LugerForum Discussion Forums - Greetings and my new S/42

Hi. Happy to be here. I amm found on several gun websites and I have been around the communities for decades. Sometimes I get a little controversial, but I never mean any harm. My collections grow, shrink, then grow again. So far if it is doable I have shot everything I own. I am not a big fan of safe queens. Yes, sometimes parts break. Macht Nichts. Guns are for shooting. I don't invest, I shoot them. I learn a lot that way. Some of the most touted guns turn out to be junk once I get them on the range. How many here knew that firing a stocked C96 or a stocked Navy Luger can bite your hand if you don't find the best hold on the stock? (Not so with the Artillery Luger, which is probably the real reason the Army had them move the sight.) Throwing a Navy rear toggle onto an Artillery slide can shrink your groups by 2 or 3 inches at 300 yards, but does the blood on your thumb make it a worthwhile conversion? Nah.

Anyway, scouting around RIA last month I managed to lowball and win an S42 G date. :cheers:

What is interesting about it is I am told the proof marks seem to put it in the D block, however there is zero trace of any letter suffix ever having been affixed to it. Nothing suggests it was ground or burnished out as the metal thickness is constant. My best thought is that for unknown reasons someone pulled it from the line and skipped it over the point at which a suffix should be added. The other option is there was a line of S/42 G dates that occurred without any suffix, but of course the books written by people who did not work in that factory say nope. So we have something mildly interesting, not by the addition of a stamp, but rather instead by the lack of it.

Just for fun, 37 seconds of fun..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNA6-tBtdwA