Wood-bottomed mags
 

Hi!
Does anybody know what kind of wood was used for the bottom pad on P-08 Lugers? It is a very hard tight grain material.
PP.

G.T. can probably answer the question better than anyone else on the forum. To the best of my knowledge the wood bottoms were made from either beech or walnut. The walnut is probably of a quality that no longer grown or available. The beech normally shows lighter or golden streaks in the grain. I believe all the early magazine bottoms were walnut with the beech showing up later on some the military contract pistols on both the grip panels and the magazine bottoms.

Hi PP & Johnny! I think Johnny has it pretty well covered... almost all Luger mag. bottoms of German manufacture were made from European Walnut... but the part that is interesting, is that as Johnny stated, the wood was most likely high, cold climite, dense growth wood,... once cut, it is gone forever... this is drastically different then the warm climite tree farm wood that is supplied today... another feature of the original old European walnut, is the wide range of colors that are found, especially in Mauser K98 stocks... I have been told that the Luger grips and mag bottoms are from the cutoffs of rifle stock production, but I believe they probably procured their own wood stock for the Luger, as handling cut off and checked small pieces for mass production dosen't make any sense.. One big-a** walnut tree would make a big bunch of Luger mag bottoms!! There are quite a few original beech bottoms on Lugers also.. and these display the light colored, cross streaked, striations that are almost always mistaken for grain.. and, they are always a washed out brown color, sometimes with a reddish purple hue to them...I think mainly mid to late WWI & post WWI use... almost all of the Germany marked bottoms are of European Beech... As for other woods... I have seen some real tacky grips and bottoms, that are a real tacky orange/yellow color, and they are of a real soft fuzzy wood... my best guess is alder, as unlikely as that seems! Thats about it! Till...later...G.T. <img src="graemlins/jumper.gif" border="0" alt="[jumper]" />

Thanks Johnny and GT!
I've taken some time today to shoot some close-ups of my newly acquired all-matching 1917 Erfurt WITH unit markings. I'll post them as soon as I get the negs from processing and find time to scan them. I know Doubs is waiting for them. PP.

Sounds nice, pictures of diff guns is always great!

Look forward to seeing the unit markings. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Edward, the unit markings go like this:
L.J.R.328 8.K.
PP.