Brown bakelite grips on 1941 byf?
 

While on a road trip I stopped at a gun shop and saw a rather minty 1941 byf Luger P.08 with brown non-wooden grips. The shop owner claimed the grips were brown bakelite, but admitted he was no Luger expert. (Sorry I failed to think about taking photo of the gun before I got back on the road.) I say non-wood as they were not wood, and did not have the shiny appearance of real or good repo bakelite. The grips were in great shape but had a matte or rather flat dull brown color. I never saw anything like them.

Did Mauser put brown bakelite grips on 1941 Lugers? If they were real, wouldn't they have the same shine/appearance as the black versions, but be brown in color?

I questioned the originality of the grips, but he maintained his assertion that they were original to the gun. He was not familiar with the hot pin test. However, i was more curious about the grips originality than interested in buying it. So no pin test. I have never laid eyes on Luger brown bakelite. He was asking $1,500 for it (mag did not match but seemed period correct).

Thanks for whatever help you can offer to help quench my curiosity. It's really been bugging me all day.

Hi Eugene,
I believe Mauser produced some Lugers with brown plastic grips sourced from the same manufacturer that supplied Krieghoff, I believe in 1941 or thereabouts. I'm too lazy to look it up but if you have "Third Reich Lugers" by Jan C. Still you can look it up for yourself.
Norm

Both brown and black bakelite grips were used by Mauser starting as early as 1939.

Eugene, I question the opinion that Mauser installed the brown plastic grips as originals at the factory. Rather, I feel that they are probably wartime replacements. I've even seen these on GI captured (in WW2) WW1 dated P08s. TH

Could they be VOPO grips from East Germany after WWII? I had one that had brown bakelite grips.

David

According to Jan Still in "Third Reich Lugers" Mauser was authorized to start using bakelite grips in place of wood grips in 1939 as the supply of scrap wood from rifle manufacture began to dry up. This is the same time frame when laminated rifle stocks appear.

Left grip (moulded laminated paper plastics) blueprint no. 1 MD 06-61 drafted on 29 June 1939, drawing checked/approved 1 December 1939

Right grip (moulded laminated paper plastics) blueprint no. 1 MD 06-62 drafted on 27 June 1939, drawing checked/approved 1 December 1939

I have a N suffix 1940, 42 with Krieghoff brown grips. When I bought it from Simpson LTD they couldn't claim absolutely that the grips were original, only that they had seen other late war Mausers with Krieghoff grips.

Rick can you post scans of those blueprints? PLEASE.

Hopefully, we're all refering to the brown kreighoff type grips, not DDR concentric circle grips. TH

Hi John S.

These documents are sourced from the Oberndorf Museum.

Rick W.

Rick are the published documents available online? How did you obtain them?

Wow, so many informative replies. The collective Luger knowledge on this forum is simply awesome. :typing:
Thank you for the evolving tutorial on brown bakelite grips.

John,

In 2002, I was furnished a copy of a letter that referenced several Luger documents(blueprints); wood grips, magazine tubes(extruded and folded), spring followers, synthetic black mag bottoms etc etc. The ones I posted references to were only two of the dozen or so documents found and noted in said letter.

The author of the letter(a super heavy) said that the documents were available from another private individual in Oberndorf(I will not say much as I value his privacy) or from the Oberndorf Museum archives. I seriously doubt of an online source, I got the impression it was a in person search in physical Oberndorf archives. This letter is close to 20 years old now.

At one time, there was quite a bit of research in various European archives, this was a small subset I would surmise.

I posted what I did only as a possible lead to the real answer of the original query at the top of this thread. Laminated plasticized grip drawing approved in 39 is information.

I, like others, that purchased VOPO Lugers got some with brown laminated grips. I cannot draw much of an conclusion from just buying a few VOPO Lugers as to originality to said Lugers, but only that is how they showed up in my hands years ago. Looks like the blueprints and their approval would be a bit more concrete in forming a answer to when and how's; at least a starting reference if nothing else. Just my non collecting point of view.

Feel like a trip, I hear it is nice country............... :)....I have never been across the Mississippi on my own accord; too old to go now.

Rick

The blueprint of 1MD06-61 is on page 1142 of TBLAP DVD... :rolleyes:

Along with a paragraph describing the differences between the Krieghoff and Mauser Bakelite grips... :)

Illustrative screen grab of page 1142...

How about that?........

I knew that research in the archives in Germany were going on for an upcoming book by those two authors.

I could not read the date on the drawing for the laminated grips, but did see the number for wood grips which matched the number in the letter.

Was kinda neat being a complete outsider to be allowed a bit of behind the scenes effort, and I heard there was a ton of effort.

Kinda neat to be able to get a bit further down the line for me.

Thanks Rick. Always informative to read your posts. :)