1918 Arty observation

[Doubs]

Originally Posted by wlyon

I also have a 1917 Artillery with both front and rear fine tuning. Bill

I'm willing to bet that yours has a low serial number for that year. About 1990 I bought a 1917 Artillery Luger from Old South pawn shop in Macon, GA. It had both fine tune sights. It was pitted and really rough. It would fire one shot and the trigger stopped working. I found that the disconnector pin was frozen in the extended position and wouldn't retract into the sear bar. A 24 hour soak in Kroil loosened it again and it functioned perfectly. I sold it to a friend and have often wished I had kept it.

The early 1917 Artillery models did have both front and rear fine tune sights. Later in the year the fine tune front sight was dropped and even later in 1917 both were eliminated. Therefore it's possible to have three variations of the 1917 Artillery model.

Just as Don has pointed out, a few 1918 Artillery models have been recorded as having one or the other fine sight. Possibly a few late 1917 Artillery Lugers will have one or the other. I'm unaware of any but neither did I know of 1918 Lugers with them. After thinking about Don's post, I suspect that the 1918 Artillery Lugers with fine tune sights were made with barrels that were initially rejected for one reason or another and then used as the war put increasing pressure on production. Obviously I don't know that for sure but it makes sense.