Navy Luger project

[Olle]

Here’s a project I have been tinkering with for many years. It started with an incomplete Luger that I got for cheap (including an extra barrel assembly), so I thought I can just as well make it a long term project and add to it when other cheap parts show up.



There were several reasons why this project gun was cheap. The takedown lever and the sideplate were both missing, both barrels were .30 cal, bad dings and rust pits all over and, worst of all, hammer marks on the front edge of the frame. This is what happens when Bubba uses the BFH to disassemble a Luger:



As usual, one of our resourceful forum members came to the rescue. Paladinpainter found a welder who could TIG weld the damage, and he fixed the hammer marks, dents in the the trigger guard, the rusted trigger and other spots while he was at it.





There was a lot of filing and fitting to get the frame back in shape again, and I don’t know how many times I had to mark it with Dykem, file a bit, mark it again, file a little bit more etc. Once I had a close fit, I finished the job by lapping the barrel extension to the frame to make it run smooth.



Yet another forum member, Art McCann, donated a broken takedown lever. I made a new button for it and sent it to the same welder. When I got it back, I put it in the mill and checkered it, then strawed it to the right color. I don’t have any pictures of the welding and machining, but you can see how it turned out in one of the pictures of the finished gun.





One of the interesting features of this pistol was the rear toggle pin. I’ sure don’t know what they used, but it looked like a piece cut from a bolt or something. I didn’t have one, so I made my own from drill rod and hardened it.



I found a cheap repro sideplate, a bit rough around the edges but still workable. It took a while to get it fitted, but it looked pretty good once I was done.



And here’s the part of the project where I didn’t take any pictures…

I found a cheap barrel and toggle assembly at a gun show, and the toggle was one of the cast reproductions. It wasn’t pretty, but it was cheap, so I spent a few hours on making it fit and then I filed it smooth and sanded it. It didn’t turn out too bad, but not all that great either.

The .30 barrel was stuck like the dickens and the rail extensions were a bit bent, so I sent it to GT for barrel removal and straightening. Once I got it back, I indexed the barrel and installed it. It was already chambered but not deep enough, so it needed to be reamed a bit. Our resident Borchardt builder TNBill came to the rescue and sent me a reamer so I could get it head spaced correctly.

After assembling and checking everything I took it out on the deck for a test. Surprisingly enough, this hodge-podge fed, fired and extracted perfectly right off the bat. The only problem was that the trigger didn’t reset, but after stoning the trigger bar and lever it fired as fast as I could pull the trigger. Unfortunately, the sight on the reproduction toggle didn’t do quite as well as the rest of the pistol, when I disassembled it for bluing I found that a piece had broken off. So much for reproductions, but a new toggle assembly is on its way from Chandler, AZ and it should be much better quality.

I used Paladinpainters ancient witch brew for the rust bluing, it’s some kind of potion he has come up with and it worked extremely well. I also strawed and fire blued some parts for accent, not sure if it’s correct for a Navy Luger but it just looks better that way. I decided to go the cheap route with the grips as well, these are Sarco’s infamous Indian grips that have been sanded and checkered to look a bit better. The mag bottom is also a cheap reproduction that has been sanded and fitted to look presentable. I might put original grips on it later, but these will work for shooting.

So here it is, still with a broken rear sight and a cast toggle, but at least you get an idea of how it turned out.