John St,
There are .45 Lugers, and then there are .45 Lugers.
There are two known DWM .45 Lugers, you are right about the liklihood of encountering another (although I think we all secretly dream of finding one).
There are .45 Luger conversions done by a gunsmith named Wyatt (don't know his first name), these are sealed off at the bottom of the handgrip, the grip itself becomes the cartridge carrier. There is a slot in the right grip panel for a tool which pulls down the cartridge follower from the outside, cartriges load from the top. Afaik these guns have rather longish target barrels (the one I have examined was 10" with target sights). I believe less than 100 of these were made.
There are .45 Lugers made by a gunsmith named John Martz. He cut two Luger frames apart lengthwise, offset from their centers, then welded the larger halves together to make a frame wide enough to accommodate a .45-sized magazine; I believe he then made all the other parts to size. These are desirable and well-made pieces, 75 were made.
Gunsmith Mike Krause is currently manufacturing detail reproductions of one of the DWM .45 Lugers. I don't know how many he has produced to date, at $15,000 per gun.
There are rumors, unconfirmed, of one or two sources of .45 Lugers somewhere in Europe.
The 1907 U.S. Test Trials pitting the .45 Luger against the .45 Colt didn't necessarily find the .45 Luger "unreliable", the biggest problem had to do with the suitability of the particular ammunition to the gun. If you track down a copy of Fred Datig's "The Luger Pistol" you can read the original source, he includes the 1907 report in its entirity.
And to answer you other question, any of the .45s described above are more than worthy to this Luger advocate.
--Dwight
|