Luger Reliability

[Olle]

Originally Posted by DonVoigt

Have you field stripped, cleaned, and completely oiled each pistol?

It may sound obvious, but it's often overlooked A good clean and lube job is often all that's needed, and with pistols as old as the Lugers it's a good idea to do a complete disassembly to get rid of all old residue hiding in the nooks and crannies. I guess this can be a bit intimidating if you haven't done it before, so the quick and dirty way is to field strip and dunk the parts in kerosene for a day or two, then brush them off and rinse as good as you can. After that, blow clean and spray everything with Kroil (or other penetrating oil), blow clean again and reassemble. Many guns will come to life again after this simple DIY procedure.

It could also be a good idea to change the recoil spring. I have seen many of these being weak from old age, so a fresh one from Wolff is a good investment.

These steps may or may not fix your pistol, but cleaning, lubing and changing the spring gives you a much better baseline for further troubleshooting.