What does ERMA stand for?

[ithacaartist]

Richard,

I've bought a few Ermas recently and have a fairly comprehensive collection of examples of the "Luger Wannabe" style models. (La.22, Ep.22, Et.22, KGP69[a .22], and KGP69a--which is a .380. I also have one of the post war .22 conversion kits installed in my Mauser 29/70.)

Over the past months, I've been experimenting and working with these. I've replaced springs in most of them, along with several front toggle links that have broken--this on account of using ammo that was too hot--during attempts to find the ammo format they work best with.

Their reputation is sort of polarized in that some consider them worthless junk, others have examples that shoot just about any ammo and have never failed. I'm somewhere in the middle and think that though there are shortcomings in design and potential function, they can be set up to work fairly well until the springs need to be replaced.

The Ep/Et/La series is the one that breaks their Zamak toggle parts because overpowered loads will hyper-extend the "decorative" toggle action, hammering the breech block against the rear toggle link, and forcing the upper corners of the rear of the breech block to become pivot points in the resultant tearing of the ears from the front toggle link.

If you're going to buy and shoot one of these, start with fresh springs from Bob's Gun Parts ($25 for complete set) and sub-sonic ammo, working your way up in f/sec rating until the load gives proper energy to functioning of the action. (40 gr. round nose) Also, the mag lips must be just so to feed correctly.

Do a search of the forum for these threads, in which lots of this has been discussed; too lengthy to describe all over again here, but will tell all I know if specifically asked.

The KGP's are better mechanically and metallurgically. Granted, their frames are still Zamak, but interaction between them and the steel upper only occurs when assembling or dismantling the pistol. All the upper and action in these is steel. These are the best behaved of my lot, particularly the .380, which makes as big a bark when it goes off as it is cute--the smallest of the Luger Lookalikes.

David Parker

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by ithacaartist

Granted, their frames are still Zamak...

Interestingly, the British made some buttplates for the Enfield No 4 rifle out of Zamak. I don't have the exact description of that alloy handy, but I sent off a Zamak buttplate to a fellow Enfield Forum member a couple months back (most Enfield buttplates were made of brass)...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zamak (formerly trademarked as ZAMAK[1] and also known as Zamac) is a family of alloys with a base metal of zinc and alloying elements of aluminium, magnesium and copper. Zamak alloys are part of the zinc aluminium alloy family; they are distinguished from the other ZA alloys because of their constant 4% aluminium composition.[2] The name zamak is an acronym of the German names for the metals of which the alloys are composed: Zink (zinc), Aluminium, Magnesium and Kupfer (copper).[2] The New Jersey Zinc Company developed zamak alloys in 1929. While zinc alloys are popularly referred to as pot metal or white metal, zamak is held to higher industrial standards.

(Pic, L to R: steel, brass, Zamak)