Wide Trigger?
 

I seem to recall reading about a wide trigger variation on early Lugers, but can't find the reference.

Could someone inform me on the matter? What are its characteristics, what should I look for to identify one? What model Luger is it found on? How common (or uncommon) is it, and if I should run across one, what should I expect it to add to the value of the Luger?

Thanks in advance for anybody's help.

--Dwight

Dwight, I don't have the book in front of me but Kenyon's "Lugers at Random" has comparison pictures of the triggers.

It is found on the 1900 Swiss, primarily in the 4000 range but examples exist well outside that range (I have 3185). They are relatively scarce. There are a number of suggestions concerning the wide trigger, that it was for marksmanship teams, a design trial to improve the "feel" of the trigger, and/or to make the trigger pull the same for a right or left handed shooter. Any one or all of these may be correct.

The trigger is the full width of the trigger guard and looks pretty impressive. The last two digits of the serial number are marked on the upper left side of the trigger and are visible when the gun is assembled. According to the "books" a wide trigger adds 15%-20% to the value of the Luger.

To add to Ron's great info. posting :

(Click on the small photo to blow-up to a larger view...and then click on the expand button in the right-lower corner of the 2nd. photo view to get an even larger view...)

Photo is from V. Bobb'a book on Swiss lugers, from page 192.

<a href="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/triggertypes1001.jpg" target="_fullview"><img src="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/triggertypes1001.jpg" width="400" alt="Click for fullsize image" /></a>

Regards,

Pete... <img border="0" alt="[typing]" title="" src="graemlins/yltype.gif" />

Curiosity assuaged, thanks to all.

--Dwight

Ron and others,

Regarding left-handed shooting...

Is there any info. regarding or have any lugers shown up with the magazine release button "reversed"...so a thumb on the left hand can drop out a magazine...?

Wondered if the skilled gunsmiths in Switzerland reworked some for their left-handed shooting clients...?

Just curious...?

Pete... <img border="0" alt="[typing]" title="" src="graemlins/yltype.gif" />

Pete,
I for one am not left handed, however I am somewhat ambidexterous in a small way, bowling, Pistol shooting, handsawing, fileing and a few others.
It all began in my machine shop work, comes in handy for sawing or fileing lathe tooled cylinderical work in the lathe.
With this said, I find that the magazine release to be quite comfortable to release with my left index or midddle finger, and were I a "lefty" I can see no need to make such an alteration.
Just my Opinion.
ViggoG

Such a modification would of course also require the manufacture of magazines with the latch cutout on the opposite side... That would be a pretty good manufacturing expense in tooling for such a small demand item...

hmmmm, now that I have brought that up, does anyone know much about the sheet metal fabrication of the magazine. Do you think the mag latch hole was "punched" before or after the mag was assembled?

(This ought to be a pretty good discussion!) :D

Hi John,

For the dutch-made postwar magazines (supplied with the mauser parabellums) the answer is 'before'.

I have seen some half-made products left over from the company that produced them, one of these is a simple folded sheet with no profile or holes whatsoever, except for the latch hole.

Gerben, that would have been my guess, but sometimes things are done the way the were "always" done in the old days... and I don't think any documentation exists (or at least I don't personally know of any) that tells how sheet metal mags were manufactured in Europe duing the first half of the last century...

With today's computer engineered technology, virtually all holes would be punched in any metal that gets formed cold. I managed an engineering department for a very technology sophisticated sheet metal manufacturer for two years and the wealth of knowledge that I acquired on state-of-the-art manufacturing methods was worth the meager salary that I earned while there... I was much richer for the experience.

Some additional info on the Dutch 'Mauser' postwar mags as deduced from some left-over halfproducts:

First part was to create both halves of the magazine, from flat plates, where the latch hole was cut before bending.

Second part was to put both halves together and crimp them (creating the lengthwise crimp that also serves as a guide rail for the loading tool). The holes for the button were added, as well as the attaching holes for the button.

After that, the crimpline was dented crosswise, just below the top (to keep both halves in place, I guess) and the lips at the top would be formed correctly. After that step the slit for the follower was added.

Final production steps involved coating the magazine tubes. Final assembly was later done at Mauser.

It's not known whether this production method followed earlier methods. I believe they started from scratch, using the original blueprints (supplied by Mauser) as a guideline, followed by using the extruded Haenel (also supplied by Mauser) as a dimensional model.

The first examples, based upon the original 30s blueprints proved to be extremely unreliable and Mauser sent them an extruded Haenel mag to serve as a dimensional guideline. Some corrections were made to the design and this is the version that can be found labeled 'Mauser' and/or 'Made in Holland'.