Shocking discovery shooting an 06/29 today....

[biffj]

its a fantastic shooter. I've been shooting Lugers in 9mm and 7.65 since the mid 70's but never liked the look of the new production mausers or the Swiss 06/29's. I find once again that judging by looks only works with girlfriends....maybe not then either. I fired my 06 Bern, 06/29 and SIG 210-2 today and promptly decided that the 06/29 is a keeper. The 06 Bern is a wonderful piece and shoots like the Lugers I remember so well but the 06/29 has a much better feel and the trigger is actually crisp and sharp. I was surprised at that since the Luger trigger is a poster child for creepy mushy triggers everywhere. I retract all the nasty things I said about the 06/29's and apologize to the Swiss and the whole Luger community. Even with the crappy winchester ammo I had it kept an excellent group.
The SIG worked quite well too though we had some issues with the slide closing all the way but the ammo was the problem there. I always expected perfection from the SIG and wasn't disappointed. No surprises there.

Biff

[Ice]

Can't explain why but some Lugers have excellent triggers. Maybe the internals in some are fitted more closely and are smoother than others. My wife and I have a couple, including her byf 42 VOPO shooter, that have crisp light trigger function. Glad that your 06 Bern is such a fine piece.

Charlie

[Piet]

I do not now the English term we call "voortrek" I can describe it as a "pre" movement of the trigger, before you get the solid feel of the trigger. If you press further the shot goes off just on pressure without any other "pre" movement.
My 1911 Luger does exactly that, and once one is used to it, one knows exactly when the shot will be fired. This is the only Luger I ever fired and are surprised about the comment in general about the Luger's ability
Maybe the 1911 was before mass production?
Piet

[Mauser720]

Piet -

I think a commonly accepted English term for this "pre-movement" of the trigger is "slack."

In a sentence if would be something like this: "After you take up the slack in the trigger, you will feel the trigger become more solid or firm just prior to firing."

At least this is how I've heard it referred to, etc.

Mauser720 - Ron

[Piet]

Ron,
Yes it makes sense. Thanks for the explenation.
Piet

[FNorm]

Or a two stage trigger. You take up slack until you get to firmer sear movement.

[biffj]

Most Lugers seem to have a little of the 2 stage pull but most are draggy and creepy. This 1929 has a very smooth takeup with a very crisp letoff. I am probably going to need to find a shooter 29 since this one is in really nice shape. I hate to wear it out but I'd like to shoot it....
I think the 06 Bern will stay with the Swiss rifle collection / display.

Biff

[FNorm]

I think it's pretty hard to wear out a pistol. For instance; an M1 Garand usually needs a new barrel after about 5000 rnds. The muzzle velocity is around 2650fps, and there's throat erosion. A luger with 1000-1100 fps is much easier on the barrel. Of course, pistol shooters do throw a lot more lead, but with proper care you should get thousands of shots down range.

What do the heavy Lugers shooters of have to say? No, I'm not talking large waisted marksmen....

FN

[PhilOhio]

I don't know about the heavy Luger shooters, but what I have to say is...

I have a bunch of pistols and never shoot any one of them a lot. BUT I do a lot of shooting. With handguns, I never ever fire a jacketed bullet. I cast all of mine, and reload for about 30 different cartridges. Use cast bullets exclusively and you can forget about barrel wear, unless you grind the bore down with a steel cleaning rod.

I would never fire a jacketed bullet in an original Luger.

With handloads and lead bullets, you can also tailor your charge to operate the gun reliably, but not beat it to pieces. With the Luger's fast, sharp action, that is important.

With original relic handguns, I cannot comprehend why anybody willing to shoot one, at all, would do so any other way. It makes no sense to me. Hard jackets, at supersonic velocities, create a lot of wear...especially with shallow rifling.

And with cast bullets, your cost drops to almost nothing. My 9mm loads cost slightly more than the price of a primer...less than .22 LR ammo.


With the prices and availability of just about everything becoming rigged in recent years, tin has been no exception, and prices shot skyward, if you can even find the stuff. I agonized about being unable to blend the correct Lyman #2 alloy mixture. Then several friends confided that they had given up on this, and had been casting straight wheel weight alloy for a long time. It is fairly hard "as is". But believing it would not work quite right, and would probably lead to bore leading in the 1100 foot per second range, I tried it anyway...using a standard NRA lubricant recipe.

It worked perfectly. No leading. Sure, in magnums I use a gas check. But go with wheel weight lead. Several years ago, I bought 600 pounds of them from a local tire specialist. He wanted $.10 a pound, and we weighed them on his old bathroom scales.

My S/42 Luger is perfectly happy with this low budget food.

Oh yes, I'm also into bullet swaging, for the high velocity rifle stuff and magnum handguns. There too, you can do it very inexpensively, and the fun is free. Everybody is into .223 military pattern rifles. I have a few. They all eat my swaged 55 grain jacketed bullets, where the raw jacket is a 7-grain straight sided cup, swaged from a .22 LR fired case. Such gilding metal alloy is just right for thin wall jackets.

For small varmint bullets in the 4,000 foot per second range, you are pretty much forced to buy commercial jackets, which are twice as thick as mine. To keep from flying apart at over 100,000 RPM above 3,200 feet per second, they must be strong.

Think. Learn. Experiment. Have fun.

I know some of you newer shooters and collectors do not yet reload, and may be reluctant to try, but please do. You will have a lot more fun with your guns, including the Lugers. It's quite safe, and much easier than you may have been thinking. The basic equipment to get started is not expensive...just a single stage press, a die set, and some basics for melting and casting lead. Then if you like it, you can selectively buy and upgrade....as I have done over some decades.

But please, don't grind these fine German bores down with jacketed bullets which cost $.30 to $.50 each, even before you buy primers and powder. And don't shoot surplus military ammo of unknown parentage, or high velocity submachinegun rounds which will hammer the whole toggle assembly and grip frame...until something breaks.

[biffj]

Don't worry Phil....I won't wear the Luger out. My main concern isn't bore wear though, its wearing on the finish from handling, cleaning and operating that bothers me. Having put many many thousands of rounds downrange through the hot submachineguns and other high-speed ammo disassemblers I have no concerns over jacketed bullets wearing the bore. I just don't see it happening in guns that don't heat up that much. My buddies favorite competition subgun has about 40,000 rds through the current barrel and there is no visible or measureable wear and the difference in group size from new to now is within spec for random variation. The jackets aren't the cause of the wear in a steel bore, the hot high pressure gas is and as long as the steel of the barrel can dissipate the heat there is little wear from that. My belt feds and other rifle cal MG's do show some wear from gas erosion but most of that is due to the much higher temps reached by the barrels in these guns. The MG42 in 7.92 will show little wear if the bursts are kept below 200rds but running 300 rds without stopping will create visible and measureable wear in just one burst.
In any case, I just need to get a shooter Luger and keep these pretty ones pretty.

Phil,
I'm not working the show for Ohio Ord this weekend so I'm planning on heading over tomorrow and actually getting to wander the whole show. Are you going to make it down???
We can argue about all sorts of stuff if you can make it. We are also going to shoot on sunday and I'm taking the MG15 out with the watercooled kit on it. Come over and shoot with us.....
send me an Email or call and we can do some plotting and scheming.

Thanks guys
Biff (Frank).

[Lugerdoc]

Biff et al, For those of you who shoot your M29 Swiss lugers don't have to worry about breaking a matching numbered parts, as most parts are unnumbered and I do have most of them with Swiss proofing, in stock. TH

[Michael Zeleny]

Here is the secret of Swiss Luger trigger tuning.