a trivial question.....
 

...but curious. Does anyone know why the pin at the end of the sear bar on Lugers is spring loaded? it appears to me that the sideplate lever pushes on the side of this pin to press the sear bar, not on the tip....?

I believe that this is what prevents a Luger from going full-auto (repetitive firing until the trigger is released). When the sear resets, the plunger is pushed into the sear bar. When the trigger is released, the plunger extends, ready for the next trigger actuation.

Marc

A rethorical question, Are You contended a luger can be made fully auto with some minor adjustments?

Eric,

Not at all... I was just trying to describe how the mechanism works.

As I think about it, I'm not entirely correct in my first post. Assuming no plunger... During recoil, you'd feel as the firing pin passed the sear. With the trigger pressure held, the sear would not engage the firing pin as it returned to battery. When the breech block went back into battery, it would be carrying the firing pin in the forward position under it's spring tension. That might, or might not, be enough of a strike to ignite the primer.

I've read that there were a couple of designs patented that converted a Luger to full auto. Haven't studied the mechanisms.

Marc

Its probobly illegal to even to think of it ! Thank You!

This gets me thinking (or trying to anyway). During recoil the sear bar is pushed back into place by the sear bar spring so as the receiver returns to battery the sear bar is going to catch the catch the firing pin anyway ... no? If the plunger were not spring loaded and unable to move backward when it made contact again with the trigger lever in essence you would have two pieces of steel (forward aspect of a "solid" sear bar and the trigger level) colliding unless you could pull AND release the trigger in the amount of time it takes the pistol to cycle. So maybe it purpose of the spring loaded plunger is to allow the shooter to hold the trigger back while the action functions and release the trigger in a more "reasonable" amount of time ?? Buys the shooter some time so to speak. O.K. ... how does that sound ???

Your going have to go to ATF confession!

I think most semi auto's are made to fire in semi auto mode, in other words, they more easily fire full auto than semi; although not impossible,a full auto pistol is pretty hard to control and worthless in any firefight IMHO.

That is why they made MP18's etc, so you can use 2 hands to control the recoil and be a bit accurate.


Ed

"In World War I, as submachine guns were found to be effective in trench warfare, experiments with converting various types of pistols to machine pistols (Reihenfeuerpistolen, literally "row-fire pistols" or "consecutive fire pistols") were conducted. Among those the Luger pistol (German Army designation Pistole 08) was examined; however, unlike the Mauser C96, which was converted in great numbers to Reihenfeuerpistolen, the Luger proved to have an excessive rate of fire in full-automatic mode." - Wikipedia

Nuke, In gunsmithing terminology, the plunger in your trigger bar act as a disconnector, requiring the trigger to move forward, before another shot can be fired. It's possible that with some filing and the proper angles on the disconnector & trigger bar, that a luger could be made to fire full auto, which sometimes happens accidently. But the problem would be to get it to stop when you let off on the trigger. No fun getting 7 rounds with one trigger pull. TH

I guess it would depend on where your shooting.What would happen if you used a drum! LOOK OUT! A mini Thompson!