[Burnt-Offering]

Hello Luger forum.

I'm new here and I have a long barrelled artillery Luger that I have inherited from my father. It's a bit of a frankenstein. It is not a numbers matching piece, the upper mostly matches itself except for the extractor and the barrel. On top it says DWM dated 1917 with German military stampings. The lower part is numbers matching to itself but was obviously taken from another gun. I figure it was used in the first world war and maybe even saw service in the second world war as well. It seems to have been well used and has a bit of pitting here and there. Certainly not a big money collectors piece or anything.

I can't be completely certain of its history but I assume it found its way into my country (Canada) as a vet bring back. Both my father and his father had a thing for Lugers, and as a child I never really understood why. (Now I understand.) Unfortunately just before I was born this gun was in a fire. So we lost the grips and the two magazines he had were destroyed. (One of them is black metal and I assume an original mag that would have had the wooden end(?), the other had the nylon end, I can tell because there is still a bit of burnt nylon at the bottom.) We're also missing the rear sight, I'm not sure if it was lost in the fire or if my father ever had that in the first place. I know for a fact he never shot it since the fire and for almost 40 years it sat in a box.

Anyway, recently I have decided to see what I can do to get this thing ready for service again. I ordered a new MecGar mag and took the Luger all apart to clean and oil it. I also bought a box of BlazerBrass 9mm 115 gr. Yesterday I took it to the range to test it out. I put 50 rounds through it and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. I was a little bit concerned that some of the springs might be too weak, but everything seemed to function pretty well. It never jammed on me once, but several times the action stayed open on me even though there were still rounds in the clip. It seemed to do this less when I maintained a tighter grip on it, but I'm not sure if this is a normal issue or a sign that the small leaf spring for the hold open might be too weak? I did manage to get through a couple full clips without this happening, the MecGar clip ran like a champ.

I don't intend to shoot this gun a lot, even though it's not a big money collectible, it still has a lot of sentimental value to my family. I just wanted to make sure that it could shoot, and I was actually pretty happy with how well it worked.

The reason I'm making this post is because I had a few questions for the Luger experts. This forum seems to be the best place to find answers.

My first question is about this hold open mechanism for the action. It's only supposed to stay open when the magazine is exhausted. It wasn't a big deal for me because I just pulled it back and the next round fed in and fired just fine, but I'm wondering if this is a common issue with these guns and what would be the best was of fixing it?

My second question is about the rear sight. Like I said before, we don't have this part. From what I've gathered looking at pictures the artillery models had a very specific adjustable one. I also noticed that mine has two flat head screws on the back of the toggle lock. This seems to be somewhat unusual and I was wondering if those are to accommodate a different style of rear sight? That would go at the very back of it kinda like the navy Luger?

My third question is about storing it. What I've been doing is loading a snap cap into it, pulling the trigger to uncock it, and putting it away like that. I'm not sure if this is the best way or if maybe you guys know of a better way? Obviously I want to avoid dry firing it.

I plan to track down some reproduction grips and was also thinking about getting a replacement spring kit. A replacement rear sight would be nice as well. Some of this stuff is hard to get in Canada, so any recommendations you guys might have on this would be appreciated.

Thanks.