Luger pistol

In 1897, after the success of the Borchardt C-93, as the first mass-produced semi-automatic pistol, the Swiss military began to look for a semi-automatic pistol to replace their issued pistol, the Ordonnanzrevolver 1872. Georg Luger, working for the German company Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken, provided the Borchardt-Luger design, which during Swiss military trials, was found to be more accurate and reliable than competing designs such as the Mannlicher M1901 and Mauser C96. 20 examples of the Borchardt-Luger were sent to Switzerland in 1899, and after a revision to reduce its weight, was adopted the following year as the Ordonnanzpistole 1900. The Luger remained in Swiss service until 1949, when it was replaced by the SIG P210. German adoption trials In 1898, Germany adopted a total of 145 C93 pistols, but found that it jammed too often to be effective. In 1901, testing of the Luger commenced, alongside an improved version of the C93, in which the Luger was found to be both lighter and more reliable. Following a change in caliber from 7.65×21mm Parabellum to 9×19mm Parabellum, the Luger was adopted by the Imperial German Navy as the Selbstlade-Pistole Modell 1904, and later simply the Pistole 1904. The Army delayed their adoption, as Mauser requested time to develop a new pistol of their own, which was finished in 1907. However, the new pistol was still found to be less desirable than the Luger, and on 22 August 1908, Kaiser Wilhelm II signed an order for 50,000 Lugers for the German Army, with orders to produce a total of 170,000. U.S. trials In 1901, DWM sent two Lugers to the United States, who were also interested in a semi-automatic pistol. After doing well in testing, a total of 1,000 pistols and 200,000 rounds were purchased for use by the Military Academy at West Point, and several other forts. The Luger was unpopular, with most troops preferring their .38 Long Colt revolvers, resulting in the Luger being recalled in 1905. In 1906, the United States evaluated several domestic and foreign-made semi-automatic pistols, including the Colt M1900, Steyr Mannlicher M1894, and an entry from Mauser. Luger brought 746 rounds of this new ammunition to the March 1907 trials with his .45 Luger pistol. DWM and Luger later rejected an invitation by Army officials to produce 200 pistols in .45 caliber for further competition against the Colt and Savage submissions, at which point DWM effectively withdrew from the U.S. trials. recheck by Guns & Ammo as of 1994. At least two .45 caliber Luger pistols were manufactured later for possible commercial or military sales; one is exhibited at the R. W. Norton Art Gallery, in Shreveport, Louisiana. The other was sold in 2010 and remains in a private collection. German combat use The first known instance of the Luger being used in combat was during the Maji Maji Rebellion in 1905-1907. Therein, it was somewhat poorly received, as it was thought to be too heavy to be used quickly, in particular because the grip safety had to be held tightly, reducing accuracy, leading to the removal of the safety in the P08 model. At the beginning of World War I, not all units of the German Army had been equipped with the Luger, leading to an acceleration in production. Alongside the P08, Germany also developed the LP08, a version with a stock and longer barrel that could also accept drum magazines. The LP08 was used by the Luftstreitkräfte during the early days of the war, before planes were equipped with machine guns, although due to a lack of pre-war production, the LP08 was much less commonly used than the P08. The main user of the LP08 was the Army, who used its drum magazine to deliver a high rate of fire at a close range, a concept which would lead to the development of the Stormtroopers and the MP 18. After the end of the war, Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles, which restricted the size of their army – the treaty specified that the German Army could only have 50,000 pistols, and prohibited submachine guns and pistols with stocks altogether. As the Luger was expensive to produce, Germany started to look for a replacement as early as 1927, settling on the Walther P38 in 1938, which offered similar performance to the Luger, but took almost half the time to produce. Moving the production lines to the P38 once World War II started took longer than expected, leading to the P08 remaining in production until September 1942, and pre-existing copies remained in service until the end of the war. In East Germany, the P08 was used by the Volkspolizei, mostly from ex-Nazi stocks, but they produced a small number up until 1953. == Design details ==

The Luger has a toggle-lock action that uses a jointed arm to lock, as opposed to the slide actions of many other semi-automatic pistols, such as the M1911. After a round is fired, the barrel and toggle assembly travel roughly rearward due to recoil, both locked together at this point. The toggle strikes a cam built into the frame, causing the knee joint to hinge and the toggle and breech assembly to unlock. The barrel strikes the frame and stops its rearward movement, but the toggle assembly continues moving, bending the knee joint upwards, extracting the spent casing from the chamber, and ejecting it. The toggle and breech assembly then travel forward under spring tension and the next round is loaded from the magazine into the chamber. The entire sequence occurs in a fraction of a second and contributes to the above average mud resistance of the pistol. This mechanism works well for higher-pressure cartridges, but cartridges loaded to a lower pressure can cause the pistol to malfunction because they do not generate enough recoil to work the action fully. This results in the breech block either not clearing the top cartridge of the magazine or becoming jammed open on the cartridge's base. This malfunction with under-powered cartridges does occur with Browning-type and other pistol designs as well, but the Luger is sensitive to cartridges other than the brass-cased ammunition that it was designed to use. Submachine guns were found to be effective in trench warfare during World War I, and experiments were conducted to convert various types of pistols to fully automatic machine pistols, including the P08. The Luger proved to have an excessive rate of fire in full-automatic mode, however, as did the Mauser C96. The 'snail drum' magazine for the MP 18, which was used by German Stormtroopers towards the end of the war, was originally designed for the Artillery Luger. == Production ==

Luger pistols were manufactured in Germany and Switzerland to very close tolerances and exacting standards using the highest quality materials of the day, and original pistols were known for having a long service life. The design requires hand fitting of certain parts for proper operation. Assembling the gun using a sideplate from another pistol, for example, may prevent the sear from working, making the pistol inoperable. The Luger barrel, which was rigidly fixed to the barrel extension and carried the front sight, provided excellent accuracy. Most of these commercial pistols were in 7.65 Parabellum (.30 Luger) caliber, although a number of pistols were also re-barrelled to 9mm Parabellum (9×19mm). The new component parts were stamped with serial numbers to match the frame to ensure that all the fitted parts stayed together. Many thousands of these pistols were thought to have been assembled and sold between 1919 and 1923. Some of these pistols were fitted with new barrels of different lengths by the importer upon customer request. Many so-called 1919 and 1920 Commercial Lugers were imported to the United States by such firms as Abercrombie & Fitch, Pacific Arms Co., and A.F. Stoeger Inc. The latter importer sought and registered the name Luger in 1929, in the United States. the Netherlands, and Sweden. Until 1930, DWM continued to export both P08 and commercial Parabellum pistols to nations in Europe and to overseas markets, including the United States and the Far East. Although never officially adopted by Nationalist forces, all variants of the Parabellum or Luger pistol were highly sought after by both Chinese Nationalist officers and irregular guerrilla forces. In 1924, just before the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War, a review of Chinese Nationalist small arms reported that "Among officers, bodyguards, and police, the German Parabellum (Luger) 9-mm automatic pistol was the weapon of choice...". In 1930, Mauser took over the manufacture of P.08 from DWM. However, during World War II, German soldiers were known to sometimes use a discarded Luger pistol to lure unsuspecting trophy hunters, rigging it to detonate land mines or hidden booby traps when disturbed. Word also spread of accidental discharges and deaths of Allied troops by users unfamiliar with the P08 and its safety mechanisms, as well as stories circulating that American soldiers were being executed if captured in possession of German weapons. Soviet forces captured tens of thousands of Lugers but they were never issued to their own troops, only kept in storage. Post-World War II manufactured, 9mm Kurz. Although Mauser P08 production terminated in 1943, the P08 re-appeared in postwar form because of the continuing demand for handguns for military and police requirements. In 1945, Mauser restarted Luger production under the control of the French occupation authority to supply the French military and occupation police forces. Assembly commenced under French control from June 1945 until mid-1946. In the second half of 1946, tooling and some Mauser personnel moved from Oberndorf to Châtellerault in France, the location of MAC (Manufacture d'Armes de Châtellerault) to continue assembly from existing parts stocks. About 4,000 Luger 'parts' pistols, including a few LP 08 models, are thought to have been assembled for French forces, a sufficient number to justify the production of new-manufacture Luger magazines in France for several years. The Swiss Parabellum 06/29 continued in production until 1946. In 1969, after purchasing the Swiss 06/29 tooling, Mauser Werke in Oberndorf restarted Parabellum production, which ceased in 1986 when the last commemorative model was produced. While new Mauser Luger production ended at this time, pistols continued to be assembled and sold from parts on hand until the 1990s. Aaron Davis, writing in The Standard Catalog of the Luger, claimed that "From its adoption, the Luger was synonymous with the German military through the end of World War II" and "Ask any World War II vet of the [European Theater of Operations] what the most prized war souvenir was and the answer will invariably come back, 'a Luger'." Vietnamese gunsmiths even copied the basic Luger design, producing a few crude "Luger" pistols with which to arm Viet Cong and other irregular forces. == Variants ==

Model 1900 and Swiss Luger A number of countries purchased the Model 1900 Parabellum in 7.65×21mm Parabellum (.30 Luger) caliber and issued the pistol on a limited basis to officers, non-commissioned officers and mounted troops, including Germany, Switzerland, and the United States. On April 16, 1901, following a successful preliminary test of the Model 1900 at the Springfield Armory, the U.S. Board of Ordnance purchased 1,000 Model 1900 Parabellum pistols with 4.75-inch barrels, marked with what appear to be standard U.S. ordnance bomb proofs, but are not, and "American Eagle" stamps over the chambers, and issued them to each troop of mounted cavalry of the U.S. Army for field testing, with the remainder to the light artillery and officers at West Point. Referred to at the time as the 'Borchardt-Luger' by U.S. authorities, Tauscher consistently referred to the pistol in his marketing and advertising materials as the 'Luger', after its inventor. Model 1900 pistols shipped to the U.S. were typically stamped with an American Eagle atop the barrel extensions. Swiss Luger After testing, the Swiss Army adopted the Model 1900 on April 4, 1901, in 7.65×21mm caliber as its standard sidearm, designated Pistole 1900. This model uses a barrel and incorporates a grip safety and leaf-type mainspring. A later Swiss military contract with DWM resulted in the latter supplying improved Model 1900/06 pattern pistols designated the Model 1906 or Pistole 1900/06. Commencing in 1918, these Model 1906 Parabellum pistols were manufactured and assembled at Waffenfabrik Bern, Switzerland. In 1929, Swiss authorities adopted an improved version of the Modell 1900 designated the Modell 06/29 with improved sights, trigger and a stronger toggle link. Manufactured entirely at Waffenfabrik Bern, the 06/29 pistol served the Swiss Army until well after the adoption of the SIG Sauer P210 in 1949, and remained in limited service until the late 1960s. Model 1902 In 1902, DWM introduced a slightly improved version of the Model 1900 Parabellum as the Model 1902. The Model 1902, with its shortened 4-inch barrel, was the first Parabellum pistol to be offered in 9×19mm Parabellum caliber, along with a change from four-groove to six-groove rifling. Navy model The Luger pistol was accepted by the Imperial German Navy in 1904 in 9mm Parabellum as the Pistole 04 (P04). The navy model had a barrel and a two-position – or – rear sight. This version was also referred to as the "Marine Modell 1904" or, more colloquially in the US as the "navy Luger". The Pistole 08 (or P.08) had a barrel and was chambered in 9×19mm Parabellum. This version of Georg Luger's design reflected a number of improvements requested by German military authorities. The grip safety used on earlier versions was omitted, while a lug was attached to the heel of the pistol frame for attachment of a shoulder stock. The barrel was reduced in length to 4 inches (102mm), and the caliber was 9×19mm Parabellum, and the 9×19mm DWM cartridge (Catalog No. 278F) initially adopted by the German Army featured a 123-grain truncated-nose bullet design intended to increase wounding effect of the fully jacketed bullet. With slight modifications, notably the addition of a stock mounting lug and a hold-open latch, the P08 would serve as the German Army's principal sidearm during World War I, augmented by Mauser C96 and Model 1914 pistols. Over 2 million Luger pistols were used by German forces from 1914 to 1918. == Users ==

• : Used by the National Liberation Army, bought from Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia • : Used captured examples in the North African campaign of World War II • : Armed forces used Lugers after 1945, supplied from the French-controlled Mauser factory • : • : The 7.65 model 1900 Luger was adopted in 1906 after navy trials, but purchases failed to materialize due to problems in the economy. In 1908 the improved 1906 model in 7.65 was ordered by the army. The Lugers were delivered to Brazil in 1910 and issued primarily to military officers; following a 1919 law a number of those were lent to police forces. • : 1900 commercial model bought for trials • : Three types of pistols were purchased from DWM.: The 7,65mm obrazetz 1903 (Old Model) was acquired in comparatively small numbers in 1903-4 and featured the distinctively cutaway toggle grips and a 4.75-inch barrel. The 7,65mm Obrazetz 1908 (New Model) was supplied between 1908 and 1909, and had flat-face checkered toggles; around 1,500 were ordered. The 9mm obrazetz 1911, was a 9mm pistol with a 3.9-inch barrel similar to the German Pistole 08 but lacking a grip safety, stock lug and with a lanyard loop on the lower left side of the butt; around 10,000 were ordered. After the Second Balkan War many of the 7,65mm Lugers were re-barreled to 9mm • : Used by Chang Tso-lin's warlord army. • : Mainly issued to officers. • : Used Luger pistols in a semi-official capacity taken from disarmed Dutch forces in Indonesia. • : Small numbers of P08 Lugers acquired by Jägers and the Finnish White Army during the civil war; including 100 artillery lugers. 7.65 pistols with 95mm and 98mm barrels were ordered from DWM and designated m/23 pistol; 2,000 were delivered in 1922 and a further 2,000 in 1923, by 1929 the army had 8,000 m/23 pistols. During the Winter War those pistols were converted to use 9mm ammunition. • : The French occupied and operated the Mauser factory 1945–46, then seized remaining Mauser parts stocks to assemble approximately 4,000 Luger pistols for French forces • • • : Almost 14,000 Dutch KNIL M.11 Lugers were in Indonesia before the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies. As such, the Luger was widely used during the Indonesian National Revolution. General Sudirman is known to have personally carried an M.11. • : Supplied to forces collaborating with Germany in northern Italy. • Imperial State of Iran • • • :1900 commercial model bought for trials • : In use from 1945 and phased out in 1987. • : the Palestine Liberation Organization received P08s from East Germany • : Around 1901, a commission tested various semiautomatic pistols, the 7.65 model 1900 Luger was considered superior. No immediate decision was taken and in 1907 another commission decided on the Luger. That same year 50 Model 1906 commercial pistols were bought for an expedition into Cuamato territory in Angola. In 1908, between 3.500 to 5.000 model 1906 pistols in 7.65 were delivered. In 1910 the navy bought 650 Lugers in 9mm. In 1935 564 Lugers in 7.65 were bought for the National Republican Guard. In 1942 4.500 P08 Lugers were purchased • • : 9mm Lugers were authorized as a sidearm in 1907; small amounts were privately purchased by officers. • in September 1929, an agreement was signed under which about 300 pistols were delivered from the Weimar Republic, their assembly was carried out at the Sestroretsk arms factory. stored captured P08s but never used in combat • Non-state entities • Ação Libertadora Nacional • Lebanese Forces • Organisation armée secrète • Provisional Irish Republican Army • Puerto Rican Nationalist Party • Viet Cong • Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army • Zodiac Killer == See also ==