WTK: What the He!! is Strawing?

[Frank]

I am not the expert on Strawing, but the "small" parts of Some Lugers are gold colored from a heat treatment (not plated or painted) These are the trigger, take down lever, magazine release button, safety lever and ejector. Most Luger before mid 1937 had strawed parts and most after did not. The same dates can be used for rust blueing and dip blueing. Rust blueing goes with the strawed parts. The reason the Germans discontinued the rust/straw practice was that it was labor intensive, thus took more time.


Several pretty good books on Lugers in general are Lugers at Random, by Kenyon and The Luger Book by Walter. If you are interested in a specific era of Lugers, Jan C. Still has a series covering three periods that are pretty good. Hope this helps.