Newbie With First Luger:

[gvf]

Newbie Luger: After test firing my Luger last night, which went well, tonight I had a lot of jams and a very odd thing with the magazine. I could not get the mag out when the jams happened, so I locked the slide back, turned the gun so the unfired round dropped out, then either took the mag out which then was easy and shot again, or sometimes I left the mag in the gun after being sure the round was out, released the slide etc and fired again. The rounds that jammed were half in/half out of the barrel, pointed up I think. Once two rounds fell out, so some kinds of double-feed.

After the last jam and clearing it (the mag was in the gun), I released the slide after the slight pull back, and shot the last two rounds.

But when I took the mag out it was rough, like sand was in the runners where the mag moves up. Same when I inserted it. It took a slight effort and felt very rough inside the hilt. It was never like this before or after the first cleaning and lube.

I looked at the mag and there are scrapes on the narrow back, running about and inch down from the top. There also looks like in the same place there is a slightly raised area in mid-back of the mag, running the same inch. There are also three little circles, 16th of an inch or so, also in the raised area, and I think they indent inwards.

That raised area could scrape against the hilt's runners.

A guy who works at the range examined the lips and thought there was a slight difference between the two. He also noticed the Follower was over to one side of the
mag on top. I noticed that but the lips: hard for me to tell. He suggested perhaps the follower banged around in there and pushed the back of the mag out a bit at that one spot.

I'm going to use an after-market mag and show the mag that came with the gun to that Smith who knows Lugers, the one I mentioned.

I never had a mag, after a jam and then a shot, suddenly become so much harder to take out or insert and have metal scraping metal.

Pretty weird. Have any thoughts about what's going on: the jams and the magazine scraping suddenly?

Also what's the best after-market mag for a very manageable amount of money?

Last, I noticed the rounds in the mag really point up at a greater angle than I usually see. That the way they are supposed to be?

Thanks if you have any idea what 's going on.

[rhuff]

Get yourself a couple(or more) Mec-Gar P08 mags. They are the best aftermarket luger mags available. Go to Greg Cote LLC site. Last time I looked, he had them for sale. His prices are as good, or better, then most. A good mag may well solve all of your problems. One has to remember that some of these original mags(including springs) are 100 years old, and have been used!!

[gvf]

Originally Posted by rhuff

Get yourself a couple(or more) Mec-Gar P08 mags. They are the best aftermarket luger mags available. Go to Greg Cote LLC site. Last time I looked, he had them for sale. His prices are as good, or better, then most. A good mag may well solve all of your problems. One has to remember that some of these original mags(including springs) are 100 years old, and have been used!!

Thanks, Mec-Gar was mentioned by others.

But that obviously will not be original to the gun if I sell it sometime while the present mag could be, unknown since there are no numbers on it, but I read somewhere with these guns, ones that eventually became police, and some of those Blank-Toggles, that was not uncommon, I think even with mags that matched the guns.

So, even if shoot with a good Mec-Gar I'd still like the present one available that works. Go to a gunsmith for that like I'm doing?

Thanks a lot for the quick diagnosis and cure (hopefully).

Jerry