You'll shoot your.......Hand off!!

[Thor]

Dont know if this is factual or not, but I can tell you I got an email from a person that saw my name (from way on back) on the shooters.com /German forum. Here is the story entirely FWIW. ~ Thor~ A LADY WRITES TO ME TONIGHT AND SAYS:


[Dear Lugerman:

I have just looked through all 624 postings at Shooters.com and have come to realize that you are the Luger expert I need to talk to!


Do you know of any misfire problems with the P08 Luger? My husband was accidentally shot in the hand with one 2 years ago. It was at a pawn shop and the gun was handed to him by the owener for him to look at. My husband was looking for the safety and mashed down on the side plates, unbenownst to him there was a shell in the chamber and BOOM! I know there is a video out Tales of the Gun The Luger but I have not been able to get it yet to see if it has any information regarding this issue. I have read many articles and scanned through several books on Lugers too and have not been able to find anything out either.


Any information you can provide will be greatly appreciated.


There seems to be a great bunch of guys at the German Military board! ]


End of TALE......whew......know we know why the Police added the sear safety. I assume he was field stripping the gun. Thor

[Marvin]

Ted,


Sounds like the Pawn Shop owner and the buyer does not know about firearms safety. Anytime a person is handing a waepon to anyone, THEY should check first to verify there is no ammo in the weapon. When the reciever gets the weapon, that person should inspect for any ammo. Safety is the prime in any firearm and the rules must be followed to be safe. In my oipinion, the shop owner was the culprit in this situation.


Marvin

[G.T.]

that had to do with ninga claws! These nifty little pieces of worthless you know what, were advertised as enabling the owner to scale brick buildings and walls, and they even had a picture to that effect! Down below this glowing ad, was a small print disclaimer....it said " Please note, gravity is still gravity, improper use of this item could result in injury or death" Sometimes when collecting, browsing at the gun store, or poking around at gun shows, we seem to fall into a false sense of security on correct gun handling procedure.....as far as I know, these simple facts have never changed, 1) always treat every gun as if it were loaded! 2) always check the chamber of the weapon you are handed, no matter how many times it was checked before being handed to you! 3) always leave the empty action open or out of battery so it is visually appearant that the weapon is in a non-firing condition, (while still observing rule #1) 4)even with all of the above in mind, always know where the muzzle of any firearm in your immeadiate area is pointed...never sweep it by anyone, or take any of the above rules for granted.....I am sure there are more rules, and many ways to remember them, but if you can just remember the most important rules at a time when you become careless, you might save yourself and others from heartbreak and injury! till.....later....G.T.

[DAVID]

I work partime at a small gun shop. The rule is ALL GUNS ARE CONSIDERED LOADED UNTIL YOU PERSONALLY CHECK IT.


When I show a firearm to anyone. I alway open the breach. even if I see some open the breach, I will open it again when the firearm is returned to me.


I sometime have to work on firearms that are loaded and will not let you open the breach. I once had a muzzle loading shotgun brought in to clean so someone could put it over the fireplace. The gun was loaded with blackpowder old newspaper and shot. the newspaper was dated, 1879. David. PS. It took a week to let oil down the muzzle let it soak and draw the shot and powder charge out. The powder under the newspaper would still burn.

[Rick K]

I like Lugers because you can tell at a glance if there is a round in the chamber. When you see "Geladen", you know. But even if you don't see that, you STILL follow all the rules you guys have mentioned!

I believe that an instance like this only reinforces why the Germans put a sear safety on the police pistols. If this would have been a police luger, Improper handling or not, the accident probably would not have happened.

JV

[MikeP]

Guns and idiots-remember-if you're gonna be stupid you gotta be tough-hopefully it isn't an innocent bystander that gets waxed.


The huge influx of military surplus weapons the last few years has spawned numbers of would-be collectors and buffs who to a significant extent have no real background in the basics of firearms.


This added to the fact that that a lot of this stuff is cobbled up reworked junk turned out by some "armory" somewhere in lower south-eastern slobbovia really adds to the potential for tragic entertainment. People insist on glomming onto these things and proceed to blast away and then want to know why their "brand new" collectors dream malfunctioned or exploded. I think a lot of this stuff is inherently dangerous and is best left alone. You can have them examined by gunsmiths to your heart's content and still end up with a bloody stub where your hand was. I admit I am a little overboard on this but I have seen the look on peoples faces when it dawned on them they were maimed for life.


I have a near mint BYF 41 that shows little use-however it can be fired with the safety engaged-I don't shoot it anymore.


I used to carry a 1911 cocked with safety off-since they forgot to make them double action it is the only safe way to carry it if you need it. I don't have to do that now.

[Don]

As a newbie, this raises a question: What's a sear safety? My Lugers, a couple of WWI vintage DWMs and a 1938 S/42, have a thumb saftey lever that pushes up a little white steel tab that juts up diagonally. Is that a sear safety? Thanks


--Don

A sear safety usually found exclusively on police lugers is riveted to the frame above the sear and rests on top of a cut out sideplate. If the Luger is dissambled while the gun is still loaded, a pin on the sear bar locks the the transfer bar up so the luger cannot be fired with the sideplate removed. With out a sear safety, you can drop the pin on a luger by simply pressing on the transfer bar after the sideplate is off. I often wondered why the Germans thought the police should have this safety device. Is it because they thought the police were a lot more careless than the military or lacked proper training?????

[Don]

Thanks! The mystery is solved!


Don

[BILL]

I have wondered about the police needing an extra safety myself and decided there must be some logic to it. The earlier pistols had both a safety lever and a grip safety. The military removed the grip safety so apparently the soldiers were more expendable than the local constabulary or the average citizen. This could have carried over to the reason for adding a sear safety. Also, there might have been some serious incidents that were not recorded.

[John Sabato]

A luger is just like any other pistol....a smart person never accepts transfer of an un checked pistol by the muzzle.