Swiss Luger: One Heck of a Pistol.

[SmithSwede]

I’ll have more to say about this topic in future posts, but here are some interim comments.

I finally acquired a Swiss 06/29 back in April of 2014. Serial 50390. With the red grips. Posted a few times on this forum. Meanwhile I just shot the pistol. (That may be blasphemy for some collectors, but I’m more of a shooter than a collector. They won’t rust or dust in my possession, but they may work for a living).

I’m a long time Bullseye pistol shooter, so I am quite familiar with what an accurate pistol is like, what a good trigger feels like, etc. I also dabble in Swedish and Swiss milsurp stuff, or whatever else catches my fancy. I like odd stuff, and I try to be open-minded but critical and fair.

Anyway. Gotta say after several years fooling with this contraption that the Swiss Luger impresses the heck out of me.

This is a *very* special gun and design.

I’ve now run close to 750 rounds of factory Fiocchi and PPU 93 grain FMJ through mine. Not a single malfunction; not even close. I was always told that Lugers were persnickety and unreliable. Well, my Swiss sure ain’t. Maybe due to its bottle-neck 7,65 round? Swiss manufacture and tolerances? I dunno. But I’ve had a Glock 19 choke a few times in a thousand rounds of NATO 9mm ball. Swiss Luger beats Glock for reliability? Go figure.

The practical accuracy of this thing is outstanding. Mine will routinely hold a bit more than an X-ring size group on the standard NRA rapid fire target, off-hand, at 25 yards. I’m talking deep inside the 10 ring ofhand.

Now I’m not referring to one’s best group ever—what you do under perfect conditions, after warming up, and shot off sandbags in dead calm 70 degree weather with the butterfly that just landed on your shoulder. No, I’m talking about day in, day out, sub-10 ring groups despite cold, wind, dark, rain, etc. First group, cold, do it now.

I’ve shot a lot of old milsurp pistols, and lots of more modern stuff, but this level of practical accuracy is un-equaled in my experience
For semi-autos. Heck, this old Swiss Luger is nearly on par with my gold standard—the older Smith & Wesson revolvers from the 1950s. Or outright dedicated target pistols. Please understand that for me to say a Swiss Luger ranks up there with my favorite S&W revolvers is high praise indeed.

One interesting aspect of the practical accuracy the Swiss Luger is what I’ll call its “first time hit probability.” I’ve shot a lot of guns where the first half dozen or more shots are downright embarrassing. But after you have fooled around with the pistol a while, and you get the hang of it, well it settles down and shoots ok. Such guns seem like they are ok accurate, but they require you to ignore that embarrassing warm-up period.

The Swiss Luger isn’t like that. You can just pick up the pistol after 6 months of not shooting it, and your first few shots are already in the X ring. Don’t need to “get in the groove” with the gun to hit well. That’s a very impressive point in favor of the Luger.

Here’s what I’m referring to: Suppose you bet your buddy about who could first hit a playing card stapled up on a target frame at 25 yards. My first pick for this contest would be a S&W 6” K-38 with my favorite 148 grain wadcutter ammo. If you told me no revolvers, I’d pick my Hammerl 208S target .22. If you excluded pure target pistols, I would no joke reach for the Swiss .30 Luger.

Another observation. I have always admired the P-38 design, at least in the abstract. But having shot both the Swiss Luger and a post war Walter P-38 on alloy frame, well . . : the P1 is an utter dog in comparison. And I’ve have dozens of malfunctions with the P1, compared to none with the Swiss.

One other comment. The Swiss hit upon a brilliant and practical grip safety for carrying a semi-auto pistol. The grip safety by itself replicated what the manual safety does. It provides a very secure mechanical lock of the sear itself (not some upstream part of the mechanism like the trigger bar, as the 1911 grip safety does). The engagement of the Swiss Luger sear is quite deep. While I have not conducted drop tests of my precious Swiss, I suspect it would do quite well. So this is an ancient pistol design that probably provides quite safe “cocked and locked” readiness with very high first shot hit probability. Excellent.

I plan to start casting a variety of lead bullet loads this winter. Will reload a variety of factory bullets. Maybe I’ll do some Ransom rest testing at longer ranges.

Anyway, point being, I’m a pistol skeptic who doesn’t often have much favorable to say about any handgun short of a dedicated target pistol or an old school S&W revolver. But this dang Swiss Luger makes the grade. It really is that good.

[DonVoigt]

That's great, you have a good pistol and ability too.
I do believe you could have written the same story about many lugers, more so the commercial models, as they are really fit and finished finer than the military models. Your assessment of the P 38 matches my own.

For sure the Swiss knew what they were doing with the 7,65 cartridge- they didn't fool with the 9mm, but stuck with the .30.

The safety/sear arrangement, as you point out, is a very robust system. I have no doubt it would pass any drop test.

I would not call it "ancient" though.

[mrerick]

Scott, I'm with you on the Swiss Lugers...

The Germans are obsessed with precision. The Swiss assume that they can take it even farther.

The Swiss military pistols are probably the highest precision handguns in regular service.

[Rick W.]

Glad to hear another guy likes the 30 caliber. Always been my favorite in a Luger.

In the days of yore, some bullseye folks favored a 45 acp Wyatt over the 1911 for their sport. You touched on some of the reasons why. Someday will have to try to make a Wyatt clone up, just to have the experience and fun of such.

I remember seeing the Interarms Lugers for 400 bucks a pop, could have bought dozens for that; they were really a fine pistol, especially in 30 of course..... That of course has changed with the times, not 400 anymore; other than in some circumstances. The real Swiss variants are out of this world, kinda like some of their bolt guns and 210's.

It appears that we have gone along some of the same paths and favorites in firearms, the M14 & Luger are still endearing. I have searched for years for the proper barrel length, weight, sights, taper for a Luger. My test mule has been thru a lot of barrels on and off.....hard to get past the old 4 3/4 30 luger barrel as originally put on by those folks...............but, like windmills, the lure of something better is still calling..........tis heap fun to continue on.

Enjoy the Luger, sometimes tis not the money or 401K clones that call, but just the joy of the experience; kinda how it makes one feel; kinda like why I drive a Blue Devil.

[DonVoigt]

Rick,
what the heck is a "Blue Devil"?

[mrerick]

To be specific, the "Blue Devil" is the Duke sports team mascot.

[DonVoigt]

Originally Posted by mrerick

To be specific, the "Blue Devil" is the Duke sports team mascot.

I knew that, just had never heard of a blue devil car.

I always thought Zora Duntov had something to do with the corvette auto.

[Major Tom]

Rick W, will your "blue devil Vette" beat my 2015 Corvette Callaway? 8-)

[4 Scale]

I think the lighter recoil of the .30 round and a relatively long 4.75" sight radius has a lot to do with the achievied accuracy. I am consistently more accurate with .30 Luger in a 4.75" barrel than with any 9mm.

With respect to reliability, my experience is that when the major parts match (barrel, receiver, frame, the three major parts of the toggle) that the pistol tends to be as reliable as any modern handgun, at least in range conditions. But if a major part does not match, reliability can be a challenge.