A Reblue Comparison~
 

I finally bought a reblued shooter to of course shoot. George Anderson sold me a pretty shooter pictured above. Side by side the differences is striking. Loss of detail especially. The shiny new looking grip screws are a dead give away. The smell test is a myth! I posted this side by side comparison to help others to not to be fooled! Eric

I think the smell test is more for chemical hiding of loss of bluing (cold blue) as it comes off fairly easily.

They have some cold bluing out there that I find darkens metal some, but not incredibly. It leaves little small, but does not match with a luger bluing.

It is usually easy to tell a reblue when compared to non reblue, problem is, many folks have seen few lugers and thus have trouble believing us when we tell them its a reblue...

Ed would it be different if the didn't any sanding?

Ted does a great job including straw work! http://members.rennlist.com/lugerman/

Eric,

Nice comparison. Side by side, questions about original finish or not become moot.

A couple of things:

1. A professional restorer has to prep the metal before re-bluing. This necessitates bringing the state of the surface as close as possible to that of the original "in the white" factory gun. But to do that, they have to grind and sand and polish the metal. Edges become blurry, markings are washed out, etc. The gun loses it sharp appearance and looks rounded. But then the gun is blued, typically on a late Luger, by Salt Bluing, i.e. dipping the gun parts into a hot salts bath. Now this hot salt process is chemically, basically the same as the one that the factory used. It does not smell/stink. A really good professional does his best to minimize "changes" from the original but the tell tales are always there.

2. Cold bluing is another story. It is typically used to touch up areas of wear. There is minimal metal prep. It goes on cold. It stinks, literally. Only a rank amateur would cold blue the entire gun and try to pass it off as original.

But, as I, and others, have said; the best way to identify a refinished gun is NOT to look at the finish itself, but to look at the underlying metal of the gun. Are edges sharp?? Are holes clean, or is the surface around them dished? Are there bruises/dents in the metal, scratches, pitting, etc. that have been blued over. Are the areas that should be in the white blued over? On Rust blued guns are there halos present where they should be? Is there a brown patina, under the bluing that is visible is strong day light?

Again, thanks for the side by side.

John

John your my hero! You more than anyone was simply explained the process. I'm posting my Kriegoff that has unbelievably finish. Did they us a different process?

What a shame it is that so much metal has to be removed to get a nice finish... :(

But that explains why there are so many piece-of-crap refinished Lugers out there! :D

Rich take a look at Teds' site. He posts pictures of his finished product. He keeps his prayers in his right pocket and pride in the other!~~Eric

Eric,

HK used salt bluing, same as Mauser. The difference in finish, primarily is the better surface preparation. Simply put, they did a better job polishing the parts before bluing. Took a little more time and effort.

Same is true for interchangeability standards. They were remarkably better than Mauser as a result of machining to a closer tolerance. Much less hand fitting and fewer rejections than Mauser for head space issues.

But in all fairness HK operated almost like a custom shop compared to Mauser. To put things into perspective, the entire HK first contract of 10,000 guns was produced from late 1935 to beginning of 1938, call it 26-27 months, or 113 working weeks. Mauser typically produced that many P.08s in 3 1/2 working weeks and they consistently did, on average 10-12,000 guns per month from 1934 to 1942. And...many, many improvements to the gun along the way while eliminating unnecessary steps and simplifying production.

John

The truth of the matter is in the numbers! 10,000 as compaired to a million~ The leather was first rate! #7932~~ matching mags...

John what come first proofs or finish?

At HK, parts and guns were manufactured and fitted in the white. Both LWaA inspection proofs and Final Test Proofs were applied in the white. Salt bluing then took place. In the case of small parts, they were Straw blued using heat as the oxidizing agent..

However this was not always the case as in the early days of Luger manufacture some marks were applied after bluing resulting in the halos we observe today.

John

Can you clarify 'in the white' I never heard of this and it must have been an important step!!! Do you mean a part of the pre-blueing process? Tks John!!

Eric,

"In the white" equals Bare Metal.

John

Re partial blueing
 

Thanks John, How were these parts treated? Did they have to remove the blueing from the rails and other bare surfaces individually? It looks tedious and labor intensive! Eric

Actually Eric, just the opposite... the whole gun starts out white unfinished steel. Then the rust bluing was applied discreetly to each part leaving the white exposed (internal surfaces) where it was thought it wouldn't matter that bluing wasn't applied. VERY labor intensive!

Thanks John, Amazing! I wondered how they achieved a correct and matching luger with all 40 or so parts and then hundred of thousands!! One observation, How come Erfurt was some many proofs as compared to the others?

Erfurt was a military arsenal rather than a commercial firm like DWM. Therefore military marking standards applied much more stringently to weapons production. My own personal theory is that being a government entity it was staffed with government personnel. Job security depended on demonstration of job performance so the inspectors made sure that their mark was applied whenever possible. :)

I took a picture of the underside of the barrel. What is the '882'??

Eric,

8.82 mm is the caliber/gauge/inside diameter of the barrel.

And BTW, the reason they went to Salt Bluing from Rust Bluing was to reduce labor. Rust bluing is fantastically labor intensive.

John