VOPO Luger Part zwei

[CajunBass]

Well, I got the Luger out of layaway, took it home, cleaned it up, "Flitzed" the rust and crud off, and have it looking pretty decent for being roughly 100 years old (1916 DWM) and having most likely been through a couple of world wars.





Last time a couple of people asked about the markings. I got a couple of clear shots of some of them, but the others were too fuzzy. I might have to try those again.





But the reason for this isn't just to post pictures. I haven't fired the gun yet, but the one magazine I've got seems to have a problem.

The first few rounds I load, look to sit right, or what I assume is right. The rounds are pointed up at about a 45 or so, with the nose of the bullet clearing the front lip of the magazine. They chamber fine (I've got dummy rounds for this stuff).

However the more rounds I load, the less of an angle the bullet has. After four or so rounds, the nose of the bullet is no longer clearing the magazine lip, but is pointing at the lip with the cartridge more or less horizontal. At that point, looking in the window of the magazine, you can clearly see the cartridges are all at different angles in the magazine.

Any idea how to take one of these thing apart to see if the spring is on the follower properly? I've found a couple of video's on the Megar magazines, which are pinned, but this one doesn't seem to have any pins at all.

I have already ordered a Megar for the gun, but I hate to give up on this one.

 

[GatorFarmer]

Going by memory, lots of Lugers have bad magazines. This is because they were hard to load without the loading tool, which people usually did not have. So they would chop some coils off the magazine spring to make it easier to load. This, unfortunately, led to reliability issues.

 

[Stevie]

That looks like an FXO/milled-extruded magazine. The pin through the alloy base comes out..then you use the punch to push the thumb-piece from the follower(hole provided)....then you buy a Wolff xtra-power mag-spring(two types available..probably need the square spring and not the coil type)...install the Wolff spring and reassemble.

I've re-shod a few P08 mags with Wolff springs....not that big a deal.

 

[CZU]

Looks good, most of us that shoot our "shooters" use Mecgar mags. I would pick up a couple and be done with it.

 

[2152hq]

As you add more rounds to the magazine, the top round will lay nose down more than the one just under it.
The 9mmLuger case is tapered though just a tiny bit. The first round lays on the follower and points nicely as the follower is machined to direct it at that angle. As you pile on the rounds into the mag, the case taper sinks the nose of each one a little more so that the last couple are looking like they are horizontal in there.
They will still strip and feed just fine if the the rest of the mag has not been 'adjusted' or damaged.

 

[CajunBass]

Looks good, most of us that shoot our "shooters" use Mecgar mags. I would pick up a couple and be done with it.

That's what I'm going to do. I've already ordered one, if that one works out, I'll probably order another one.

I'll hold onto the original one of course.

As you add more rounds to the magazine, the top round will lay nose down more than the one just under it.
The 9mmLuger case is tapered though just a tiny bit. The first round lays on the follower and points nicely as the follower is machined to direct it at that angle. As you pile on the rounds into the mag, the case taper sinks the nose of each one a little more so that the last couple are looking like they are horizontal in there.
They will still strip and feed just fine if the the rest of the mag has not been 'adjusted' or damaged.

That pretty well describes what's going on with it. I haven't tried shooting it yet.