While it has been less than a week since I started this thread on this and two other forums, I believe enough information has been generated to strongly suggest that magazine damage was not a reason for abandonment of the Walther safety by the German police in 1937. Searching for damaged magazines was something of a long shot in the first place and not surprisingly did not produce any examples of significant damage that may have been caused by a Walther safety. However, the expeirment conducted by Joop van de Kant was, in my opinion, very convincing. He inserted and removed two magazines (nickel plated and blued) 100 times each in a P08 with an intact Walther safety and observed absolutely no wear or damage on either. It is clear that they may have been cycled several hundred times without causing damage. His results are reported in post # 19 in
http://luger.gunboards.com/showthrea...t=27033&page=2.
Thanks to all and especially Joop for helping clear up this issue.