New Blue Press Section 2 7/14/08 8:56 AM Page 40

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By John Marshall LASSIC ANhadD beenG substitutedUNS for the breakage-prone S- i It has been knownC by many names. In Europe,H shaped spring previously: used.T Noh gripe safety P was.08P “Luger” Parabellum Pistol it’s usually the Parabellum pistol. In its most com- employed, and the 7.65 Parabellum was a monly found variation, it’s often called the P.08 expanded to make the now-famous 9mm b (pronounced “Pay-oct” in German). But to most of Parabellum cartridge that is in near universal use m us on this side of the pond, it’s been forever today. The improved pistol was known as the P.08 c known as the Luger after its designer, Georg Luger. (Model of 1908) and served the German armed s It’s arguably the most recognizable profile in the forces throughout The Great War. The P.08 is the a firearms world; its sleek and flowing lines reek of most common variation of many hundreds of mod- sophisticated design and Old World craftsmanship. els made in the first half of the 20 th Century. The L A little of the pistol’s history is in order. It had variations on the Luger are way too numerous to s its beginnings in one of the first semiautomatic cover completely here, and many books have m pistols, and the first to make use of a toggle, or been written to cover the subject. In addition to p knee-, locking mechanism. This was the the P.08, there was the Model 1914 “artillery” f Borchardt (pronounced Bor-kart) pistol, the inven- model made with a long barrel and a long-range t tion of one Hugo Borchardt, an American. In rear sight mounted to the rear of the barrel. There L 1893, the Ludwig Loewe company of were also 1904, 1906 and 1908 “Navy” or Berlin, , hired Borchardt, marine, model versions with a and then manufactured his pis- tol. Although the Borchardt was ungainly in appearance, the hallmarks of the later Luger are very evident in its design. Also employed by the Loewe firm at that time was Georg Luger. He studied, refined and re-designed the Borchardt pistol into a more compact mechanism, patenting the first Parabellum, the Model 1900. Interestingly, In 1938 although the new pistol obviously incorporated many of Borchardt’s ideas, no mention of Borchardt was made in Luger’s patents. The pistol the P.08 was was chambered for the 7.65mm Parabellum, a bottlenecked cartridge of about .30 caliber. It’s now often known as the .30 caliber Luger. officially replaced The 1900 Luger was then manufactured by the new firm of Deutsche Waffen und i Munitionsfabriken (DWM), itself a merger of bsix-inchy th barrele Pand. an3 8adjustable pis trearo sightl mount- w Ludwig Lowe and Deutsche Metallpratronen ed on the rear toggle link. A special “snail” drum m Fabrik, a prominent munitions firm in Germany. of 32-round capacity was made for the t DWM sent its representative, Hans Tauscher, to the artillery version, which was also equipped with a d to market the new pistol here. He shoulder- holster. Most Lugers were able to s sold Luger pistols until the termination of U.S.- accommodate a shoulder stock, which could be s German relations just prior to . It was attached to a projection on the butt of the pistol. t Tauscher who apparently originated the term There were even a few prototype .45 ACP ver- w “” in this country. One of his first sales sions, made for U.S. military trials in 1907, which o was to the U.S. Government, which ordered 1000 are priceless when found today. l Model 1900s for testing, each marked with an In 1931, the manufacture of the Luger pistol r American Eagle design over the chamber. was transferred from DWM to the compa- t Unfortunately for DWM, the Army’s Ordnance ny in Oberndorf, Germany. The fit and finish of w Department found them unsatisfactory after field these Mauser-produced examples was fully the trials. Most of the original 1,000 pistols were auc- equal of their DWM predecessors. The P.08 Luger u tioned off by the U.S. Army in 1906, and are illustrated here is a Mauser-made example pro- B extremely valuable collector pieces today. duced in 1936. Today it is still as issued, complete C Following World War One, the A.F. Stoeger with a 1936-marked military holster, takedown N company of New York became the sole importer of tool, and spare magazine. I’m quite positive it sol- a Luger pistols and in fact copyrighted the “Luger” diered on the German side during World War Two. b name. Meanwhile, the pistol had been refined The Luger was expensive to produce and i even further by DWM. A new, coiled action spring required careful machining and fitting for all G