Long Short Frame Question
 

I was looking through Harry E. Jones' "Luger Variation (copyrighted 1975)and cam across this statement "Some of the New Style Lugers have the "long" frame/receiver; among these are the 1906 Swiss, 1906 Naval, 1906 American Eagle (7.65 m/m), 1906 Commerical (7.65 m/m), and the 1908 Naval.". I thought that from 1906 on all Luger frames/receivers except for the 1906 Swiss (were long at the Swiss request) were of the short varity. What say the gruop?
The Wizard

Hey Forum members,

This post back on 6-19-02 never got a reply.

I think we were all fired up on those other "hot' topics and this interesting question fell in a crack...

Harry was/is correct. However, only the very early "Gesichert" marked 1906 Commercial and American Eagle Lugers had the long frame, the remainder have the short frame. The thought on these eary 1906 long frames is that they were produced from over-run frames from the 1906 Commercial Navy production. Navy models continued with the long frame until the 1914 model.

The long frames are found interspersed all the way through '06 production. The last one I have recorded is a late 37000 range Swiss Commercial. Just prior to this serial number are several '06 AE's with the long frame. I also have record of an '06 Navy Commercial in the 54000 range with the long frame.

Johnny,
You would think I would have learned by now never to use the word "only" when it pertains to Lugers! When it comes to commercials, probably "primarily" or "predominantly" would be better. It is logical for the Swiss commercial and the '06 Navy commercial to have the long frame, but for other commercials it is hit or miss. I think that DWM never threw anything away, and when it came time to run off a batch of commercials, they used whatever frames were in stock for grip safety models. <img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />