Jesse,
Here are my guesses...I am hoping some of our Swiss members who live in CH and elsewhere may correct me if my guesses are wrong.
As to your 2nd. question : I am not sure if it is known which lugers went home with retiring soldiers and which ones were eventually sold on the surplus arms market sale. I would suspect the Swiss would have keep meticulous records but I have not seen mention of such records (if they still survive).
As to your 1st. question : Ordnance lugers were clearly marked with Swiss Ordnance inspector stampings and after 1909, all Ordnance lugers, only, had the Swiss cross/shield chamber marking.
So it would be pretty easy for officers and administrators in the field and elsewhere to know an Ordnance luger from a privately owned one or a commercial one.
If a retiring soldier/officer decided to keep his luger (as I understand at no cost to him) it was private release stamped. I think this was done so others in the future could spot a current Ordnance luger from one taken out of service and given to the retiree. If a current officer or Ordnance amorer got a P-released luger in his hands, mistakenly, he would know immediately that this gun was taken out of Ordnance use and should not be in their current inventory. Maybe a retried gun mistakenly made its way back into service with a son of a retire soldier or officer. I would think the Swiss Ordnance folks would only want "current" Ordnance pistols in their ranks and not be responsible for old, retired ones mistakenly creeping back into the Ordnance hardware inventory. The P-release stamping might just have been a QA/QC stamping so such retired lugers could be spotted easily and kept out of the Ordnance inventory.
As I understand, if a retiring soldier or officer did not decide he wanted to keep his luger when he left the CH service, his gun was returned to the Ordnance arsenal, possibly reworked mechanically and/or cosmetically if this was needed, probably had some safety checks done on the luger, and then the luger was re-issued to the next soldier/officer. It is possible one luger stayed in Ordnance use for many, many years and was issued and used by many Swiss soldiers/officers.
As the lugers were eventually replaced by the SIG pistol in around 1949, all lugers still in Ordnance use were taken away from current active duty staff who were then issued the new SIG sidearm. Those lugers remaining in service after 1949 were then sold off to the surplus arms trade and market. It may have taken a couple of years for all the Old Ordnance lugers to be recalled from the field and get replace with the new SIG sidearm.
Once these old Ordnance lugers were sold off to the surplus arms market, there was no need to P-release stamp them...as the Swiss Ordnance was through with them and no longer needed to track lugers in current Ordnance use versus the previously "gifted" lugers old retirees received. In other words, the luger becomes 100% obsolete and the Ordnance folks no longer had to worry about them.
In closing...my comments above are just WAG's...I have no documentation to support this...but it makes common sense and seems simple.
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