To shoot, or not to shoot my WW2 Luger

[mrerick]

Unnecessary comment withdrawn... No reason to stir up controversy over opinions... I really don't care what someone else does with their collectible firearms.

In fact, it's really fun to shoot Lugers, and gets attention at the range... I have a shooter Luger with finish issues for shooting...

I'll defer to Ed for the number of extant Simson Lugers versus the 12,000 made. His April 2017 list has 674 known, and there might well be double that number out there.

So... 12% of the Simson Lugers may still exist, and 6% are known to collectors. One more more or less doesn't change that much...

The only reason someone would ask about firing a collectible firearm on a forum like this is that they are anxious about damaging it in the first place, and are looking for some kind of support for firing it. Those that encourage shooting it have the effect of enabling this action.

I really have no objection to someone else doing it. There are photographs and stories of damaged pistols available if someone searches for them. There are probably many more instances of firing a gun a few times with no ill effect. After all, they were made for shooting...

Of course, military organizations fielded a number of armory services to repair firearms. They also did not focus on keeping matching originality in their guns.

We get the questions all the time, and consistently give both answers - shoot and don't shoot. I doubt that will change in the future.