Trying to find info on new luger purchase

[Steinar]

With the frame pre 1913 without stock lug, the safety would be more 'correct' if not stamped 72. Looks like the previous owner desided to put 72 on this part himself.

This is a usefull thread regarding the front sight;
http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthre...ht=front+sight

I don't think the Luger is that bad.. it has had a long life and would make a great 'shooter'.

[Ingvarg]

Originally Posted by Morgan Kane

With the frame pre 1913 without stock lug, the safety would be more 'correct' if not stamped 72. Looks like the previous owner desided to put 72 on this part himself.

This is a usefull thread regarding the front sight;
http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthre...ht=front+sight

I don't think the Luger is that bad.. it has had a long life and would make a great 'shooter'.

Second that. Also the safety is numbered with a diferent type of letters. And yes of course, no stock lug present, also tells us this is a pre 1913.
So 1909-1913 is the closest we can find out for now. A bit of a mystery sometimes makes this more fun.
Refinished or not, you got a great and interesting pistol there. I would reccomment that you detail strip it, inspect and clean througly. Clean up the pitting and enjoy shooting one of the most fun pistols you can have.

btw. Lugers are ammo sensitive so it could teke some tests to find out what ammo yours like.

So....Enjoy !!!!!!

[Ingvarg]

Originally Posted by dtu2179

Thanks for all the information Ingvarg,

It doesn't look like anyone removed any of the markings, I don't know why they would anyway. I wonder if it was "doctored" in any way. At any rate hopefully it will shoot ok.

As you say, possible it has been "doctored" but that is likely an early factory work as most of the ser# stamps looks orginal.

And with right ammo I�´m sure it will shoot great. After at least 25 years as a wall hanger mine worked perfectly after a clean up ,as well as a frends 1906 navy there had been sitting for 30-40 years. Just a qick inspection and a couple of drops of gun oil, and then I shot around 70 rounds through it without a single falure.

[dtu2179]

Thanks for all of the info guys. Glad to here that I didn't get ripped off. Other than the sparatic rust spots, it looks ok. The other day I took it apart completely, cleaned it, reassembled it, and it seems to function fine. We'll see how it does at the range if I can ever get a free day to go. I was planning on reloading cast bullets for it, so I expect a trial and error period. I figured that the cast lead would be gentler on the barrel than the copper jacket ones hopefully extending the service life of the barrel. Do you guys think I should have it re-finished again, or is it not really worth it? Since it has probably been re-finished in the past, it shouldn't have any furthure affect on value I'm guessing.

[Ingvarg]

Refinishing usually cost up to same $$$ than a allready refinished Luger so I guess thats not worth it.
Mine was a bit pitted and i cleaned up the spots with a sharp razor blade. (actually a lot of them) Just take care to cut the rust carefully of, not scrape it of. Doing so you wont scratch the blueing.
Then maybe you could use a cold blue and 1000 steel woll to fresh up the finish and then add thin layer of gun grease over it.
Then wipe of the excess of the grease and polish the gun with a sylicon cloth.
Mine turned up to be a real beuty after this method and the guy who sold it to me hardly recogniced it afterwards.

btw. I would be interested to know how the cast bullet hand loads work for you and maybe the recipe, as I,m going on the same path as soon as I get the molds.

[alvin]

Originally Posted by dtu2179

Do you guys think I should have it re-finished again, or is it not really worth it?

If you do it yourself, I would say it's OK. The real cost of DIY is time and effort, not money. Won't increase the value but the process brings in some fun.

[dtu2179]

Originally Posted by Ingvarg

Refinishing usually cost up to same $$$ than a allready refinished Luger so I guess thats not worth it.
Mine was a bit pitted and i cleaned up the spots with a sharp razor blade. (actually a lot of them) Just take care to cut the rust carefully of, not scrape it of. Doing so you wont scratch the blueing.
Then maybe you could use a cold blue and 1000 steel woll to fresh up the finish and then add thin layer of gun grease over it.
Then wipe of the excess of the grease and polish the gun with a sylicon cloth.
Mine turned up to be a real beuty after this method and the guy who sold it to me hardly recogniced it afterwards.

btw. I would be interested to know how the cast bullet hand loads work for you and maybe the recipe, as I,m going on the same path as soon as I get the molds.

I'll let you know about the results. I plan to work up the loads with the use of a chronograph to check the results. Probably will use 125 gr cast bullets.

[dtu2179]

Well, I went to the range today to fire a few handguns including my new Luger. I loaded some 9mm ammo into the magazine and ran the bolt forward and...the gun is not 9mm as advertised! After the bolt failed to go into battery I tried again with a fresh round. Same thing. A closer inspection of the inside of the chamber revealed that the gun appears to be chambered in 7.65. After comparing the muzzle to the muzzle on my friends 9mm P38, it appears that the barrel diameter is a bit smaller. So, I guess my question is, were Lugers only made in 9mm and 7.65? or were there other chamberings? Now I have to scrap my reloading of 9mm and plan on 7.65 or whatever it is. Anybody know a good source of 7.65 brass?

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by dtu2179

Anybody know a good source of 7.65 brass?

At the risk of starting a flame war...For my 7.63mm Mauser and 7.65mm Lugers, I use new cut-down .223 Remington unprimed brass cases (not 5.56mm Military). Run the cut cases through the 7.65 Luger ("30 Luger" in RCBS) reloading dies to form the bottleneck case.

The .223 Rem is about ~.010" smaller diameter at the base than 30 Luger, but fire-forming with a light load will expand the cases to fit your chamber.

Just my $.02...YMMV...I am not responsible for any blah blah...

[G.T.]

Just a quick question... why not the 5.56 mil stuff? All it seems you'd have to do is anneal it?? I'm not a reloader, so I plead ignorance... Best to you, til...lat'r...GT

[Chris from Minnesota]

I believe (if not correct me) the 5.56 brass has thicker case walls then .223 Remington same goes for .308 rem. brass and 7.62 NATO brass. .223 rem is not as hot as NATO spec ammo, .223 rem. runs at about 3000 fps where 5.56 NATO runs at about 3250 fps in my AR 15 20" barrel.

You can tell by the head stamp on the case, NATO will have the circle with a cross in it. In a combat situation all NATO country's that run across another country's ammo that find the circle with a cross in it know it's good ammo. Also SAMMI states that firing 5.56mm in a .223 rem. chamber is an unsafe ammunition chamber combination.

My AR 15's love XM193 from Lake City that's box and sold by Federal, good stuff but expensive. I also love the 5.56 brass for reloading for my AR 15's it was plentiful but harder to find now.

Just my .02

[Steinar]

Speaking of military ammunition..
We (as in the Norwegian Army) has now replaced the regular Nato rounds with "environmental friendly" non-lead core bullets. Let's call them 7.62mmBellona, 9mmBellona and 5.56mmBellona from the organization who pushed trough that lead bullet's should no longer be allowed. (They deserve to be connected to this little story)

There are so many downsides with this new ammunition, I don't know where to start..
-It's a health hazard for those shooting them. I have fired about 100k 7.62Nato rounds over the years, and never had a headache after a day at the range. But one day with 2-300 rounds of this non-lead ammunition, made my head pounding. It is believed to come from the gasses, many experience nausea or headache the following day(s).
-They are loaded 'too hot' and make all of our weapon types less reliable. MG's has blown up, MP5 (the locking plate for these rolls get's beaten up and falls out) and even the trusty A3and Glock some times fail on these. Our new rifle however, the H416 seems to handle the ammunition quite well.
-They wreck the bore, especially on the Glock
-They are far more expensive
-Less precise
But what frustrates me the most, is that without proper testing, they send 300k of this x.xxBellona **** directly down to Afghanistan to be used in combat by our fighting forces. Luckily the guys there decided (as with anything else that is unknown) to test it thoroughly before use. They experienced that several rounds didn't going off, some was too weak to cycle properly and MG's blew up. At least one soldier was injured by this..

btw. This has nothing to do with military ammunition, but lead shotgun ammunition is also prohibited here in Norway, for environmental reasons. I'm a hunter and find this a very ironic. I have wounded so many birds by using steel, that I just don't have the conscience to use it any more. Hunters have been wounded by ricochets and it's a question of time before a shotgun will blow up by the increased pressure.

Sorry if my outburst was somewhat off topic

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by Chris from Minnesota

I believe (if not correct me) the 5.56 brass has thicker case walls then .223 Remington same goes for .308 rem. brass and 7.62 NATO brass.

Chris is correct. I was introduced to this little-publicized fact while making my own 44 Automag cases from .308/7.62 brass...(I had one of the High-Standard 44 Automags w/ both 357 Automag and 44 Automag barrels)...I was getting a lot of case failures while forming, almost all military brass (the others were much-used commercial brass). Also, the military brass had to be neck reamed; the commercial didn't - this was the tipoff. 44 bullets could be seated with no neck reaming in commercial brass cases (after cutting to length).

I would expect the military brass is made with thicker walls intentionally, to lessen the chance of a blowout...while commercially, the manufacturers want to hold costs down as much as possible...

Case wall thickness (*not* neck thickness) only seems to be an issue for those of us concerned with 'cartridge conversion'...

BTW: I am not stating that you won't have to neck ream .223 commercial...only that you may not need to...

Off -topic = I can recall back when only Berdan primed cases were available for the 7.63 Mauser and 7.65 Luger, there were all kinds of ways to remove the spent primers...some really crude...("fill case with water and use a tight fitting dowel to hydraulically eject the primer")...

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on any of this, these are just my observations from practical experience...

Lessee...What was this thread about?...

[dtu2179]

I sent the dealer an email last night. No response yet. Here is a copy of the email message sent to him:

From: "Duane Urban" <dtu2179@comcast.net>
To: <email@firearmsbroker.com>
Subject:
Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 11:33 PM

Hello, I bought the German Luger from you at the York PA gun show on 2/22/09. When I purchased the gun you told me that it had been manufactured between 1940-1942. Research into this gun with the assistance of the members of Luger.com has shown that this is not true. The gun was actually manufactured between 1909 and 1914. In addition, you advertised the gun as 9mm, which is what went on the state police paperwork here in Maryland, this was also untrue. The gun is actually chambered in 7.65 Luger. Please respond back to this email and address these issues.

Duane Urban

[dtu2179]

For anyone who is interested, here is the dealers web site. Based on my recent experiance, this guy is NOT someone I would do business with again. Just a warning for those in the PA area.

[dtu2179]

http://www.firearmsbroker.com/homepage.htm

[dtu2179]

So yesterday I got the 30 Luger Fiocci ammo and took the Luger to a friends house to shoot. Would not function. So I am asking for my money back from the dealer.

Now, I am looking to replace it with a late 30s - 40s era Luger with Nazi markings. Doesn't have to be a safe queen. I would like all matching and definately must must shoot/function flawlessly. If any one has one of those that they are getting rid of let me know.

[John Sabato]

You have lots of good reasons to get your money back, but not if it doesn't function with fiocchi ammunition.

They have a reputation for notoriously low powered ammunition. Try reloading the brass with a known medium handload before you give up on the pistol. They will likely function the pistol properly.

[dtu2179]

Thanks John. But, I think I would rather send it back and put that money towards the gun that I really wanted. I had wanted a nazi marked Luger that was decently priced and that I could shoot from time to time. And 9mm. I figured that the ammo was low powered, which was why it wouldnt function right, but I've had enough of this gun. It was sold to me under false pretenses anyway. Any ideas on a nazi marked replacement?

[John Sabato]

Put your "wants" in the want to buy forum... you will find dealing with forum members a much more pleasant experience. It won't be long before you find a Luger that meets your requirements.