luger machining?
 

Ok heres something I'm curious about back in 1900 through the 40's how were luger frames and parts made. Were they drop forged and finish machined? Or were they simply machined from a solid block of steel ie. A billet? I am a machinist and understand the technology availabe today and I have worked with and around machines from the late 19th century. But I do not know what kind of forging abilities they had in the time from 1900-1945.

One of the other members posted this link in another part of this forum so I can't take credit. It is www.forgottenweapons.com with an article by Jan Stevenson entitled The Parabellum Story. This even has a few pictures of parts of the manfacturing process with the main focus being the 1970s Mausers.

Greg B.

It is true that the major parts of the Mauser Parabellum produced in the 1970's were produced by drop forging and then machining. But I believe that research will show that the original Luger frames and major parts were produced from billet metal... and not drop forgings since I don't think the drop forging technology was available when the Luger was first developed.

Gerben Van Vlimmeren and Mauro Baudino's historical books on the parabellum should be enlightening on this subject. I have seen very few photographs of Lugers being manufactured in 50 years of reading about them...

When Mauser restarted production in the 1970s they initially used forged parts that were machined afterwards. One of the parts suppliers (of the toggle parts) was IWK in Karlsruhe, formerly known as DWM. They developed a process that enabled them to cast several of the parts, which went in to production after trials proved they performed as well as their forged counterparts. the breech block was always machined from a forging, but the mid- and reartoggle parts were cast. Most of the small parts, which didn't have to withstand that much stress, were also cast.

The original pre-1947 production would have been done using a combination of forgings and pieces of square steel bar and round steel rod.

The images show a forged 1970s Mauser frame with the first few machining steps done.

Does the book "Die Pistole 08" by Gortz address this subject ?? Thought I heard somewhere that it covers, at least to some extent, Mauser's manufacturing process.

Yes, Görtz's book has a list of materials used in P08 production. Our book also shows a list of materials side by side: the 1930s Mauser, 1920s Swiss and 1970s Mauser.

Interesting.

Nice pics.

The process evolved. Gortz and Sturgess has the bill of material for early production and while detailed on type of steel, etc., there is no real evidence that forgings were used as a starting point.

On the other hand, in Don and Joop's book, on page 70 is a detailed photographic essay on how a steel forging was transformed into a finished frame thus demonstrating that certainly by the 30's, forgings were in use.

John

Fascinating topic, thanks to all who contribute!