Brendan,
If you search the forum for shooting and associated terms, or peruse the Shooting and Reloading Forum, you will find a wealth of posts (and opinions!) on this topic.
For various reasons having to do with relative age and amount of use, I recommend WWII Mauser manufactured Lugers--chamber dated from 1936-1942--for shooting. There was no significant quality fall-off during Mauser production. New manufactured magazines are crucial for reliable operation (extruded-type magazines from WWII are also reliable).
All Lugers manufactured until late 1937 were rust-blued with strawed small parts. Lugers manufactured after late 1937 were salt-blued, including the small parts.
--Dwight
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