More on mis-firing 1918 luger
 

If you remember my recent post on the above. Last week I had the opportunity to see and fire this old war horse. I was part of a weekend of talks and lectures on Historic weapons (my talk was on the Mosin Nagant 1891 Rifle). Back to the Luger. When fired it cycles the next round but will not fire. What I have discovered is that if you give the gun a gentle tap over the removable panel just above the trigger she will fire. If you cycle the gun by drawing back the toggles she fires every time. If however you draw back the toggles while the trigger is pulled then the gun will not fire without the gentle tap on the side. This area has been cleaned and lightly lubricated. The spring activated plunger that is parallel to the barrel on which the L shaped lever acts is free and seems to have a reasonable amount of force pushing it out. Any ideas as I hate being beaten by a mechanical problem such as this is.

TRhanks

95R

95R, Since you say that the disconnector spring pressure is normal, the trigger lever inside the side plate appearantly is not moving out of its way. I'd remove it and clean out any accumulated crude inside its channel in the side plate. At the same time you may want to increase the bevel on the rear of the top arm, to make it easier for the disconnector to push it out of the way for the next shot. If your tigger lever is an original, DO NOT try to bend it, as it will break before it will bend. As a last resort you can send it to me for a $50 trigger job. TH

Thanks Lugerdoc
To prove the theory we placed a 10thou shim between the underside of the L shape and the slot in the trigger and the gun goes bang every time. We had previously cleaned the area very thouroughly and lightly lubricated it . We are not going to risk any bending or filing as the gun works. We are now looking for a good load to feed it. Any advice or favorite loads would be appreciated.

95R

I generally use 115gr Winchester ball ammo in my testing, but since most WW2 lugers were set up (2 more turns in recoil spring) to handle SMG ammo, you may have to go to the 124gr bullet for consistent results. TH

I have a parts Luger that wouldn't fire because the "L" lever in the sideplate wouldn't depress the disconnector far enough. Rather than attempt to bend anything, my solution was to put a thin layer of JB Weld on the disconnector contact point of the "L" arm and carefully file it down and bevel it. It's worked like a charm.