Want to buy this Luger

[Michael Zeleny]

It is not my intent to challenge or disparage anyone's personal experience. A proper comparison test would have 7.65mm and 9mm Para Lugers shooting side by side, all other factors being equal as far as possible.

[lugerholsterrepair]

Michael..Come come! We are side by side..just several states apart. I have performed my test and attest to it's accuracy. Surely there is no need for me to expend another 500 rounds? Why don't you go ahead and shoot your 500 and we can see where we stand..I admit a tad unorthadox but between good ole boys it will give us a better understanding of our claims on an informal basis? If you fire your 500 with no stoppages as I have..we can maybe agree to take out MUCH from the statement. I trust that you will acurately report your results... 500 rounds does seem like a small statistical sample but I believe it would be helpful to better our understanding don't you? I trust you meant what you said...but if anyone wishes to set up a proper comparison test, I'll gladly contribute and cooperate.

[Michael Zeleny]

Jerry, I always mean what I say, no more and no less. My offer is for a live comparison in real time, not an epistolary exchange.

[lugerholsterrepair]

OH! You disapoint me Sir. I see now that there is little force behind your beliefs. My proposal I admit is one of convenience..No interstate travel, no bad restaurant meals..no horrible beds in strange motels, no range fees..no time away from the Wife and kiddies. Well..I tried and now.. myself and those faithful readers who have followed this lively exchange will leave for time forever after the question of the reliability of 9MM vrs. .30 Luger..in doubt.

Let us speak no more about it...I have asked for a willing partner and been denied.

[Michael Zeleny]

Jerry, the best I can do without interstate travel is send you some factory 9mm Para ammo guaranteed to choke up your pistola, and make my 7.65 Para W+F 06/29 available for your comparable reciprocal offering.

[lugerholsterrepair]

Sounds rigged already! My 1916 German/Mexican Luger, 10% blue, all matching, shot out bore is so loose I doubt anything could choke it...But since you offer..just ship me 500 rounds of .30 Luger and I will feed them to my German 98% DWM 1920's alphabet .30 commercial. I don't trust those foreign guns.

[Michael Zeleny]

Originally Posted by lugerholsterrepair

Sounds rigged already! My 1916 German/Mexican Luger, 10% blue, all matching, shot out bore is so loose I doubt anything could choke it...But since you offer..just ship me 500 rounds of .30 Luger and I will feed them to my German 98% DWM 1920's alphabet .30 commercial. I don't trust those foreign guns.

That's not what I offered. Take it or leave it.

[lugerholsterrepair]

OOPS! Cancel this plan.

Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates announced Friday that Holmes had purchased four guns at local shops and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the Internet in the past 60 days.

[Ron Wood]

Michael,
As much as I admire your knowledge, command of the English language and debating skills, I do have to take you to task on your position that “Lugers…were never meant to chamber anything over 8mm”. You have made the unfortunate, but all too often encountered, mistake of taking a statement out of context. I took the trouble to dig out my copy of Walter and found the following:

“When the Borchardt-Luger was being tested by the Swiss army in 1899, Georg Luger had stated that – changing nothing but the barrel and extractor – the pistol would chamber any cartridge of suitable length, as long as the caliber lay between 7.15mm and 8mm” (bold and italics mine).

Kindly note that Georg did not state that the Luger was “never meant to chamber anything over 8mm”, he merely pointed out that it [in its current configuration] would chamber any cartridge of that dimension by changing nothing but the barrel and extractor. That is a far cry from your statement.

Obviously when Georg created the more powerful, and no less reliable, 9mm adaptation of the Luger, he changed out not only the barrel but also the mainspring (changing the extractor was not necessary since he artfully employed the same cartridge base as the 7.65mm round). Consequently, the Luger was then meant to chamber something over 8mm.

Yours respectfully,
Ron

[Michael Zeleny]

Ron, you make an interesting argument, and I concede the point that starting in 1902, some Lugers were meant by their various makers to chamber some 9mm rounds. But I remain unpersuaded as to the intrinsic fitness of Luger's toggle action design to chamber and cycle the tapered 9mm Para round as well as it does the 7.65mm Para one. Please consider that the choice of springs has no bearing on which calibers the Luger would chamber, much as it bears on which calibers it would cycle. We may further assume that Georg Luger had his reasons to say what he said, and not another thing. How then would you explain the 8mm upper limit that he placed on the caliber that his 1899 design would chamber?

[Ron Wood]

Originally Posted by Michael Zeleny

How then would you explain the 8mm upper limit that he placed on the caliber that his 1899 design would chamber?

You may have glossed over my parenthetical "in its current configuration"? Luger was discussing alternative calibers with the Swiss but working within the constraints of the 7,65mm cartridge for which the Luger was initially engineered. To increase the cartridge diameter or length would require a total revamping of the firearm's component parts, both in terms of length and width of the action and the geometry of the toggle/breechblock assembly. This would have no doubt taken the Luger out of contention for the Swiss contract or at best delayed the award. Fortunately, the Swiss opted for the Luger as initially offered with a few mechanical design improvements but no change in caliber.

Obviously, when Luger did increase the caliber, he went the route of making the existing 7.65mm cartridge into a straight-sided case, engineering the projectile, powder charge and overall length of the cartridge into a round that maximized the potential of the firearm while maintaining the envelope of the original pistol action. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I am unpersuaded that all effective engineering design of a toggle action ended at the bottleneck cartridge. I see nothing intrinsic in that action that requires a specific cartridge. Chambering is a function of the design of the chamber and the ability of the action to place a cartridge in that chamber, a cyclical mechanical process that a toggle action performs quite well (Winchester and Maxim seemed not to have a problem with it).

The disavowing of a tapered round as inherently unreliable is not sound from an engineering standpoint. There are a number of calibers other than the 9mm Parabellum that have straight, or slightly tapered, cartridge. Attaining headspace requirements using the cartridge mouth is not uncommon and Luger further enhanced the required obturation with his patented stepped chamber design. Granted this enhancement was abandoned in later years as improved metallurgy, propellant charges and action dynamics rendered it superfluous, but bear in mind that the 9mm Parabellum was a ground breaking cartridge. It was the first straight cased cartridge developed for a locked breech pistol. The engineering that went into its design was masterful and its function an unquestionable success.

I am confused by your statement that “…in 1902, some Lugers were meant by their various makers to chamber some 9mm rounds”. I can agree with some Lugers, as there were indeed two variants, 7.65mm and 9mm, but I am dumbfounded that there were "various" makers! (Who other than DWM?) I may also allow that you could refer to some 9mm rounds as there appears to be vague evidence that there was a short lived experimental Borchardt bottleneck 9mm cartridge that may have figured into the initial development of the 9mm Parabellum round, but there is no documentary evidence or surviving examples.

[Michael Zeleny]

Ron, what I said was that starting in 1902, some Lugers were meant by their various makers to chamber some 9mm rounds. I stand by that statement, which nowise implies the existence of multiple Luger makers in 1902.

The Borchardt-Luger toggle action design employs a push feed cycle from a detachable magazine. Both its original embodiment, and the axial bolt push-feed action realized by the Mauser C96 around a dimensionally and ballistically similar cartridge, feed them over a short gap, out of a more or less vertical magazine. Luger's successor design feeds a significantly shortened version of these cartridges over a longer gap, out of a steeply angled magazine that makes a bullet of a larger caliber much more likely to be deflected from the proper feeding trajectory, and a straight-walled case with a wider mouth, much more likely to hang up during ejection. I have nothing but affection for Luger's finest accomplishment, the 9x19mm Parabellum round, but trust that there will be no argument over its better fitness to less steeply angled magazines and controlled feed actions, and less precise headspacing compared to its bottleneck predecessor.

[Ron Wood]

Michael,
I understand your clarification, but as originally written I hope that you can see that it appeared to imply that there were various makers starting in 1902. Syntax can be a challenge and it is one of the unfortunate aspects of the written word that it does not carry the more intended meaning as well as the inflections of the spoken word.

I do not disagree with your observation that a less steeply angled magazine and controlled feed action can be more efficient for the 9mm round, but it does not diminish the fact that this caliber works, and works well, in a Luger. I will not argue that the bottlenecked cartridge is not better suited to the action, because it is. However, in actual use and function the advantage is so miniscule as to be moot.

I have enjoyed our spirited discussion and find it stimulating. Thank you for indulging me and tolerating a gentlemanly disagreement.
Ron