Chronographing lugers

[ithacaartist]

In the pic of the three casings...notice the triangular mark at the mouth of the case on the left. I have encountered this before, with my SS 90s Luger, only in mirror-image. One leg of the triangle is a hard line; mine would have been on the opposite side of the triangle. With a couple rounds Magic-marked and oriented with the mark at the extractor notch when in battery (so when I retrieved the brass, I could reconcile the dent on the shell with the extractor notch, thereby able to see which side of the action it was encountering on the way out), I chased this problem down to the extractor, which was whacking the mouth of the case against a square corner on the left, inside the barrel extension when the ejecting, resulting in the the very same mark. The stainless steel karate chop my brass was getting on the way out included a galled-up burr. This seemed to me to require remediation, if I was going to save my 9mm for reloading.

Upon inspection, the left side of the extractor's claw hung down a little further than the other, and I reasoned that when the ejector was encountered, the extractor would pull the shell to the left when kicked by the ejector. After a bit of filing to make the extractor claw closer to symmetrical, the gall no longer appeared, only a slight deformation. I quit while ahead, since there are no spare parts for these guns.

Anywho, that shell in the pic leads me to believe that the Luger that fired it has a damaged extractor... The right side of the claw is longer, I'll bet.