16" barrel

[jeffs]

Does one run afoul of federal firearms law by putting a 16" barrel on a luger?

Thanks,
Jeff

[alanint]

No problem with a 16" barrel as far as I am aware. Does this involve ading the stock to the pistol once the barrel is installed?

[sheepherder]

I've always wondered about the "carbine" barrels...Using a commercial cartridge, one that won't blow the extractor through the breech block, aren't you reaching the point of diminishing returns with that length barrel??? By the time the bullet reaches the muzzle (I'm theorizing), the pressure has dropped and the friction from the longer barrel with lowering pressure is actually slowing the bullet instead of accelerating it...

That's my line of thinking anyway...

[jeffs]

No stock involved, just a ridiculously long barrel. But I have not done it yet. Just considering!


Thanks,
Jeff

[Lugerdoc]

Jeff, I have these barrels available @$100 + S&H, but a lot of work is requred to get a lighter recoil spring that will function the pistol properly with that heavy a barrel. LOL, Tom

[John Sabato]

You can use ANY kind of stock on Luger with a 16" barrel because it meets the BATFE description of a rifle... and is over 26.5" in overall length with the stock removed. No special license or tax is required.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by jeffs

No stock involved, just a ridiculously long barrel. But I have not done it yet. Just considering!

If you do it, post pics please!!!

Is that one of those Numrich barrels??? I've used & installed their 6" barrels; they're really pretty good...I don't know who makes them, but IIRC they didn't require any additional machining...

[PhilOhio]

Although it has been dormant for a couple months, this thread caught my eye because I've spent a lot of time playing with long 9mm barrels, and might be able to steer some of you away from frustrating dead ends. Since it looks like others here are like me, having almost more fun playing with the technical stuff than with the guns, I thought I'd share it.

I'm brand new, having found my way to the site in the course of looking for a nice matching S/42 which I can afford to buy and shoot; still haven't found it. I already have a very nice 1917 artillery and a circa 1930 Dutch Luger from Indonesia, with a somewhat gruesome operational provenance which I can personally verify back to the mid 1940s.

But back to long barrels. Please STAY AWAY from the 16"+ blank barrels which Numrichs advertises as being for "9mm/.357". I say that because I noticed Postino mentioned 9mm Numrich barrels. There is apparently something wrong with the twist rate, and bullets cannot be stabilized. That may be why they became available to Numrichs. I wasted a great deal of personal time and effort finding this out (bought two), building a semi-auto Sten barrel. Bore diameter is correct, but at least half the bullets keyhole (lead, jacketed, standard weights). No amount of tinkering with powder types and weights can correct this, as far as I could determine. Somebody just made a mistake, and now his mistake is being sold.

I cut the second Numrich blank into a few pieces, to see if pistol barrels could be made to work. No, they couldn't. So don't buy these blanks in hopes you can make a Luger barrel that works. I believe Numrichs is still advertising these 16" blanks. They must have a ton of them. It takes a lot of work to profile a nice Luger barrel. Then you go out to shoot it...total keyholing and accuracy disaster.

Luger Doc: Do you have a source of affordable 16"+ 9mm blanks of the correct twist rate for 9mm Para, and with an O.D. of .725" to .750", to roughly duplicate the diameter of Sten barrels?

Postino,

You posted your logical guess as to how pressure and velocity probably drops off significantly in a 16" 9mm barrel...quickly reaching a point of diminishing return. I would have thought the same, until I began experimenting a year or so ago with scrap barrels and a chronograph, etc.

To explore the bullet friction/barrel length/pressure relationship, I began by experimenting with a scrap of .22 RF barrel 10" long. A vintage High Standard Supermatic pistol was my test bed. I drilled 1/16" diameter ports, two at a time, starting about 1/2" back from the muzzle. For each new pair, I would go backward about 1/8". Each time I would chronograph a few rounds, expecting velocity to drop quickly. But I was getting no statistically significant velocity reduction.

To make a long story short, I finally stopped drilling ports when I was 4" ahead of the breech end. There were 100 holes. Standard velocity Federal .22 LR rounds, which had originally measured slightly over 1040 FPS, did not go below about 1000 FPS at the end of the drilling. So after building up pressure and velocity in 4" of barrel, with all that pressure instantly removed, the additional 6" of barrel friction only reduced bullet velocity by about 40 feet per second. I must say that I was astonished!

With 9mm Para, my standard load is 4.5 gr. Bullseye and a cast 120 gr. round nose lead bullet. This gives you 1150 to 1200 FPS in pistol length barrels. It will be somewhat faster, not slower, in a 16" barrel, because powder is still burning and barrel friction is most certainly not slowing the bullet. To do that, you would need an extremely long barrel, considering what I found out with the .22 experiment, and considering the volume of gases generated; it's a few liters, and that's lots more than the volume of a very long barrel. So sometimes what seems to make a lot of sense, when you theorize, turns out to be very different in practice.

FYI: I've also made about 3 - 4 9mm barrels of 10.5" length for the quick change barrel and caliber conversion setup on my registered 1928AC Thompson. Works flawlessly, and of course velocity is always higher than with pistol barrels between 4" and 6".

With all semiauto pistols, Luger Doc has put his finger on the main problem, barrel weight. You have to keep it to the very minimum to get the gun to function, without some way of boosting recoil. Which is another long subject familiar to you suppressor people.

But it's all about fun, and I'm having a lot of it, reading the many technical contributions from some of you Luger experts. I'm renewing my interesting in them, after years of having just left mine sitting in drawers most of the time.

[Vlim]

Phil,

You got me interested now: How about that Dutch luger story?

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by PhilOhio

Since it looks like others here are like me, having almost more fun playing with the technical stuff than with the guns...

Personally, I get more satisfaction (not necessarily fun, it's work) from working on pistols, rifles, and shotguns than I do shooting them. Reloading is fun; experimenting with powders and bullet weights to find that magical "perfect" load for any given pistol...

I already have a very nice 1917 artillery and a circa 1930 Dutch Luger from Indonesia...

Pictures please!!!

But back to long barrels. Please STAY AWAY from the 16"+ blank barrels which Numrichs advertises as being for "9mm/.357".

Too late! Well, maybe not...The 8" faux-artillery barrel I made is from Numrich, but dates back some 15 or more years...I did just get a 30 cal blank from them, but I'd have to look it up again just to see what twist it is...

[John Sabato]

PhilOhio

Welcome to the Lugerforum... Nice to know another tinkerer (not Ed )

Two more websites that you may find both amusing and educational for tinkerers :

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/index.php

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/index.php

Both sites have active gunsmithing forums, and the rest of the sites have some dandy machinist info and projects.

Enjoy!

[PhilOhio]

Well, guys, I did a long post, including the full provenance of my Dutch Luger, and when I went to preview it, I found that all was lost. Something had timed out and there was no way to backtrack or recover any of it. I've seen that before here. Somebody might want to reconsider a couple of the software settings. It started to happen a second time, just when I tried to post and preview this shorty, but I managed not to lose it.

So being afraid of it happening again, I'll just do the summary version, unless or until I'm sure I won't lose everything I write.

Postino, I'll try to get to the pics, but right now, I'm up to my ears in alligators.

John, I appreciate those urls, and I'm already somewhat familiar with them, though not an active participant in the forums. I'm a basement machine shop junkie.

Vlim, I've immensely enjoyed your posts, and especially the article you wrote for NVBMB. Thus I set out to tell my own Dutch Luger story in detail...until it got wiped out.

The summary: Mine was captured when the Japanese invaded Indonesia in 1942. It was never marked by them, unlike some others. This one was personally captured from the commander of a small Japanese coast watch outpost bewteen 1943 and 1945, without a shot having been fired. I have lots of detail on all this. The Indonesian guerilla fighter who led the band later fought in the postwar independence movement, became an officer in the Indonesian Army, and eventually worked closely with me. In the 30 years or so during which he carried this Luger, he killed eleven people with it. For awhile, it was loaned to me and I carried it "for serious", but never had to match his record. I could write quite a screen play about this particular pistol and the few people who have carried it. And the story is solidly verified.

[Ron Wood]

PhilOhio,
I have been frustrated more times than I have kept track of by the time out on this and Jan Still's forum. I take a bit of time to compose a post and sometimes I have to look up a reference. When I try to post, I have timed out and I get the message that I have to log in to post. When I do log in again everything that I have written is gone. Now, when I get that message, I copy what I have written before I log in again. Then when I do log in, I can just paste back what I copied. It is a pain in the butt but at least I don't lose everything I worked on. I have complained about this in the past but was told that there must be something wrong with my computer, so I just live with it and use the copy procedure.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by Ron Wood

When I try to post, I have timed out and I get the message that I have to log in to post. When I do log in again everything that I have written is gone...

So that's what it is...I got that a couple days ago, but mine timed out while trying to upload pics...I'm on a dial-up connection, and can only post two, sometimes three, pics per post in a thread...I was trying to get my comments matched with my pics, and I ended up losing everything and starting over...

I guess I must have the same PC problem that Ron does...

[FNorm]

I have a Marlin Camp Carbine in 9mm with a 16" barrel. A few years back I ran into a guy at the range who had a chronometer. So got to compare two guns, same ammo. I don't recall the actual muzzle velocity in fps, but the 16" barrel was about 12% faster.

FN

[Lugerdoc]

Phil, I agree with your comments on the Numrich 16" barrels. Very difficult to get working properly, that's why I no longer install them. I do have one new one left in stock with wood forarm, for sale or trade cheap. Tom

[John Sabato]

I am totally perplexed by this TIMEOUT thing you guys are speaking about experiencing. I have used this forum for YEARS, and have never experienced a time out, no matter how long I have taken to create a posting.

I am going to experiment with this very post and see if I can force it to time out by waiting for 30 minutes before pushing the reply button.

If it happens to some but not others, then it cannot likely be the settings on the Lugerforum server or internet connection. More likely it is the configuration of either your individual machines, or your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

I typed this sentence at 08:56 AM EDT....

now for the timeout experiment.... I will not try to actually post this message until 09:30 AM... that should be a sufficient test...

The time is now 09:31 AM EDT... lets see if posting fails?

[John Sabato]

NOPE! It worked just fine... as you can see by my above post.

Those of you experiencing this timeout issue, need to start looking at your connection to your ISP and what timeouts they may have for inactivity during a session.

and those of you who are still using DIALUP... by choice, and not because you don't have a choice...

...need to sell your least favorite firearm , or skip a few beers and upgrade your Internet connection to cable, satellite, or DSL and move into the 21st century!

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by John Sabato

I am going to experiment with this very post and see if I can force it to time out by waiting for 30 minutes before pushing the reply button.

Apples and orangutans...Unless you have exactly the same PC/connection/ISP/etc, that won't tell you much...

I can tell you that because I am on a dial-up, and do Beta testing for Microsoft (among others), my ISP has disabled the disconnect timeout for my connection, as well as allowing me extended email capability (no limit on attachments). So it's not on my end. I have no problem on other Forums - but then, this is the only Forum (among a dozen I frequent) that encourages pics be posted *here*...

I would suspect the Forum timeouts when it thinks there has been no activity on an open "reply"post for more than 30 or 45 or 60 or whatever seconds...

About the only way I can get around it is to phrase my replies in Notepad beforehand and limit the pics to two per post...

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by John Sabato

...those of you who are still using DIALUP... by choice, and not because you don't have a choice...

...need to sell your least favorite firearm , or skip a few beers and upgrade your Internet connection to cable, satellite, or DSL and move into the 21st century!

Broadband has not yet reached the suburbs/rural areas...the various broadband providers haven't strung their fiber-optic cables, or found a way to connect satcoms through rain or snowstorms, yet...

When they do, I'll be happy to join the rest of the 72% in the USA who are on broadband...Until then, I'm stuck with the Telco, like the other 28%...