[ithacaartist]

Welcome to the forum, David.

My thing--aside from the Parabellum pistol--is Erma's toggle pistols. They're roughly contemporary with the Stoeger .22 Luger, although their manufacture stretched from the early 60s until the 90s. I never developed much of an interest in the Stoegers, mostly just because I think they're kinda ugly.

Both brands have a reputation for reliability issues and being picky about ammo. One hypothesis out there is that the European standards for chamber dimensions are just a little tighter than SAAMI specs in the U.S. With relatively "sticky" chambers, they both can suffer from extraction problems. I have no experience with the Stoeger, but the Erma .22s can also have a problem returning fully to battery when chambering a new round, which confirms the idea that their chambers are a hit too short (depending on ammo brand). Heavy polishing, or reaming the chambers with a "standard" chamber finishing reamer seems to take care of most of that.

There seems to be conflicting info about where they were actually manufactured. The tight chambers would support the notion that they were built somewhere in Europe and imported. This idea, however, contradicts how the frames said "made in USA" cast on their right sides, as well as Stoeger's ads and marketing points. The Stoeger name/brand was apparently involved with lots of holding companies e.g. those that dealt with Sega/Tikka and Beretta/Benelli. Gun designers and manufacturers are sort of incestuous, and individuals and gun models often swung from one side of the Atlantic to the other--and sometimes back again--so it is no wonder that specific info can be difficult to nail down.

There seems to be no data base of Stoeger Luger serial numbers/mfg. dates. Fortunately for Erma collectors, Holger Schlemier has written the definitive Erma book on its history and production. He spent around a decade compiling a serial number data base.