Stymie and Johnny,
I re-read the definition in the law, and I see where ATF was coming from, although, IMHO, the whole thing was silly. I wonder if they will beat down my door and seize the Kruger.
As to the point about the grip angle, the ammo has nothing to do with it. Borchardt was a trained engineer, and his much-derided "clock spring" exerted its force vector almost straight down, a nearly ideal situation for closing a toggle mechanism.
But when good ol' Georg, who was a salesman, moved the spring to the grip and tried to use the basic Borchardt angle (the early experimental pistols), he found that the spring exerted its force vector too much in a forward direction. (Try this with your own forearm and fingers.)
So those guns had a problem locking back up in counter-recoil. It was not until Luger angled the grip backward that he got the spring to exert enough downward force to properly close the breech. The problem was eventually solved with the coil spring and the added lever, but the unintended consequence of Luger's problem solving was a superb grip.
To top things off, placing the spring in the grip meant the grip would be too wide if the Borchardt round was used, so Luger had to go to a shorter round and a narrower magazine. Which, coupled with the angled grip, presented feeding problems, but Luger was stuck with it. (I forget when Bayer invented aspirin, but I hope Georg had a good supply.)
Since then, of course, hundreds of gun types have fired both the 7.65mm and 9mm Parabellum rounds without any problems and without a steeply angled grip. The problem was unique to the Luger and its toggle mechanism.
I am sure Luger recognized that the grip was very nice, but that was secondary to getting the gun to work. After all, the idea was to sell guns, not turn out sculpture.
Jim
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