Mitchell Arms SS
 

I recently got a Mitchell Arms SS luger NIB with some feeding and ejecting problems.

Does anybody have a way to get in contact with Mr. Romo of the Orimar Firearms Manufacturing company so I could possibly get a gun repaired? Thanks!

Does the contact listing on the Links and Resources page still work?


http://www.lugerforum.com/lugerlink.html

It works, he doesn't........

try sending him a fax at the same phone number... he has historically been more responsive to fax than he has been to email. Let us know how you make out with that.

I managed to get a hold of him on the phone. He asked for me to call back in 2-3 weeks to discuss shipping details. Says he had a mishap getting his manufacturing license renewed. He also said he might not be able to fix the gun. :banghead:

That'a him, it's always call back in a few weeks......

The stainless steel is soft. I had three, and none of them would feed or eject properly. I have read of a few owners who have working Aimco Lugers, but for the most part, they are problematic.

They are pretty much junk. Sell it as a paperweight.

On mine "years ago" I found the chamber was too tight. After using a finishing reamer the gun shot reliability.

You might try just polishing the chamber.

Every gun is different, I think they simply fell victim to not enough attention to detail, and with stainless that can cause issues.

Those are some pretty guns however!


Vern

I must have gotten lucky.

I have a few hundred rounds through mine with zero issues.

Ditto, Mines a little later - a stoeger it shoots fine. My only issue is it's a little fat for my hand.

Richard,
I might suggest that you look at the ramps that unlock the toggle as it moves back.....after a few 100 rounds the soft stainless steel starts to flatten out like a chisel mushrooms after repeated strikes of a hammer.
In the past I have had to file this area on some guns in order to keep the toggle from jamming.

Jim

Both of mine have worked fine after experimenting with different ammo brands. One is 9mm and the other is .30cal. The 9mm had to go back for an ejection problem but has been reliable since then.

The 9mm guns were tested with S&B ammo so try that. Some of the other brands do cause me some problems but that brand works reliably.

Steve

Here is the one I bought.

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/3931/00000000127.jpg

Mitchell Arms American Eagle 9mm #62XX

I've pretty much fed it WWB 115 gr. FMJ exclusively with zero issues. I bought it to have a shooter, I didn't want to devalue and original and even if an original no longer has significant collector value it can serve as a source of original parts which makes it valuable for that reason.

My thinking was the a SS version should be extremely strong, this was based on my logic that "Hey my Ruger .44 Mag is SS so this will be rock solid. I was later surprised to learn they had a reputation for being kinda weak. Probably still would have bought it given my original primary reason. Even my late 70s Mauser Luger now has collector value and is simply too pretty to subject to a lot of wear.

The SS is also nice because unlike all my other Lugers I don't have to constantly guard against rust and there is no exceptional blue to accidentally damage. And of course the SS Luger simply looks so nice aesthetically.

It's not a home defense or carry gun so I have no fears of it failing me when I need it the most. It's not in my primary rotation so I won't need it to sustain 50k rounds down the barrel. It is basically a fun range toy, and as I am apparently lucky enough to have one that doesn't require constant tweaking to function reliably it has served that role very well.

I find the melted lousy buffing and wavy surfaces of the Aimco Lugers way less attractive, even if they are shiny, to the pricise plano-flat surfaces and precision machining of German work. For example, the sideplate on the Luger shown above. My suggestion for anyone who wants a good silver-colored Luger is to take a nice condition shooter with poor finish but good surface qualities, and have it NP3 coated by Robar Industries, at about 300 dollars or so.

I have the same SS Luger American Eagle made in 1993 I also had problems with feeding after the original Magazine had a broken plastic follower.
I tried several magazines and found that the magazine from my 1970,s Mauser Luger (Stiff Spring) jammed and my 2 cheep SS mag. single actioned The single action problem was fixed on the SS mags by changing the springs to a Wolf +10% SQR spring. At least in my case I think that the balance of the mag spring is important, too stiff and it jams too weak and it single actions. I still have a problem on the last shot, sometimes the action does not stay open (what can I do about this) and I have some worries about deforming of the Horns (see picture) Will this eventually fail? I am also concerned about ware of SS to SS as you can see on the rear toggle pin and fork (see picture) Is there a special lubricant to use on SS to prevent this ware?
I am happy with the Gun and it shoots well now.

German replacement parts are way easier to find than Aimco spares. Many Aimco parts are not interchangeable with, and some not even present in, the German originals.

NP3 coating on old German hard steel wears better than soft stainless steel, and will look better because of the planar German surfaces. Even on shooter guns, or well-restored ones, fine rust-blueing with strawed parts is just stunning.

There are special lubricants that are recommended for stainless steel to minimize galling.

Yugo cars, Chevy Vega, AMC, etc. are very rare now, and nice ones are or may be worth alot of money. Not to be confused with a Mercedes SSK.

IMHO, range visitors as well as gun people are just as impressed by a German Luger, a gun that is maybe 100 years old and still more accurate than their new Wondernine, as they are by a modern copy that is average in quality, regardless of its shiny finish.

I actually owned three of the Stoger Aimco Lugers, and all three had problems, never did get a satisfying result shooting them. The workmanship was poor, below Taurus quality,
and I got over the shiny real soon.

All the effort and time I spent, plus the frustration and near loss of money reselling them, (shipping about 50x3= $150.00, has earned me the right to make these comments as often as I need.

For sure, both my FrankenLuger parts guns were good functioning and accurate guns. I have a DWM frame, Erfurt barrel/extension/toggle hybrid that works fiine, very accurate.

I find that all six of my Lugers work with 80% of the mags I have, and the combinations that do not function reliably are not the same gun to gun. In other words, the unhappy combinations of mag and gun are more the exception than the rule.

Stoeger made some of their stainless Luger copies in a BLACK finished stainless steel.

Of course I would not use a Luger as my carry gun, or primary self-defense weapon. Even in 1908, the U.S. Army knew better. The German military was unhappy with the Luger in 1938 and probably before. and not just for economic reasons. A battle gun that is allergic to dirt is oxymoronic. But I love them anyway.

Aimco Lugers' take-down levers have a spring-loaded ball swaged in a hole for detent in the frame, to keep them from rotating during firing, whereas the German Lugers have a small spring that lives in the frame to detent against the take down lever's shaft's grooves. The parts are not in common, nor interchangeable. I did not take apart the gun further to see if there were any other parts that were not the same.

I bought one Aimco Stoeger Luger, thinking " cool " etc. and when it was proving a p.o.s. I thought, " this can't be the way they all are " and gave it another try. The third one was just stubborn persistence, thinking I would give them every chance I could. After looking at the internals carefully, and having gained greater knowledge and appreciation for the quality of the originals, I just didn't care for the stainless steel anymore.

Good shooter German Lugers are just a inexpensive as Aimco ones, can be fixed eternally, with parts swapping, and are still a fine piece of history, as many parts are between 70 and 100 years old, more or less. There are also modern MIM parts being made from somewhere.

Did you every figure out why your Michelle Luger wouldn't stay open after the last round is fired? I have a 1993 Mitchell and it does the same thing sometimes.

No, I got rid of all 3 of them .... without ever solving the problems they had. Maybe I was giving up too soon, but it seemed to me a useless endeavor to mess with the parts when they were essentially not precise, and made of soft metal. While some of the parts were very similar to real Luger parts, many others would not interchange. The insides of these stainless steel copies couldn't be depended on to stay in shape for long even if they were working at some point of adjustment. I guess I can't be very helpful about them, but I have to acknowledge that some other owners have been more positive.