Glen,
To me stainless Lugers fall into two basic types; Mitchell and later.
The Mitchell seems to be a direct copy of the original, abeit the basic materials, stainless was new in handguns in that time period and most companies went thru difficulties in using stainless. A lot of vintage parts can be used in these stainless Mitchells.
The magazines for Mitchells that I have seen look like vintage Luger magazines to me.
The later stainless Lugers had some updates for various reasons of the day, one was in the magazine. A newer magazine was made up, thicker in girth than the Mitchell types. So one can insert a Mitchell type in a later, but the vice versa is not true.
Vintage parts as replacement parts for the later stainless Lugers is smallish in scope, stainless parts have always been shy; but some vintage parts like extractors will be ok.
My shooter Luger is basically vintage in frame and receiver, the barrel is custom(14") and the toggle train is all stainless. So some(not all) commonality is there between vintage and stainless, just gotta be familiar enough to get there.
As mentioned, these stainless Lugers were on the beginning of using stainless in auto pistols. Problems surfaced such as gauling of some moving parts. One sees some of these stainless Lugers almost beat to death with using extremely hot loads.
The left side of the later stainless receiver has a weakness in my opinion of a hole for the sear bar, some of these have cracked over the years; mostly due to right hot loads and lots of them.
A Luger in general is not always friendly to the new user, especially those new to shooting in general. Takes a little time to get to know the pistol and the loads that will work ok. Hot loads in any Luger, vintage or otherwise; are kinda hard on them FWIW. You will read on the net that stainless Lugers are more fussy about ammo than the vintage ones; but in truth; both can be fussy.
The stainless variant is one that we may never see again. With that said, I never thought I would see the 45acp Luger on board or much less a new stainless Automag in 44amp. With todays machinery($$$$) and expertise, anything is possible.
You will see a lot of nay on the stainless Lugers. Some of that is environment sorta speak; some is not. I have shot a stainless 6" for a long, long time.........it is still together and I still enjoy it; but I try to treat it good, or the best I can.
I suspect that I will never get another one, and tis not the fault of the stainless Luger itself.
I sincerely hope that you get to see it in person.
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