Hello from Michigan
 

This is my first post and before wasting anyone's time by posting in the wrong areas of this wonderful forum I am going to study all of the do's and don'ts so as not to offend or upset anyone. Be back when I am more knowledgeable.
Thanks for your patience ahead of time
PRB59

OK! Welcome! Read up and see ya later..

Great place to do it and amazing experts who willingly share their expertise (some forums not only do not but also use it as a scarf up opportunity).

I would only encourage you what you are doing and that is listen (not just hear) when someone says something.

My intro was by a back door with an opportunist purchase (well grounded impulse as I had a local Luger expert confirm it was a good buy)

It also turned out to be far better value wise than I thought and it was strongly suggested not to fire it as all the visible the numbers all matched and it had some historical value.

Hard not to do as I wanted a shooter not a collector.

I try to put things in perspective and one of those has always been, don't ever do something for the now that you will be sorry latter on.

So, I gave myself a few months to think about it while I did the research and in the end it was a decision to not ever shoot it and maintain the value as well as its historical significance (it has unit markings that make it rare in an already fairly rare gun).

Shortly after that someone wrote in that they had an all parts match gun and had shot it and broke one of the numbered parts. Probably a $2500 gun or better became a $750 shooter.

Same thing with any restoration work, always has to be fully considered.