First Time Luger Shoot Session
 

I had the pleasure of shooting my first Luger yesterday , a matching (except for mag) 1916 DWM. In general I was pleasantly surprised by the handling characteristics ; very comfortably in terms of recoil (my reference base is the P.38...) , Easy to put on target despite the minimal rear sight and my less-than-excellent vision , wide , comfortable trigger. Feed and ejection were reliable. All in all , an great performance by a pistol which is in excess of a century old. (still trying to wrap my head around the chronology...)

I do have one question :

I noticed that the flight pattern of the ejected casings was no pattern at all : short left , wide right , straight up , brass scattered all over the place. Is this a normal characteristic of the Luger? If it is , or if it is of no concern , fine , but I thought it was worth an inquiry.

I did experience an issue with the magazine ; I posted that in the "Repairs" forum section.

'Ski

My Lugers, though ejecting straight up as designed, have no real pattern to them, unlike some other handguns(1911,BHP). This characteristic never bothered me in the least. One of my Lugers is "rough" on the ejected brass(dents), and others have no significant marks on the brass at all. Each is an individual!!

My 30 cal. luger throws brass very high slightly to the right and lands about 15 feet behind me. The firing line has a tin roof with gutters and occasionally brass will land up there with no way to retrieve it. 30 cal. brass is kinda pricey. Maybe haul a step ladder with me next time.

A few times a year I fire my shooters on National Forrest land and make an effort to collect the brass afterward. I'm continually amazed at how widely it is scattered.

The Luger has a very odd ejection characteristic. Although extraction is straight up, the ejector acts on the lower right quadrant of the cartridge base (seen from behind). This ejects the cartridge up and to the left, where the shell mouth actually hits the left receiver extension on its way out. On fired 9mm brass you can see a flat spot on the casing mouth where this occurs. Obviously the trajectory from there can be pretty random.

I don't shoot .30 cal., so I don't know how it might affect this.

--Dwight

So , random trajectories are fairly common. That explanation as to the manner in which the casing is launched is interesting and helpful.

Going forward I will not expect to recover a high percentage of casings when shooting the Luger. I'll probably find the ones that bounce off of the top of my head.

Thank you. 'Ski

Which seems to be a fair number of them with my Luger!

I had to stop shooting my Lugers at the local indoor range after breaking a number of shooting position lights directly overhead with ejected brass.

Bet you weren't real popular after a couple episodes of that.

Lon