Ever elusive parabellum rifles.

[Waschbaer]

I have caught a glimpse of one of Paul Mausers early SLR mechanism, consisting of a rather oversised toggle action, for which he was sued by Georg Luger due to patent infringement. Mauser gave up the idea, but supposedly Luger himself built rifles with parabellum type mechanisms. Can anyone verify this information, and have any survived to this day, even in miserable condition?
THanks, TOm.

[Vlim]

Tom,

It seems Luger's real passion was to build and market a semi-automatic rifle. There is some excellent information about it in 'The Dutch Luger', since some archive material survived when Luger offered his design to the Dutch government.

The Luger rifle was, as far as I know, not a toggle-action rifle, but a bolt-action semi-auto.
(update: I was wrong, see my follow-up post )

Many of his patents for the P08 show a rifle-background, for example the loaded-chamber indicator/ejector patent.

When he was discharged by DWM, in 1919, he took them to court because he didn't want to surrender the rights of his pending projects to DWM, showing he was still designing stuff right until his death some years later.

[Johnny C. Kitchens]

What is the story on this picture, of what appears to be a Luger rifle. Real or madeup???

Is it one of Luger's prototypes???

[Imperial Arms]

This is the Luger Rifle (serial #4) which used to be in the Interarms (UK) collection, and it was sold by Christie's (UK) in 1996/97. I had the opportunity to photograph and handle this rifle. A few years later, the same rifle was auctioned by Butterfields and it fetched less in price than when it was sold by Christies. To this date, it is the only Luger rifle known to exist.

Albert

[unspellable]

Seems to me there were other attempts at a toggle action rifle, not connected with Luger, DWM, or Mauser.

Incidentally, Mauser lost an eye due to a blow up with one of his attempts at a self loading rifle. Wear your shooting glasses!

[Waschbaer]

this serial nr. 4 looks very pretty, possibly a little too pretty, know any history behind it? How on earth does the toggle mechanism clear the stripper clip guide, it seems to be right over the front toggle pivot? I think mauser's toggle looked a bit more refined, with the added benefit of a charging lever on the right side, and the stripper clip guide built directly into the breechblock. sadly only the toggle remains, as he gave it to one of his workers as a gift after the courts forced him to scrap the project due to luger's intervention. seems to me that this nr.4 would be a real strain to cycle by hand without any type of lever, was it also built for the 7,92X57IS round?

[Waschbaer]

one other thought, how in the heck does that trigger link up with the firing pin??? I can build that rifle from outward looks, but I'd never get it to fire with the trigger in back and the mechanism seemingly operated through the sideplate as on the pistol. I've been wracking my brain on this one, can't seem to design anything satisfactory as a trigger linkage, all my ideas are too weak or too elongated to be reliable. finally, is the barrel just free to move inside the stock, i'm assuming it is still recoil operated and not gas?

[Johnny C. Kitchens]

There is the Pedersen rifle. It had a toggle, but it was a delayed blowback action...

[Dean]

What cartridge did this Luger Rifle (serial #4) use?

[Vlim]

Hi,

I think the barrel stays in place and only the receiver/toggle assembly moves backwards. Trigger linkage/sear bar is probably rotated to be placed underneath the toggle rather than besides it.

If this thing is Luger's design, it's bound to be patented somewhere, or alternatively if it uses DWM owned patents, Luger could never have marketed it.

[Edward Tinker]

In this thread from December; http://forums.lugerforum.com/lugerfo...=000085#000000

the luger rifle was talked about, and the pictures are from the dutch book, the Dutch Luger, they aren't on the hard drive anymore.

Ed

[Waschbaer]

Thanks Ed, I had actually done a search before I posted this, as the previous thread didn't really answer a lot of my curiosities.

As far as the history of the above pictured rifle is concerned I did finally find mention of it (possibly) in an issue of American Rifleman "Luger made up four prototype 8mm military type rifles with toggle actions. They were never accepted by the military. A few years ago, the well-known Christies auction house in London sold one for more than $100,000."

Still, I wonder what the actual internal workings of this rifle are. Is this the one pictured in the patent papers shown in Dutch Lugers? Sadly I do not have access to a copy. If anyone has photos they would be most helpful and appreciated.

Finally, does anyone know what happened to Nr.1,2,&3? Probably stolen by the Russians at the end of WWII and then lost forever, is my best guess. Thanks, Tom.

[Vlim]

Hi Tom,

No it isn't. The example mentioned in 'The Dutch Luger' is strictly an improved bolt-action design.

[unspellable]

Somewhere in the dim recesses of my memory I seem to recall a "Mondragon" rifle with a toggle action that had some connection with Mexico.

[unspellable]

Well, I looked up the Mondragon rifle. The Mexican Army adopted it in 1907 in limited numbers as the first operational military self loading rifle. No toggle action, itâ??s a straight line rotating bolt gas operated design. But itâ??s still of importance to Luger fans. Mexico had a contract with SIG for production but canceled before very many were delivered due to Mexicoâ??s financial problems. SIG was stuck with a running production set up and sold them to any willing buyers. Germany bought around 3000 of them and used them to arm aircraft in the early stages of WWI. To provide fire power for them a 30 round drum magazine was developed. This same magazine was modified to accept the 9 mm Parabellum cartridge and went on to fame as our beloved snail drum magazine for the Luger.

Hereâ??s a bit on the history:

http://www.cruffler.com/historic-february01.html

[Pete Ebbink]

Here is a light machine gun the Swiss Bern arsenal developed in the 1940's...utilizing a toggle mechanism...with spent casings ejected to the left side.

Photo credit from V. Bobba's book on Swiss lugers, on page 134 :

<a href="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/togglemachinegun.jpg" target="_fullview"><img src="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/togglemachinegun.jpg" width="400" alt="Click for fullsize image" /></a>

Regards,

Pete... <img border="0" alt="[typing]" title="" src="graemlins/yltype.gif" />

[Waschbaer]

I can't really tell, but it looks like they took parts from a parabellum and built it into a submachine gun. Strange, very strange. Is it in fact a LMG or an MP?

[Pete Ebbink]

Hi Thomas,

If you click on the photo, it will increase in size one time. If you go to the lower, right hand corner of that larger photo, it will increase in size one more time...

It appears that the toggle parts are of a larger size/scale than on the luger pistols...the photo caption says this was a machine gun adapted to aircraft use...

Regards,

Pete... <img border="0" alt="[typing]" title="" src="graemlins/yltype.gif" />

[George Anderson]

Pete, is that the Swiss MP? I have a 1951 dated manual for it and it well illustrates the toggle system. I also have a manual for the Swiss Leichte Maschinengewehr (Lmg 25) this one is dated 1943. This MG also has a toggle action. It seems that the watch-makers and bankers just couldn't get enough of that ancient and complex system.

[Vlim]

I'm not too surprised, as the original toggle design was meant for a light machinegun (the first being built up around a Winchester lever action), later found it's way into heavy machineguns (courtesy of Hiram Maxim) until someone (Borchardt) realized it might work on a handgun.