shows are hit and miss. You can occasionally find good buys on righteous Lugers, but most often I've seen inferior offerings way over priced.

Try and find an all matching Mauser era Luger with finish conditions. These are great shooters.

Marc

Marc said it all. Every one of mine was purchased from a member or associated with! I wish I had relatives so nice and trusting!! PS There is never enough! Something like luger hoarding!! Eric

Easy. Tell the seller that you need test firing. If it's not working, you have to return it. For mismatched or reblued gun, seller should not object test fire it, make a video, and send it to you for evaluation, or allows you to test fire a box from it.

"3-day non-firing inspection" -- by looking at it, you won't know. For collectible firearms, the inspection focuses on correctness, finish, numbering, marking etc. None of those tells you it works or not. If it's a mismatched or reblued, you virtually inspect nothing that way.

OK so first -- thank you, everyone, for all of your responses. That is some very good information. I went over the FAQ again (more closely) and picked up even more good info there. Here are a couple additional things to throw at you.

First is that an inspection period is not that viable for me - owing to restrictive laws here in NY. I can't actually take possession of a handgun until I get an amended pistol license that lists the new gun - which is generally a minimum of a 2 week turnaround time. So . . . it is all that much more important to have a good and credible seller.

The second is that I just sort of like old things. From a collector point of view -- and again, this is supposed to be a shooter -- I generally find earlier versions and models to be more interesting. There are a lot of older DWM's available out there - what about them, versus the Mausers? And what about a .30 Luger gun - obviously locating ammo would be more of an issue, but is a .30 Luger gun less likely to have been beat up with "hot" 9mm loads?

Thanks again for the welcome and the input everyone.

A lot of people will say that the "Mauser' is newer and built better.

I don't know, I am sure that is true, but the DWM's and my Erfurt artillery shoot fine :)

Ask if they have shot it. I have sold many shooters 'as-is' simply because I bought it with something else and sold it as a 'shooter category'. Not buyer beware, but the truth :)

Anyway, as said above, ask if they have shot it - some of our guys have put a lot of effort into their 'shooters' and they are great shooters.

Buy a 9mm - much cheaper to shoot and ammo is much easier to find. Yes you can find Fioci (sp) for a decent price, but still about 2.5x the price of a box of Winchester white box....

If you are interested in pre-WWII Lugers I would suggest you buy one of those, the whole old-gun game is about what appeals to you personally. The WWII guns are reputed to be slightly stronger and use better metal, but many people successfully shoot the older guns.

The most plentiful Lugers are commercial versions built roughly 1920-1930 by DWM. Plentiful = lower price. The commercials are almost always chambered in .30 Luger. That cartridge is more expensive and best purchased via the internet, I have yet to see anyone carrying it in a retail store. There are also many older 9mm guns. I saw a fair to good condition all matching WWI Erfurt this weekend at a gun show for $900.

Sources are the two Lugar boards, reputable internet sellers like Simpsons and Legacy (there are others), gun shows and retail stores. and finally the auction sites. IMO I have listed them in order of utility to a newbie. Guns shows, retail stores and auctions are a jungle with many overpriced/ lower condition specimens, but the occasional find can be had.

Simpson deserves special mention. They are full retail in price, but have a stellar reputation and a big inventory. I view them as you pay a slight premium for selection and piece of mind that the gun that arrives will not surprise you in a bad way. They do have very good 'shooters' from time to time but the good ones go fast. They had two fine WWII era shooters at $995 and $1,200 recently; sadly I did not act fast enough and missed them. IMO they have some good DWM shooters right now.

You pose a very good question re: asking if .30 beats the gun up less. I would say that is probably correct. I believe 9mm and .30 Lugers are exactly the same action, the only difference is the barrel caliber and the chamber, so it stands to reason that a .30 gun has been stressed a little less.

My own experience is I have an all-matching shooter and a mismatched shooter. Both function well, the mis-matched one may even function a bit better (I bought it from a forum member who also works on Lugers, Tom Heller). The mis-match has an older DWM toggle, which I think is kind of neat. It functions great.

Patience and knowledge are key. Get the knowledge here and via books, and be prepared to spend a few weeks and maybe more looking. Good luck and good hunting.

First of all welcome to our forum of Luger enthusiasts.
I think you've already got plenty of information, so I'm sure you won't need my opinion, still if I were you I would buy a good shooter, preferably not too old, I mean something WWII period caliber 9mm nothing special just a gun to practice some shooting at the range and to practice taking down and assembly at home when you clean it.
Since I love shooting as well as collecting I would advice you not to use modern high speed cartrdiges in old guns.
Enjoy your Luger, but most of all shoot safe.

Sergio

If you can go 7.65mm, the best choice is DWM pistols made in 1920s. Cheap. No need to go a reblue/mismatch in this case. Original is not more expensive than Interarms. Since Luger was an important pistol in history, even non-Luger collector can get a 7.65mm DWM for its look & feel and structure study without affecting future budget much. The structure is same with other basic 9mm models, except caliber and spring strength. The only drawback is not easy to find ammo. So it cost more to do performance evaluation on 7.65mm pistol. If you reload, probably no problem. And, it's a genuine Luger.

Just a thought regarding your location and circumstances...If distance and the NY gun laws are an issue on the testing of a potential shooter that you want to buy, you could ask the seller to make a video of the actual gun being test fired for a couple of magazines and send the video to you... make sure it includes closeups of the gun showing actual serial numbers so you know what you see is what you get...

Welcome to the Lugerforum. :)

One of my friend wants to send his daughter to a high school which is very strong on dancing. The school has a lot of applicants so they are very picky, "want to evaluate she has potential or not". Tens of thousands miles away, how to evaluate? Nowadays, the popular way is asking applicant to upload a short dancing video to youtube.com, then email school the link. If school feels good, they will ask applicant coming over for an interview. Otherwise, parent and kid save tickets.

That's a hint.

Thanks for the additional input -- I am impressed with the depth of knowledge available here. I am continuing to think about what to do . . .

I pulled the trigger
 

I've been watching the ads for a while . . . A local shop posted one for sale, so I went down and checked it out. It was an Erfurt that was mostly matching, except for the slide and barrel (which were replaced with a matched set with a "G" barrel code). The barrel had a curious threading arrangement, but the price was otherwise good, so I figure I can work that out in the future. Everything looked good and operated well, and the finish on the frame looked original (although the barrel/slide look like they have been buffed) so I dropped the cash. I'll post pictures in a couple weeks when I can actually pick it up.

Congrats on your first luger. Emphasis on first :-) they are addictive. It's the thrill of the hunt

You never forget your First!!!

Please post pics of that. Luger barrel threads devour quite a bit of my free time... :)

Here you go . . .

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...pswta23toq.jpg

Unfortunately this is the best picture I have for now - but there is also a protrusion on the top of the barrel at the back of the threaded section that has what appears to be an index mark on its center. You can see the edge of this protrusion in this picture, but nothing more. The more I think about it, the more I am interested to learn the origin of this interesting machining. Whoever did it, it took some time and attention to detail.