Were all Swiss Lugers .30 Caliber through 1940?
 

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I agree that 7.65P was the standard military caliber. The Bern Police and many 1920 era commericals were in 9mmP. TH

The Swiss tested several DWM lugers in 9mm in the early years, especially the 1902 model. Also, they re-tested the model 1929 (from Waffenfabrik Bern) in 9mm, very few being seen, and questioned by some purest collectors. In spite of all this, the Swiss, at least with the Luger, NEVER officially adopted the 9mm cartridge. My guess is that the 7.65mm round functioned more efficiently with the toggle mechanism.

Agree with you Doc.

Years ago, in my foolish years before I concentrated on the Mauser Era and Krieghoffs, I acquired a beautiful Waffenfabrik Bern 1924 9mm prototype with 4 3/4 inch barrel.

Supposedly less than 100 of these were ever made and went nowhere as far as the military was concerned.

Still in the safe somewhere.

John

Learned something here today. I took two Swiss, a 6/24 and a 6/29 to the range Thurs. What a delight to shoot!!! And extremely accurate, both of them. No jams, no stove pipes. To me a sharper recoil feeling. The 7.65 may well be more efficient/

FN

We also learned that John must have some really cool stuff in his safe, somewhere.
dju

Amazingly, the Swiss bummed around quite a bit when they tried to come up with a 9mm version of the 06/29 that matched the accuracy of the .30 luger version.

Took them until around 1944, by which time priority had already been given to the P210 development.

Problems were mainly caused by the fact that they chose to play with the opening curve earlier, and the fact that they used the wrong steel for the 9mm barrels. It was Mauser who eventually fixed the problem many years later.

Some time ago I picked up a swiss mag with the typical metal discs, marked on the base "Cal. 9m/m". No idea if original, will post pics when i'm back in country in a few weeks.

Vince