Luger P08

[CCP]

 I took out the ole Luger a month or so back for it’s yearly shooting and cleaning and took a few pictures to show. I didn’t get around to posting but after seeing all the new pistol threads it got me re-motivated.

First off I am very fortunate to have such a GREAT father-in law. He gave this to me and the Wife along with a 1939 German Artillery Officers Sword. His father brought it back from Germany around 1946. It is a German Luger P08 made in 1942

I was told his father shot it quite a bit as well as he had, he took it on all his camping trips and used it a good bit. When I received it there was so much lead in the barrel I was surprised it could push another bullet through it. It came to me with a few boxes of old lead 9mm cartridges and was told this was what was normally shot through it.

I take it out of the safe once a year and shoot around 50 or so rounds then give it a good cleaning and put back in the safe till the next year. The sear is pretty weak and does fire sometimes while releasing the slide on the first round. However I have not had it double tap with me as yet. I always point gun down range when loading because of this and it did do this once on its last outing.

The gun has all matching serial numbers including the original holster. It has 3 old magazines but none have a matching serial number to the gun.


Gun with holster



Gun by itself



Gun with a magazine



Looking down the barrel



Gun mostly disassembled




It is a very, very accurate pistol and can hit man sized silhouettes at 100yds with surprisingly ease. I picked up several boxes of Blazer 115gr full metal jacketed cartridges in aluminum cases and they function flawlessly in it.  All others fail miserably, the reason I tried these rounds and other rounds was, that I had stove pipe issues on all my bullet and powder combinations. After talking to a Luger dealer at a gun show in Nashville he informed me Original spec ammo for it is very stout compared to todays loads. Original projectile weights were 123-125 grains and pushing 1300fps. 9x19mm was from the get go a jacketed round. He stated I would find that my Luger will function better towards the higher end of a modern loading manual. He was right!!

You can obviously see this gun has been well used and was not ever a put on the shelf and lets talk about it gun. So holding true to its past owners it still gets shot but only at paper these days.

[HaMeR]

I think those old German Lugers are waaaay cool Richard!!    I'm glad you have one & that it shoots so well & operates fairly good for you!! 

[Roundman]

NICE!! I love the WWII stuff. Weapons made around that era were just cool. Thanks for sharing