Stainless Lugers

[Rick W.]

I don't have a lot of background with the stainless Lugers other being burned at the stake on many occasion here for shooting one...............and........for a long time..... smiling and shooting said stainless Lugers with good results fwiw. Thanks for folks driving down pricing so I could have multiples.....

I think I find the Stoeger marked stainless guns the prettiest. Just my opinion there. With that said, nothing really equals the originals; but that is true in most things.

I remember seeing the pencil barreled black Luger down in Houston some years ago. Had the fancy toggles even and.........yes, the 4.75". For a long time, I thought that the commemorative(?) version was only in black over stainless. Then I saw a forum member show the same pencil barreled pistol in plain stainless. I believe it is shown in the old section of old pictures.

I agree the early days of stainless automatic handguns was a learning experience for makers, but guess gotta start somewhere. Learned about the galling characteristics of two similar metals rubbed together, the designers finally got past that for the most part. Dissimilar metal types I guess. Lubes help, proper lubes that I know nothing about...and don't wanna. Web is full of wonderous knowledge.

My first stainless Luger featured a separated barrel extension. I attributed that to hot(very, very) loads, and somewhat to the execution of an design enhancement in the left side sear bar area. I have noticed some burnishing of the ramps on one pistol, but as stated in a previous post, he and I both dressed the ramp area down and things worked out.

Collectors like rarity or perceived rarity. If one looks at the numbers of stainless versus wartime or chromemoly versions, the stainless has some rarity points. Only when the flippers recognize or indulge in the hype of rarity of these stainless guns will the value go up exponentially. Just take a look at the growth in the Interarms markets of their Lugers done on old Swiss support(redone a lot), used to buy them for $300 as many as you wanted because they were not real Lugers.........now the number is 3x-5x because they have been "discovered" as perhaps real Lugers............odd how life is sometimes, have to smile about such a little.