Need help with Luger purchase...
 

Need help ASAP before this one went out the door. Do all the expert think that this Luger has got the original finish?

It just look too good to me plus it looks like it is in 'two tone', some sort of browny and blue finish I really can't tell so need all the experts' opinions here before I rush out to get it!!!

I've seen this "plum" color on BYFs before. The finish looks original to me. No telltale buffing or other red flags...

It looks ok to me too, but unless there is a 'need' to rush, there is no rush.

Not unless the price is a steal and it'll disappear....

Vernon, your user name is your name, yet your profile has V and s and no location....


Ed

Could this byf 42 a 'black widow'? It seems to has all the characterics of a 'black widow'?

I can feel that lots of people dun like this type of question (everything to do with black widow) to be asked and I know the story why 'black widow' is created. Just interested to know this is one of them.

picture 6 , butt of frame in front of the magazine well , looks kind of like reblue over some defect

perhaps just that area has been touched with reblue of some sort

side plate also looks somewhat reblued over two small dents to me also

plum receiver looks ok original

grips and mag look ok

plum sideplate would be unusual - in one picture sideplate looks kind of plum also

yes , seems like a real "black widow"

good luck
Bill

Thanks for the input. I have more pics which were loaded onto Jan Still's forums on page two of the same titled thread:

http://luger.gunboards.com/showthrea...chase.../page2

Personally I don't like the looks of the side plate
Mike Z.

I've seen the 'plum' coloring on Lahti's...Specifically, the hardened parts...Heat treating seems to affect bluing; for what reason, I do not know... :confused:

Ted said it has to do with the hardness of the metal. So, for receivers like this, you see P38's and some lugers in this time period, so it is either the hardness was changed or the bluing chemicals or a mixture of the two.

I don't know, just know it is a common theme.

To the original poster, as you can see, I flip-flopped on my answer, and that is because it is hard to judge from pictures, and when doubt is raised by others, we all look for those tell-tale signs.

My mentor Bill Munis would bring out 5 lugers and ask me, which are restored or reblued?

i would point out two and he would say, none of them. and then TRY and teach me why each was each. He died several years ago and I miss his training that he gave me.

Ed

Heat treating definitely affects bluing, and not just on salt blued guns, but on earlier rust blued ones as well. Here's the side-plate on a 1916 DWM. Regards, Norm

Vernon,

The "black widow" term was purely a marketing effort by Ralph Shattuck (now deceased) used it to sell what were at the time the less attractive Lugers with plastic grips and magazine bases.

In the 1941 / 1942 timeframe, the German arms industry had shifted to composite and plastic / bakelite parts where possible.

You can authenticate the grips by photographing their inside surfaces and posting here. If you remove them be very careful not to chip the left one near the safety and the right one where it slides into the receiver at the top.

I believe that the plum color involved both the alloy content of the steel, the chemical mix of the bluing salts and the temperature of the hot bluing baths. Some people like the color, others consider it evidence of sloppy process control during manufacture.

I have a beautiful M1 Carbine that saw service in Austria after WW-II. It had been re-blued by them with the trigger group turned to a beautiful deep plum color...

Marc