Stoeger .22 Luger
 

A dealer friend called and said he had an estate with some handguns and one was a Stoeger .22 luger. I didn't get much more info but its like new with two mags. He needs to get $125.00 out of it. Worth it for a little plinker?

nothing but grief, save the money.

Biggest piece of junk ever made.

Only if it's NIB, imho.

Having shot one of these I would agree with the previous posts, it's more of a novelty than a practical shooter.

Thanks guys. I will take a look at it and decide. I will probably skip it.

I must have gotten the the only good one. I've put many hundreds of rounds through mine over many years with no troubles. "knock on wood".

I have an Erma made L22 and I can also say that it works as well as my 9mms.

I have three that I bought for my wife. They are great shooters and she enjoys them. Seems there are good ones and bad ones. Sort of the luck of the draw on which it is. But if you get a good one, they are fun shooters.
The price is very good.

To avoid feed problems with the Stoeger .22, you MUST use high velocity ammo. Minimags perfered. TH

I bought one of these at a gun show a few months ago for $150, in excellent condition. I wasn't expecting much, but discovered I got a lot for my money. By no means are they "a piece of junk".

The gun is simple, reliable, fairly well made, and extremely accurate with Federal high velocity ammo. Tom is right about the ammo; only good stuff will work well...in anything.

I was not expecting an inexpensively constructed gun with fixed sights to be a tin can tack driver at 50 feet or so, but it is.

I'd say if somebody wants $125 for a decent one, grab it. I understand that not all of them are good ones, but at that price, if it isn't, so what? It tells part of the Luger collection story.

The down side? I hate guns with aluminum parts, as the grip frame on this one, or any gun with plastic anything. So I'll pass on the Glocks, etc. And I probably would have passed on this Stoeger Luger if the price had been high. Then I would have missed something good.

Oh, it came with a finely made proprietary Stoeger Luger leather holster in great condition. Strangely enough, the .22 Luger is a little fatter in the receiver area than a real one, and the latter fits a bit loosely in such a holster. But it works. It's professionally made and obviously mass produced, but has no markings.

Look at the current offering this way. You can buy a nice little fun gun for what most people are selling WW-II Luger magazines for, and most of these will not work as well as a $35 Mec-Gar mag. :)

The Erma's are a little different than the Stoegers aren't they?
I've never shot an Erma but they look better made to me.

I had a Stoeger 22. Seemed to be quite accurate, but feed reliability was extremely poor. Sold it as I quickly became tired of clearing jams. Since then I have acquired an Erma baby in 32 ACP which seems to feed quite reliably.

Took two of my daughters (15 & 12) with the Stoeger out to the range and we put 250rds of a mix of Federal and Remington without a hitch. The pistol is cheap looking and looks more like a "pellet" gun but it shot perfectly and was reasonably accurate. My girls enjoyed it due to little recoil. SO......I appreciate everyone's opinions. Should make the perfect little plinker.

Here's a review from a 1969 copy of Guns magazine. They had feeding problems then too.
Hi-res copy here: http://www.ozarkmountainfolkfair.com/images/articles/

Interesting article. Thanks! I will add that it fed perfectly from both magazines.

RottenII,

:) I'm glad you're enjoying the Stoeger .22 Luger. See what you might have missed? It is what it is: a neat looking, inexpensively designed, reasonably reliable and accurate .22 plinker which looks like a Luger and has a very nice feel in the hand. It's no $2,500 collector Luger which you have to be afraid of shooting, for fear you might put a microscopic scratch on the inside of the extractor hook.

Do some of these feed unreliably? Probably so, exactly like a HIGH percentage of original "real" Lugers. And probably for the same reasons; ammo problems, mag problems, or some minor function of the pistol requiring tuning or repair. I doubt if any, or many, of these jamming Stoeger .22 Lugers cannot be fixed fairly easily. It only requires somebody with the patience and ability to analyze and correct the problem; somebody who hasn't prematurely made up his mind that the design is just a bummer...not that we don't run into some of those. ;)

In that regard, the several variations made by Erma, at about the same time, may appear to be a bit better made, but they reportedly also have more functional problems. I suspect that most of those can also be made to run better, if the right person spends time on it.

Most of us collect, or accumulate, a lot of things, not because they are best-of-type but because they are entertaining and tickle our fancy. That's how one of these fits onto my pile.