Last week I purchased a complete top end assembly of 1918 Erfurt Artillery. I always wanted an artillery model, and when Lugerdoc posted a top end assembly for sale on the forum I jumped on it. Perhaps this is a story of ‘half of one is better than the whole’. Well, sort of. You see I wanted an artillery model to shoot occasionally. So I didn’t need or want to pay for a perfect one. My plan was to park it on top of my 1939 Mauser, that is numbers matching. Erring on the side of caution about shooting my matching 1939, this looked like the ticket for me. When you see something you want, logic force fits judgment or is that the other way around.
After a careful and through cleaning and adoration session on the shop bench with the artillery top end, I installed it on my 1939 and off I went to the range.
I blissfully put a 100 rounds (of Win WB) down the pipe. I only encountered 2x fail to battery on the first round of a new mag (with 7 rds loaded). Upon racking, the toggle locked open and I couldn’t release the mag. The glitch was resolved with a hard palm slap to the mag bottom and a round would then chamber and the toggled returned to battery. No big deal, as every other aspect went smoothly. I was fairly accurate with it at 15 yards and I am only a mediocre shooter.
I was so excited to shoot this Erfurt/Mauser artillery and it was far more fun than with a 4” barrel. Here are a few photos. Note I tried in vain to correctly orient the photos.
