Hi K. Wilhelm, I'd be happy to share my experience at the range with you... First, in the last few Lugers I've received, some of the repairs are evident and can be discovered and repaired right at the inspection bench... loose or bent hold open springs, deformed or excessively modified, sticky, or binding trigger levers, gummed up disconnector pins, missing or weak takedown levers, bent or loose sideplates, gummed up firing pins, etc. etc.
This last Luger suffered from a trigger pull where it would not always disconnect for the next shot... But, it had issues that I was not aware of, by just performing bench tests... so, off to the range we go... Now for this next part, I'm going to tell you the knot head part of my test, then the proper problem solving technique I arrived at after a disaster in the first go around... Now I think this pistol is going to work great! Well, that's not the way it went.. shooting Winchester 124? grain ball NATO (Big NO-NO!) ammo... I loaded up 8 rounds in a new upgraded MEC-GAR magazine and squeezed off the first round! Stove pipe failure to eject!!! second round ok, third round stove pipe jam, failure to load, 4th thu 8th ok....
2nd mag of 8, all went thru ok... third mag of eight, 4th round, loaded but trigger didn't disconnect, fifth round, stovepipe jam... sixth round, the freak'in firing pin breaks in middle, directly in half!!! ....
.......Front part, forward, rear part all the way back.... big sad face on shooter guy??? Give that some thought before you take that minty all matching unit to the range guys!
Sooo, back home we went.. I had one constant that I was pretty sure of, and that was the mag, it had performed well in other Lugers, and although I was shaken, I still had faith... so the mag remained as my only constant.... Next I enlisted one of my friends to trade me 100 rounds of Winchester 115 gr. white box target, and when I received it, I measured a few, and they were on average .010" longer in OAL, then the ball NATO rounds... But, I still wasn't happy, I figured the hotter NATO ammo, when coupled with, perhaps, a tired mainspring would also be an issue, so it got a new original WW2 Mauser P.08 mainspring as well... New Mauser firing pin installed, and to completely cover my butt, I installed a new original Mauser P.08 extractor spring to complete my attempt to correct feeding issues...Now, on to the disconnector.. I noticed that the pin holding the trigger lever was deformed, and just by removing and reinstalling and testing, I was getting different results at the bench every time... so, I replace the trigger lever retainer and also slightly polished the small bevel lead in on the trigger lever edge, Back to the range we go! Three full mags with the 115grain load... not one bobble! All feed and functioned perfectly! Still had on failure to disconnect, but a little more polishing on the lever and we are golden there also....
... anyway, having a crap pot full of parts doesn't hurt.. then it's just inspector Clouseau tactics!
..best to all, til...lat'r....GT
