Some comments....
Unspellable,
The photo from the book (#1542) shows a slide which has a very close similarity to mine. In fact, other than mine having a barrel shroud to enclose the large recoil spring (which makes it look like a "fat barrel'), it is almost a duplicate. The key thing which caught my eye were the two long "gripping grooves" which show up on the bottom portion of 1542's slide assembly. Mine has precisely those same two grooves in the same exact location. This has to be more than coincidence. Perhaps maybe from the same factory?
I could not find any locking machanism as the bottom of the bolt is smooth (no ramps, cams, links, etc.) and there is no indication the barrel locks to the bolt or slide, either. It simply has its stud resting in a mating hole in the frame. The recoil spring is fairly heavy to operate and I suspect the builder simply used a very stiff spring to make up for a lack of locking mechanism.
Of note, the hand grip is too small for a European hand and is sized to fit a smaller shooter. It is not a pocket pistol (too big for that) so I am really stretching and thinking it was designed for a physically smaller group of peope...perhaps Asiatic.
Two .30 Luger cartridges came in one of the magazines but I do not have any confidence they are correct for this pistol. More than likely, they would just fit the chamber and the previous owner felt this was "good enough". Lugerdoc suggested one reason for the fake "Mauser" logo may have been to inform the firer that approprite Mauser pistol ammo should be used...which at that time would likely have been the 7.63mm Mauser round. This theory beats anything else I could think up and will be getting some casting material to let the chamber reveal the truth.
Overall, I am probably going to get this pistol in "museum grade" condition with a total disassembly and cleaning, test firing, then sell it in order to retain the 1916 DWM Luger...which has a known value!
The Tom
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