[lugerholsterrepair]

No..No actual force is necessary BUT you need to move as far towards the rear of the pistol as the open bolt will allow you.. AWAY from the pivot pin. The pivot pin is just that. There is a portion of the holdopen on either side. Spring to the left and the actual part that we believe is holding open your bolt on the right..sort of UNDER the bolt. So move as far to the right/rear as you can and push there. Possible but not likely there is some crud under the hold open lever in it's well...this lever holding back your bolt is a knife edged sear type of thing. It SHOULD release relatively soon upon pushing down in the right place. To the rear on the right.

The pivot pin allows the flat spring to move the L shaped portion of the hold open to drop into it's well and keep it there by spring pressure. The magazine follower button, powered by the magazine spring, upon the last cartridge being stripped out of the magazine, pushes up on the hold open overcoming the flat spring of the holdopen and allows the knife edge of the holdopen to catch the notch in the underside of the bolt when the bolt returns rearward as this afformentioned last cartridge is fired and subsequently extracted. The bolt, blown to the rear, the holdopen raises due to magazine spring pressure and as the bolt tries to move forward, knife edge meets slot, the bolt is stopped in it's tracks.

Pretty simple. Next time you have your Luger apart look at the bottom of the bolt..all will be revealed!

One other thing before we get too far along..inserting a new magazine the action would not close to chamber a round. The actions seems to be stuck open

With NO magazine in the pistol have you tried pulling back on the toggles to allow the holdopen to disengage? On a Luger pistol with no problems this would allow the flat spring to put enough pressure on the L shaped knife edged part to drop into it's well in the frame and release the bolt from captivity, letting the bolt move forward.