My "Baby" is complete; baby luger that is!

[DonVoigt]

You fellows have heard bits and snippits of my project to build a compact or "baby" luger.

Well it arrived from a fresh re-finish by Charles Danner and am I a very happy camper!

First I must say thanks to all my friends and folks here who have helped me with the project.

I drew the plans and co-ordinated the work, did the easy parts myself. It is basically a mismatched Mauser luger with a 2.75" 9mm bull barrel upper and a 2.75" 7,65mm normal profile upper with the frame shortened 0.5" to 7 shot capacity.

Here is the list of who done it:

Barrels-9mm 2.75" bull - GT(Gerald Tomek);
7,65mm 2.75"- my friend and super machinist Steve Quinn

Frame- cut and welded by Neil Keller

Grips- Jim Solomon

Toggle scallop- Rich Brennan

magazine shortening- GT

Refinish- rust blue, straw, fire blue by Charles Danner

Without them it would still be an idea, a pile of pieces, and ugly!

The most difficult part for me was making and fine tuning the main spring- to work with the light and short 7,65mm barrel and with the short, but heavy 9mm barrel. This took me some weeks and a lot of use of the mainspring tool made also by Jim Solomon. I did all the test firing before finish so as not to damage the final finish.

The finished pictures are below. I do now wish I had started with a slick back frame and pieces with fewer pits. When I decided to build this, I didn't want to damage or destroy any pieces with significant value, so I chose mixed up and lesser quality parts.
Had I known how it would turn out, I'da done better choosing.

I'll be adding some posts with pictures of the work in process so all can see how the final piece came to be.

[Edward Tinker]

That really looks cool - I am not much of a baby guy, but I like them, both the heavy barrel and the 'normal' one.

I understand how sometimes you would want something different. For my carbine, luckily Eugene talked me into using some better parts. But I wish I had used a Simson toggle and upper...

Ed

[DonVoigt]

Thanks Ed,
Eugene gave good advice, as he knew it would "turn out"!
We "do it yourself and catch as catch can" guys have to be careful.

My first idea was for it to be a rough pocket pistol; but now I'm not so convinced.

A Simson carbine would be pretty cool for sure.

[Vlim]

I know its an issue over there but this would look nice with a custom baby stock

[Eugen]

Don, well that is an impressive, creative work of art. It appears you had the Luger varsity team on this project to bring the little Franken-baby to life. Don, hats off to you and the team. Beautiful, simply beautiful!

[DonVoigt]

Thanks Vlim,
I had not thought of that- but a reason to have the lug intact!

Originally Posted by Vlim

I know its an issue over there but this would look nice with a custom baby stock

[DTR04]

Originally Posted by DonVoigt

I do now wish I had started with a slick back frame and pieces with fewer pits. When I decided to build this, I didn't want to damage or destroy any pieces with significant value, so I chose mixed up and lesser quality parts.
Had I known how it would turn out, I'da done better choosing.

Well, now you know how to build the next one.

Very nice.

[John Sabato]

Originally Posted by Vlim

I know its an issue over there but this would look nice with a custom baby stock

Since the form factor doesn't reproduce anything in Luger history, I would suggest that the custom stock be REALLY custom and engineer it to be collapsible so it would fit in a hard case with the pistol... just my musings this morning...

Perhaps a merging of these three items ( an appropriate piece of buttstock, a stock iron, and a collapsible baton) could be the inspiration?

let's see what you come up with... OH! ... and Don't forget to buy the $200.00 BATFE Short Barreled Rifle (SBR) tax stamp before you attach it to the gun!

[sheepherder]

I like the interchangeable uppers idea. The slab barrel really needs a micrometer rear sight.

I would pass on the buttstock, but a shorty C96-style wood holster would be cool...

[Olle]

I love it!

I have been thinking about doing something like that, but haven't been able to figure out exactly where to cut the grip frame, how much to shorten it and so on. I figure it will take some measuring and head scratching to make sure the spring will still fit, figure out how much the mag can be shortened and so on. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, so do you have any dimensions and/or project pictures so we can get an idea of how it's done?

[Olle]

Originally Posted by John Sabato

Since the form factor doesn't reproduce anything in Luger history, I would suggest that the custom stock be REALLY custom and engineer it to be collapsible so it would fit in a hard case with the pistol... just my musings this morning...

Some kind of steampunk steel/brass/leather construction would be cool. Maybe use the Ideal stock as a starting point?

[DonVoigt]

Ollie,
the quick answer is no, no drawings.
The better answer is just cut exactly 0.5" from the frame below the web for the upper mainspring seat. The guy that did the cutting used edm and build a jig to hold it for steel welding.
Notice there is no silver solder band as is common, as it is welded.

Also shorten the mainspring strut 1/2", and the mainspring itself you have to play with a bit as it must be cut to fit in the shorter space.

I do have pictures I'll be adding as I get time.

Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by Olle

I love it!

I have been thinking about doing something like that, but haven't been able to figure out exactly where to cut the grip frame, how much to shorten it and so on. I figure it will take some measuring and head scratching to make sure the spring will still fit, figure out how much the mag can be shortened and so on. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, so do you have any dimensions and/or project pictures so we can get an idea of how it's done?

[DonVoigt]

A stock kind of defeats the purpose of making the pistol smaller.
So I won't be going that way, maybe someone else?

Originally Posted by John Sabato

Since the form factor doesn't reproduce anything in Luger history, I would suggest that the custom stock be REALLY custom and engineer it to be collapsible so it would fit in a hard case with the pistol... just my musings this morning...

Perhaps a merging of these three items ( an appropriate piece of buttstock, a stock iron, and a collapsible baton) could be the inspiration?

let's see what you come up with... OH! ... and Don't forget to buy the $200.00 BATFE Short Barreled Rifle (SBR) tax stamp before you attach it to the gun!

[dnickels]

Walther did the same thing with one of the later versions of the P38. Two actually. The P4 has a shortened barrel, bobbed hammer, and the safety removed; all to make the gun more streamlined and smooth. The P38K produced around the same time had a tiny barrel like The Man From Uncle gun.