This thing rang a bell in the back of my head, and I finally remembered what this Luger reminded me of.
Back in the days of Federal Ordnance, and the C96 rebuild/restorations they did, they would cut the barrel off a couple of inches in front of the barrel extension. They would then core the remaining barrel stub, insert a new barrel into the stub, weld the new barrel in place, and clean up the weld. The muzzle end of the new barrel was turned down and a front sight was added.
For Model 1930 C96 pistols, with the stepped barrel, the cut was done at the leading edge of the step and the fact that a new barrel had been added was only detectable by looking at the breech end of the new barrel in the barrel extension, or by looking at the front sight.
FedOrd, before the transition to Briklee Trading Company, offered the same service for Lugers. It was a slick way of getting a new barrel w/o losing the original barrel SN and proof. I saw a couple of Lugers that had this treatment and they looked very much like what we are seeing here.
I'm not saying this is a FedOrd rebuild, only that it looks like it underwent a similar process.
|