Stoeger Luger 22 ??

[texas yankee]

Hi - what's the best part of this forum for learing about and asking questions about the Stoeger Luger 22 cal? Thanks!

[padredan]

http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthre...hlight=stoeger you may like this one. Welcome to the forum

[texas yankee]

Nice story - some of my best friends are gun guys I've met as I've learned about different guns.

I'd like to connect with some guys that have more experience with these guns than I do - find a group where I can get some assistance with these two Stoeger Lugers I have - anything I can do to improve the feeding, firing, and extraction reliability. I've identified a few sources for parts and magazines (some are in stock and some back ordered) - I have the owner's manual, and found a good video about field stripping the gun - once I get beyond that, I'm sure that there will be some "fine-tuning" activity - any online communities you guys know of that have had experience with this gun?

Then again, I've read a lot of opinions that simply say they're junk and they'll never be reliable - I don't have a lot of money in the guns, and I'd like to see them working in good order - besides, my Grandson (12) likes shooting my guns, and especially my 22s - THAT'S enough justification for me to put some time into them.

Thanks!

[padredan]

Well good luck with your project. i am really not a good source as the only stoeger .22 i own has only been fired a few times in the twenty nine years i have owned it, but you may have got that from the story. It did lead me to return to my former interest in lugers and this forum, which i may add is great fun, with great people. Have fun enjoy your shooting time ,again welcome to the forum.

[ithacaartist]

Hi Joe,

Welcome to the forum. Though sort of peripheral, discussion of Stoeger and Erma Lugers is just fine in the off topic/other firearms section, and I guess here in new collectors, unless this gets moved by a moderator.

The Stoeger Lugers fall into the same category as Ermas because, strictly speaking, they are mechanically somewhat different when compared to the P-08, or original Lugers.
This said, the beef most people have with them is due to issues of reliability in feeding, firing, and ejecting. Some of the Luger wannabes are constructed with diecast parts, which are notoriously weak and tend to wear out prematurely. Stoegers used both steel and alloy frames, depending on the vintage, and I believe their upper assemblies are steel. Both Erma and Stoeger generally have no problem with accuracy.

To repeat what I've posted a couple of times earlier, they are fun to shoot when they are working well, but the ones that revert to cranky function can be a real challenge. I have some Ermas, but I think I can extrapolate and give you some pointers to consider when you are trying out your Stoeger .22.

Clean your pistol thoroughly, then lubricate it liberally. Be sure to remove any buildup from the chamber, and be sure to soak and blow out the area under the extractor and the well in the front of the breech block--where the rim of the shell will fit. The wannabes are like real Lugers in these respects. Another similarity is that a fresh set of action and firing pin springs, and possibly the extractor spring, may bring it back to functionality. (Some are available at http://www.gunpartscorp.com/catalog/...gs&catid=10430 Searching for more is another challenge.)

First, check the mag to see if it is straight and true and the spring action smooth and robust. Through use, the feed lips will tend to spread. In the extreme of this situation, you'll have problems even inserting the mag, and at the very least, the splayed lips will feed improperly for a number of reasons. If yours is bent like this, lay it on a smooth piece of wood and tap it with a leather or wooden mallet where it is swollen or puffed up. Angles of the lips can be adjusted with duck bill pliers or similar, taking care not to bung up the finish. Use a needle file to remove burrs and sharp edges. Load a few rounds and strip them off the mag with your thumbnail to get an idea how things are flowing; you'll be able to detect catchy spots, general drag in the motion of the shell, and weird angles of presentation to the breech by checking this way. Trial and error may be the words of the day.

The Ermas are definitely ammo sensitive, as well, and I'd bet the Stoegers are, too. Start with sub sonic or standard velocity loads, as this is what was available when the gun was designed and manufactured. Work your way up in muzzle velocity and bullet weight to find out what your pistol works best with. Try round nose, hollow point, copper plated, different brands of ammo--jeez, there's a million variables--and soon you will establish your pistol's preferred diet. The idea here is to discover just what load will function the action fully without overpowering, which would beat the action parts to premature death. The magnitude and duration of ignition pulse, or force, plus the weight/velocity of the slug are what affects the "oomph" to which the action is subjected.

Running these pistols "wet" will often improve their reliability. Try a mag or two without, but if you get problems in feeding, try squirting silicone lube into the mag through the follower's slot. Pull down on the follower and rattle the rounds a bit to distribute the lube, then shake and wipe off the excess before inserting into pistol.

Perhaps yours will perform just fine, as some actually do, but these tips may help you get it working a little better in the event it does not. I think I frightened another prospective Erma owner the other day into not making the purchase, but if you already have the gun, I think it's worth a bit of tinkering, which I've found to be fairly rewarding when working with these cranky little .22s. If yours turns out to be problematic, it can still be fun to play with and perhaps find the golden combination of factors to cure its ills.

hope this helps...

DEP

p.s. Hey, I was a Texas Yankee in Austin in 1976, working at Louis Shanks' furniture store!

[texas yankee]

WOW - thanks for all the great information - lots to digest - I plan to field strip the guns this weekend and add in the additional tasks you've suggsted - then it'll be off to the range the next weekend to see how they do.

I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to share your experience with me - THANKS!

Joe

[texas yankee]

I got one of my two Stoeger's field stripped yesterday evening - it was pretty dirty inside, and there was a lot of gummy residue - a can of WalMart carb cleaner got all the goo out of the gun so it's now nice and clean.

I also used the carb cleaner on the magazine - I removed the magazine follower button from what I believe are the OEM magazines, but I couldn't get the follower out - any suggestions there? I can manually operate the follower and slide it up and down smoothly without any problems, and the spring seems strong enough to firmly push up the follower.

I'm guessing that if the magazine's feed lips were bent, that the follower would come out of the magazine when the follower button is removed - it doesn't come out, so I guess the feed lips are OK.

I'd like to replace the drive spring especially but also some of the other springs, but I can't locate all of them - for now, if a good cleaning doesn't get it running right, I'll have to look harder or investigate somethign from Wolff. I'd also like to replace the extractor spring, but I'm hesitant to punch out the pin for the extractor - the extractor seems to be functioning fine.

I also cleaned out the chamber area in the barrel - with the gun field stripped, before I cleaned it, I noticed that when I manually put a 22LR round into the chamber, there was a slight bit of resistance and resistance when I took it out - no resistance at all after cleaning the gun and the chamber.

The extractor seems to be working correctly, but I'm not sure how much of a grab it's supposed to have on the lip of the case - with my other guns, if I seat a round against the bolt face, the extractor holds onto the case enough so that if I shake the bolt, the round stays firmly seated - that's not at all the case here - it barely holds the case up against the face and the round falls away easily. The extractor seems solid in the block, and moves up and down OK, but just doesn't seem to have much of a hold on the case - are the mechanics of ejecting a 22LR round that different than with other guns?

I'm gonna hit it again with carb cleaner later today, and give it a good scrub with a toothbrush.

Thanks in advance for any help with this !

Joe

[ithacaartist]

Joe,
I'd say the general mechanics of extraction and ejection are very general in application to most auto pistols, though the pertinent parts, or their equivalents, may be located and arranged a bit differently. Something needs to drag the round out of the chamber, and something needs to flick the shell case out of the action. One example I can give is that the ejector for one version of the .22 conversion kits uses the top right feed lip of the mag. It "shows up" where the original ejector would during the cycle; the latter is removed during installation of the kit for clearance purposes.
I'd say the test of the extractor spring is how it functions. The extractor needs to catch enough so that the round is dragged straight back out out the chamber--until the base of the case encounters the ejector, which will flip the case up. It pivots on the extractor's claw until it escapes this influence--when the angle of rotation of the flipped case is great enough to bring its rim our from behind the edge of the claw. I'm not sure if the case needs to be held so firmly to the breech block that it withstands earthquakes. But it wold have to stay put during its trip straight back until ejected. My concern was the possibility of a buildup of goop under the extractor sufficient to impede either its range of motion or the smoothness thereof. The solvent/compressed air approach would address most goop issues sufficiently, so you' need to remove the pin and scrub out everything thus exposed, only if you suspect rust, corrosion, or crud that will not blow out. Incomplete or impeded motion of the extractor after the easy method would signal the need for the more thorough approach.

I noticed that you got good results from attention to the chamber! A good, smooth fit here certainly won't hurt, and may actually help.

Deformed or splayed feed lips aren't necessarily visible to the eye. Using a set of parallel jaw machinists' calipers would determine if the mag sides are straight from front to back. You wouldn't necessarily see this holding it up and looking. I guess if the follower spontaneously popped out of the top, between the lips, that mag would be seriously bent!

To remove the follower, it is necessary to remove the mag bottom. This is tricky to do without deforming the mag body in the area of the pin that holds the bottom in. Back up the body with hard wood or plastic underneath, You'll need relief holes, properly sized and located, for the knob on the mag bottom and for the pin, itself. The more accurate the holes, the better the results. The pin would then be tapped out using a punch of just slightly smaller dia. than the pin. I use a small plastic needle-nosed clamp to reach in thru the follower button's slot in the side, and compress the follower spring so that the mag's guts are loose, not under spring pressure. This will save hunting all over the work area with a flashlight and magnet to retrieve flown-away parts! But save this operation until it is made necessary by the need to change a part inside, or remove crud or corrosion not addressable from the outside. The tapped-in fit of the pin in the mag bottom will allow its removal and re-insertion several times, but at risk would be the need to install a new, larger pin if the hole is overworked and becomes over-sized. Finally, for re-insertion, check that the pin is smooth--no burrs on either end, which could scrape material from the inside of the hole.

DP

[texas yankee]

Well, have had both of the guns apart again, cleaned them completely again, and I purchased two OEM mags for my Stoeger Lugers - the new mags locked into the magwell a lot more securely and reliably than the mags that came with the gun, and the mag springs in the new mags looked a lot more robust than the springs in the old mags.

But, even with the new mags, I'm still seeing two types of jams \ failures - 1) the rounds are failing to get out of the magazine and into the chamber reliably, and 2) FTE problems.

For #1, my non-expert opinion after observing the gun working, is that the rounds are not being presented from the magazine to the chamber correctly - maybe it's needing the feed lips adjusted - I am seeing mainly two types of jams here - the rounds not even getting out of the magazine and into the chamber, and the other scenario is where the rounds get almost al the way into the chamber but I have to tap the top of the toggle to get the gun to go fully into battery.

For #2, I've cleaned the barrel with several differetn brushes and solvents, but I plan on trying to polish the chamber area to eliminate any potential issues with the chamber holding on to the rounds and causing ejection problems.

Any suggestions at this point?

[JTD]

I shoot CCI mini mags, and never have a problem in mine. John

[texas yankee]

Glad yours is working OK - I tried the CCI mini mags and had pretty much the same lousy results as with the other types of ammo I tried.

[padredan]

i to use mini mag with good results, but my gun was unfired till a few years ago. To be truthful i have seen it time an time again with the stoger .22 some will just not function no matter what you do, and most of those were the alloy frame ones, your problems are the same as those. at some point you just stop trying , sorry to say you may have reached that point, good luck.

[texas yankee]

May I ask a favor of you guys with working Stoeger Lugers ??

I've once again stripped down and thoroughly cleaned my two Stoeger Lugers - I have paid particular attention to the chamber area, using a cleaning brush and solvent and even polishing it a bit afterwards - I've also cleaned the bolt face and extractor areas thoroughly - and, since my Stoegers were both having problems going fully into battery, since I couldn't get a new (stronger) driver spring, I put in a shim for the driver spring inside the bolt where the spring fits.

I'd like to eliminate any problems with how the rounds are coming out of the new (OEM) magazines I purchased - the feed lips may need some adjusting - it'd be really helpful to see some pictures of how the rounds are supposed to get presented when they are coming out of the magazine correctly, in a gun that's working correctly.

If this last round of activity doesn't get them working, they'll be listed in the "Gunsmith Specials" section of a few For Sale boards . . . .

Thanks in advance for any help.

Joe

[ithacaartist]

The new mags touted at places like mag clip depot to be OEM often are NOT, for the Luger wannabe .22s. Triple K (not racist) is one maker whose work is kinda chintzy, departing almost entirely from the shape of the OEM mags' lips--This is true of the Ermas, and may well be the case for Stoeger Luger .22s. Exactly what is going on mechanically will be difficult to describe to us, but I can give you some general info. on a few things to look for prior to taking any action.

One way mag lips can be out of whack is by being either too far apart or too close together. If they are too far apart, the geometry of this situation dictates that the top round would ride too high in its resting position. The symptoms of this would include failure to fully cycle. Potentially, if the action doesn't make it to the end of its task and sort of runs out of enough steam to avoid consistent cocQing, fully and cleanly ejecting, picking up the next round and feed it correctly, or secure return to battery. The breech block's bottom may leave telltale scrapes on the next round below in the mag.

Check just how the breech block approaches the top shell when it's cycled slowly by hand, to see how things line up, and if the round is pushed straight towards the breech, or takes off at an angle, left or right. If the front of the lips allows the round to follow a path that is effectively slanted left or right of the desired direction of travel, they would nee to be trued to adjust for straight travel--and parallel.

This would be a good time to see if the round's nose pops up prematurely as it travels to battery, in such a way as to allow the nose to catch on the top edge of the chamber. If this is happening, the front of the lips are too far apart because they should have a gap that is as tight to the sides of the round as possible as it passes without binding--so that the round just whiffs past them. This will calm the motion of the round and help it stay settled down for the feed ramp to take over and guide the bottom side of the round's nose into the chamber. Any closer, and the resistance that results will slow down the action, causing problems again as energy needed to return the action to battery with the new round will be bled off by the need to squeeze the round out from between lips that are too tight for slick passage.

If the feed lips are too close together,t the top round will ride too low in the lips to be picked up consistently by the breech block as it returns to battery., an almost insignificant adjustment can sometimes turn the tide in favor of reliable function; just got to find out what that adjustment is!

[texas yankee]

Thanks again for all the guidance, but I have enough projects to work on, so my two Stoeger Lugers are up for sale - if ya know anyone that's interested, please send them my way.

http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthre...519#post223519