Any have an idea?

[ss454ls61970]

Originally Posted by lugerholsterrepair

Mike..don't bother to look for witness marks..a large portion of your top Cannon/fork has been ground away and replaced by the oversized barrel. I would say at least 3/8ths or more. This means your chamber area..where the date would normally be... must be quite narrow.
I would consider this to be a severe structural breach bordering on what the heck were they thinking?
Regardless of any serial # on the barrel...this is not a real Luger anymore. It has been severly comprimised.
I don't remember from reading the thread if you ever mentioned the calibur. Is there a hole in the barrel? What size it it and is there a chamber area? Have you ever seated a round in it?
I just re read the thread.. John Sabato says-by machining off the face of the upper and using a homemade barrel... This is not a factory modification in my opinion. This exactly my opinion and I sure would NOT fire a round in this weapon.
Ed Tinker says this looks like a proof barrel and I disagree. Any Luger made with a stronger thicker barrel could start where they all do..no need to grind off the face of the top cannon in the breech area..simply make the barrel fatter. In your pistols case they ground away metal and then replaced it with the same amount. No gain there.
Besides which.. a fatter stronger barrel defeats the purpose of proofing. A proof cartridge is made 50% hotter to proof the barrel. In other words.. with much more pressure will the type of barrel made and used stand up to extroidinary pressures? Makes no sense to make a bigger fatter barrel.
This looks very much like a Bubba hack job to me.
Another important aspect to consider, if this were some special factory test piece it would have SOME markings indicating something about it.
I have a 1917 Imperial Navy that has a very large V stamped over the chamber. My belief is that it stands for Verschucs(spelling?) or test. Of course test can also be Pr�¼fung. This and one other 4" pistol I discovered in Europe were marked the same way. What they were testing I can't say for sure but it might have been the change from the truncated cone cartridge to the ogive shaped ones.
The front sight is likely missing because bubba did not have the machine skills to mill it on there. He simply carved out a barrel from round stock and left the sight off to be silver soldered on later.

__________________

Jerry Burney

let me get this straight you saying that my great grandfather did a bubba hack job??? and kept it secret ...um for what purpose?

Whay are you cutting into me so hard?