Magazine Useâ??European Contingent?

[Dwight Gruber]

We hear much speculation about why so few Lugers have matching magazines. However, is it possible to find out about magazine use from the source?

The numbers of veterans who used these guns in battle must be dwindling as surely as are the veterans on the other side of the line. Would it be possible for the Forum correspondents in Europe to interview any of those veterans, to find out the conditions of their use?

When they were issued pistols, if they were not the original issue, were the magazines still matched to the guns? When they used them, did they take care to reload and use the original magazines, or did they use whichever was at hand? Did they obtain extra magazines to use, more than the originally issued pair? Did they even notice, or care about magazine matches? Was there any official requirement to keep matching magazines with their guns? Was their any penalty for losing a magazine, matching or not?

--Dwight