Luger search

Another good place to find a Luger is the Luger forums https://www.lugerforums.com// Mostly collectors and researchers and guys who write books on Lugers. Best of all honest.

+1 for Simpson LTD. Prices are on the higher end but everything I have ever gotten from them I have been very happy with.

alexb357 said:

+1 for Simpson LTD. Prices are on the higher end but everything I have ever gotten from them I have been very happy with.

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Probably 60% of Bob's inventory is consignment. He charges a 20% commission which is what most of the guns are over the true value. But he stands behind what he sells and if you have an issue with the gun 6 months down the road he will take it back.

Another vote for joining the Luger forums and also perusing their own WTS sections - while my own was a 1908 Commercial variant (much earlier) I acquired it from a very kknowledgeable collector I was able to chat with at length through the forum before deciding to go for it - and as we'd built up a bit of collectors' rapport by then, he kindly let me make off with the gun in VG+ condition for an eminently fair price at the time, about three years back now.

Never got too deep into Lugers overall though and traded it for a very early commercial Hi Power later on, but the forum is a great resource with some fine folks.

I bought my first Luger back in 1966 in El Paso, Texas, from a bulge veteran.

Paid all of $50 back then. Oh how times have a changed.

It's funny how Luger pistols can attract! I had a plastic one as a kid, and was intrigued; so some years ago I finally broke down and bought one; a 1906 'American Eagle' with provenance showing it was purchased that year by an Army officer, who carried it in France during WWI and retired as a Brigadier General. It's chambered in .30 Luger, ammo is difficult to find, but it shoots good and is a great conversation piece! At almost 120 years old, I treat it with the respect it is due.

long colt frazier said:

So I have pretty much stopped buying collectables but have always wanted a WW2 era Luger. Anyone want to point me to the rabbit hole;-)

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You only live once and even though today the price of guns have hit astronomical high's the Luger is a fascinating collectors piece.

Before going any further I want to state I do like Lugers so do not take this response the wrong way, I am just relating my hands on experience with them since 1973. I never soft soap anything or try to hide test results so as not to hurt someone's feelings. I report my experiences and tests just as they happened,.

First the Good news: If the gun is in good condition and you do not mind shooting a collectors piece that is skyrocketing in value (most people I know never shoot their Lugers because they do not want to devalue them) the Luger is one of the most accurate 9mm handguns ever made. They point like a finger, and have fabulous workmanship and a sinister history which makes them still in the 21st Century the most instantly recognized pistol in the world and ever made.

The bad news is: They had skimpy sights like most military handguns of the era , creepy trigger pulls, and a very delicate breach block that is the first part that breaks and spare breech blocks are very difficult to find on the parts market although once in a blue moon you might actually find one. I had to have a breech block custom made and I waited a year to have it made and spent over $300 for the breech block. The Breechblock is the achilles heel of the Luger that is why Collectors seldom if ever dare shoot them these days and once broken you no longer have a matching numbered Luger devaluing it by a huge sum of money.

I might add that if you do any amount of shooting the wood grips on Lugers tend to loosen up because of the less than satisfactory way they were machined and fitted to the gun at the factory. The grips are very tight when new but they do not stay that way for long. You can shim them up with small pieces of tape or do a first class job with epoxy.

And lastly I have never owned or fired any Luger that was totally reliable. If you shoot a 50 round box of ammo and get only two jams consider yourself in 7th heaven as that is about as good as it will ever get. The Luger's tight tolerances , rapidly recoiling breech block and narrow operating pressure range all contribute to a less than reliable weapon.

It's interesting to note that one News Reporter that was going to report during the Vietnam War asked the High Priest of the 1911 crowd, Jeff Cooper, if he should take along a German Luger for protection and Jeff told him "only if you plan on committing suicide as the Luger is not known for being a reliable pistol".


I might add I have tried everything with Lugers, replacing magazines, magazine springs, custom handloading ammunition, shooting factory fmj ammo, using the 124 grain bullets in place of the 115 grain bullets, duplicating the overall length of the original military cartridge etc etc and nothing helped.

Few people know that the majority of WWI Lugers were recalled and rebuilt with stronger mainsprings at the conclusion of WWI because the Germans switched over from using the lower penetrating 115 grain bullets to the heavier 124 grain projectiles to increase penetration on hard targets. Using the 115 grain bullets in most Lugers is not a good idea for reliability.

Handloading for Lugers is best done with the right powder pressure range that is achieved with Unique Powder but I have used Bullseye as well but it is not as reliable.

Bullet shape is critical to in getting your Luger to feed reliably as their steep feed ramps were designed for fmj bullets as were many other military pistols of the era like the P38 , 1911, Radom etc just to mention a few .

Myth 2 about Lugers i.e. "Hot loads will make a Luger less likely to jam". Hot handloading Lugers "will not" make them more reliable as the Luger was designed to work within a narrow pressure range because it's lightening fast reciprocating breech block will not tolerate any variation in its rearward velocity. Hot loads also will soon crack a Lugers breechblock.

Now to somewhat contradict myself. I saw a mud test done on a Luger. Well you know the story about how Lugers jam up when dirty. That is true and it does not take much to jam them up. Shooting just 7 rounds of cast bullet loads with sticky 50/50 Alox lube will jam any Luger up right now, especially matching numbered Lugers (matching numbered Lugers now a scarce as hen's teeth).

Read on now for the shocker and contradiction.

This test had one Luger and one icon the 1911 G.I. 45. Both were stomped into the sticky mudd. The mythical 1911 jammed up on the 1st shot and the Luger (which was at first squeaky clean before the test) shot its entire magazine without even 1 jam. Sound impossible? No, not really as the Luger is much better sealed from mud and dust than the 1911 is but its just that once a Luger "is dirty" with dust or burnt powder the jams soon start because of its tight tolerances The 1911 will tolerate a lot of dust and burnt powder (assuming we are speaking of a poorly made rattle trap typical WWII 1911, not a custom tight fitted target gun that often is every bit as unreliable as a Luger is.

So there it is, by now the 1911 lovers and Luger lovers will all be foaming at the mouth but that has been my experiences with them. To me a weapon is a machine not a religious icon to be worshiped on bended knee. All have their pluses and minuses as I have yet to see anything made by the hand of man perfect in every way.

I have a huge collection of Nazi memorabilia, and despite that lack an Artillery model Luger.

I've never found Luger parts that awful difficult to find. The breech block included.
Even EBAY usually has a few listed.
You are better off being able to look at the parts first hand than just a few pics on line before purchase, but not every one has that option of having some larger gunshows around where parts dealers usually show up.
They very often have Luger parts, Toggle assemblys and separate breech blocks.
I just bought a $200 Luger,,a parts gun of sorts but it's shootable.
So there are parts out there. They made a million (?) of the things.

Not saying what anyone will offer will be a match with your gun, sometimes you have to take what you can get to keep one running. Not like a mis matched Luger is un-usual.
Trigger pull on the Luger is difficult to refine as it is linked thru a multiple of parts and goes 'around the corner' so to speak' as the trigger pull is in line with the frame as usual. But the sear is depressed inward on the left side of the frame. It takes quite a design and mechanics to achieve.

Most are not too awful bad as they came. But people trying to improve them generally makes them worse and sometimes unsafe.

The 'Hot loads for Lugers' isn't necessary and I agree with the above poster.
A load that cycles the action isn't anything special and usually a standard White Box commercial offering in FMJ will do it if there's nothing else wrong with the pistol.
I shoot UMC 115grFMJ just about exclusively in the 8 or 9 Lugers I have and they all seem to like the stuff. Same for the ones I had and have sold.

Poor magazines are the most common cause of Failures.
The Meg-Gar repro mags were always a good replacement. I haven't bought any of them recently so I don't know if that still holds true.

Don't clip the coil mainspring. Leave it at full strength. New orig load springs are available from Wolff I believe. They sell or sold an extra load coil main spring, but the only use for that I ever found was in a grip shortened Baby Luger. Shortening the extra heavy spring made it right for the custom pistol to function.

The Old Model Lugers use a Flat Spring. Don't do anything to those. Most owners don't even shoot the Old Models at all for fear of parts breakage. Now there are some hard to find parts.

have not kept up on value, and only shot it once

I’ve purchased several breechblocks the past few years to replace numbered parts in Lugers I shoot. As noted above, they’re available on eBay, as well as other vendors specializing in Luger parts.

A well known and respected Luger repair expert once told me he doesn’t guarantee perfect function: 4% failure rate was typical in his opinion. That said, the three Lugers I shoot are on active triple-digit runs without a malfunction (yes, now I’ve jinxed myself).

I did have a heck of time getting my first Luger to run well, to the point at which I was about to resign myself to "I guess that's as good as it gets?"

I had one Luger that I couldn’t get to run reliably, about 2% failure to eject. I eventually determined the breechblock wasn’t properly aligned with the chamber, causing spent cases to pop off the extractor immediately after being completely extracted from the chamber (as opposed to remaining secured on the extractor until the case contacts the ejector). Apparently defective from the factory, no amount of changing magazines, different ammo, fresh springs, etc., would have helped that gun.

.38SuperMan said:

I always wanted a Luger and my wife picked this one up for my first birthday we were together 31 years ago. It was a bring back and was being sold by a small dealer in a little town near where we live. The soldier that brought it back passed away and his son wanted to sell it. His son indicated it had spent its life in the US in his dad’s sock drawer.

It’s a BYF 41 with all correct Nazi markings, original correct and marked leather holster and the two original magazines with Bakelite bases. The black Bakelite grips are original to the gun as well. Also all numbers match. Unfortunately the takedown tool was missing from the holster. Checking reference material it appears this one was part of a small batch that went to the navy. The SN is a low alpha number and from the proof marks on the side I’d guess it was a late 41 production.

I understand it’s a black widow which is a pretty meaningless term and originated as a sales gimmick to drive up prices. I think my wife paid $700 for the rig whic at the time seemed a bit high but looking back and considering condition and what came with it plus condition I think she did really well.

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Yep. "Black Widow" means it came with black plastic grips and magazine bottom. Nothing more.

Doug G said:

They were actually built using the old tooling purchased from the Swiss government. After Mauser concluded their production in the 1970's they destroyed the tooling. Any Original Mauser's in the standard P08 style were reworked WW2 guns.

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I visited the Mauser factory in Oberndorf in 1988, and they were making a run of Parabellum pistols at the time. I would suppose that they have made more since then.

The Luger collecting arena is a place where you can get cheated in a heartbeat. Used to be the pistol had to have matching numbers to be valuable, if it didn't it was just a shooter. To check for matching numbers you must disassemble the piece and it goes together like a puzzle. I've also heard of Luger parts being broken by people who don't know what they are doing. Do you think that someone will let you disassemble the pistol at a gun show? Not likely. There are so many areas of Luger collecting like Parts Carbines etc. Be careful. After WW2 my two uncles were on the Queen Mary coming home. They had picked up three 98Ks A BYF44 Kreigsmodel, a DOT and a beautiful VZ33/40....and a Luger for my father. Somewhere in mid-Atlantic they decided that my Dad's temper was not a good fit for a Luger and tossed it overboard.

Dave Haynes said:

The Luger collecting arena is a place where you can get cheated in a heartbeat. Used to be the pistol had to have matching numbers to be valuable, if it didn't it was just a shooter. To check for matching numbers you must disassemble the piece and it goes together like a puzzle. I've also heard of Luger parts being broken by people who don't know what they are doing. Do you think that someone will let you disassemble the pistol at a gun show? Not likely. There are so many areas of Luger collecting like Parts Carbines etc. Be careful. After WW2 my two uncles were on the Queen Mary coming home. They had picked up three 98Ks A BYF44 Kreigsmodel, a DOT and a beautiful VZ33/40....and a Luger for my father. Somewhere in mid-Atlantic they decided that my Dad's temper was not a good fit for a Luger and tossed it overboard.

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You not only need to check for the matching serial numbers, but also have to make sure the font is the same as well. For example they used the number 1 with or without the foot.

Everything you could possibly want or afford.

sacfxdx said:

Lugers - Simpson Ltd

simpsonltd.com

Everything you could possibly want or afford.

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And it's my wife's favorite handgun. And for good reason; she shoots it better than any other pistol or rifle - it seems that they were just made for each other. But, I must admit that I score better with it than with our other handguns.

In the mid 1960s I was 8-10 years old and was playing “army” and watching all the movies with my dad, a WW2 Marine. One week my uncle visited us from Florida and said he brought some stuff he wanted to get rid of as he knew my dad would be interested and amongst the WW2 souvenirs he brought back from Europe was a mint 1916 Erfurt Luger with the issued holster. I was a little kid but I knew exactly what it was and was excited that my dad got it. Shot it a few times over the years. Sometimes it jammed but I figured it was the ammunition of the time.
Then in the late 1980s my dad traded it off to a “buddy” who said he would take that “junky jam prone Luger” and traded my dad a 38 revolver and $100 cash. Dad never checked with my brother or me to see if we wanted it but then again, it was his gun. But I think his “buddy” took advantage of my dad during an afternoon of drinking.
About 12 years ago I found an affordable 1916 Erfurt 9mm Luger on Gunbroker and finally had my own Luger. Later I put another bid on a 1916 DWM 9mm Luger and got that one too.

These are not going anywhere. They are going to my son and grandson when the time comes. I still would rather have had my uncles original Erfurt Luger.

I had extremely disappointing experiences with P-08 Lugers. I was most interested in the BYF Mausers in 9mm.
I began by purchasing a couple of affordable East German arsenal Re-furbed VOPO Lugers, by mail order.
apparently re-furbed by monkeys, & marked up with out of control die grinders, BOTH had giant Xs stamped on the frame (junk in German ?) finally refinished in BLACK OXIDE. Neither would fire reliably. I never saw any point in owning an unreliable firearm. I finally spent more on a Mauser "Black Widow" with correct numbers, which was also a jam-o-matic.
I took it back to the dealer who tested it off premises & said it worked perfectly - that I no doubt "limp-wristed it" - adding insult to injury - not taking it back. Then I bought a beautiful, like new, Texas made stainless eagle Luger. which also didn't work. Flicking all these was not that hard - sold as-is. My last attempt was a NOS un-fired Swiss Luger, + box, papers, & dangle tag. It was good for a thrill to get out & fondle occasionally - but IT remained un-fired until I sold it at a profit - to buy something nice that worked. TODAY I'm over them, but would accept one as a gift - as not worth the bother to me - any other way. In my 78 years of life, I only was accused of limp-wrist that one time, & never spoke to that dealer again.

The "X" marking was done by the Russians / East Germans when they were refurbished. To say they weren't concerned about appearance or fit and finish is obvious. In my opinion the problems you experienced were due to ammo selection. If you tried a variety of ammo I think you would find one that worked well in your Lugers. If I recall the Texas Lugers did have issues not related to ammo. Had you fired your Swiss I think you would have found it reliable and enjoyable to shoot.

G2