A molested 1917 Luger gets a little love...

I figured after all the time and love I put into this, I should have a gunsmith who specializes in Lugers do the barrel index and headspace for me. I sent the whole upper off today to a guy who comes highly recommended. But here's what it looks like on mock-up.
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When it gets back to me I'm thinking to make the whole gun uniform in finish, I may strip the barrel down to bare metal and just blue it and the extension together. The barrel is already rust blued but it's a bit more of a matte finish than what I did to the rest of the parts. My blue job has a bit more gloss and richness to it.

Either way this should be a nice shooter when I'm done. Looking forward to maybe even using it one time at Steel plate challenge just for a laugh.
 
How on earth did you get the mainspring back into the gun again? I just took mine completely apart and everything goes back together easily, but I can't for the life of me get the mainspring back!!
 
How on earth did you get the mainspring back into the gun again? I just took mine completely apart and everything goes back together easily, but I can't for the life of me get the mainspring back!!

It’s tricky. Once you do it once, you’ll get it. I’ve had to do it about five or six times over the years between all my Lugers and one friend’s Luger.
I’m sure you can Google quick videos of how to do it easily. If you can’t figure it out I can take a few pictures to explain it
 
A used set of wood grips would look nice.
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So the weird thing is, that Vopo set fits the Gun pretty much perfectly. If I put the grips on that came with the gun when I bought it, the wood overhangs the metal in several areas of the front and back straps. They did that even when the gun was still nickel plated but even more so now that I’ve stripped it and cleaned/blued it.
 
13F3D900-CE53-4865-AD19-08A83DE78ADE.jpeg E17ED5BD-56CA-42BF-83EB-593955EA5F2C.jpeg 1AEC78CA-429D-4E34-ACFC-9CDE0010660D.jpeg 85D6A95B-A1D1-4BC3-B2C6-1C5089E8C9FA.jpeg E227D72A-B636-4564-A532-14236C6BDD51.jpeg F2A740D9-D54D-49DE-B021-573CA841FC91.jpeg My theory on the grips is that the right one is original to the gun. The 14 stamp on the inside is barely visible. The edges meet the grip area fairly well on that side.
The left grip I think was a WWII-era replacement. The 14 stamp is much deeper and there’s another marking in there that is not WWI as far as I know. The front and rear edges are oversized so my guess is the gun was reworked and pressed back into service without regard to how well the grips fit.
The left grip is also a bit less worn, and a darker color than the right. Anyone have some input on it?
 
I have the original wood grips but I’m not putting them on. This will be a shooter as all collector value is long gone. I like the look of the black grip even though it’s incorrect for this gun. I may end up selling the original grips if someone with a gun ending in 14 needs them.

I have a set of repro wood grips you can have. Will be around by the end of September/early October.
 
That came out great John.

Thanks, it's not done yet though. The highly-recommended 'smith just received the complete upper yesterday. I probably won't have it back for a couple weeks and then I need to blue the barrel, extension, and front sight. After that it's done. I'll be sure to post pics of the final product and probably a video of me blasting water jugs with it or something. ;)

IIRC that was at Fred's Birthday shoot at Monument Beach. We were at Monadnock for the pumpkin shoot in '15 and car shoot in '16.

I don't recall which PB's and which car shoots I've been to in the last several years. I know I missed a couple PB's, and the last car shoot I went to was the one where that woman took the flying fuel door from that van right in the shin. Somewhere I have a pile of the little laminated nametags from all the Monadnock events I've been to.
 
I'm of the opinion that (excepting the rare situation of a virtually unfired and pristine gun) guns, tools, cars, etc., are meant to be used and appreciated. A well restored Luger that you can shoot and ENJOY is worth more (to me) than the museum piece you'll afraid to allow sunshine to light for fear the grips will age...

In other words, well done.
 
That gun looks great,and I know that if George Luger was alive today he would say.The Germans lost the war twice?
 
The toggle train came out nice, although you can certainly see some of the parts lost a little material. When I sent the barrel, extension, and completed toggle train to the gunsmith (G.T. Specialties out in AZ), I asked him to please check that all tolerances between parts are within spec and that the gun would be safe to shoot. He reported back that yes everything is fine even though the tolerances between the main components of the toggle train are a tiny bit loose compared to an un-issued pistol. There is a little space between where the center link and rear toggle mate together. He stated that what you're really looking for is that all the pins and axles are fairly tight where they mate everything up. If there were any movement back/forth in any of those tolerances you'd have a situation where the gun would be almost impossible to headspace. He said this upper headspaced just fine and he actually test fired it with a lower he has sitting around for such jobs. (The brand new Green Mountain blank barrel is made with a short chamber so it can be headspaced to the host gun, but all the headspacing for a P.08 happens in the upper. The lower has nothing to do with it).

The DMW mark is more shallow than original but that's the way it came out of the nickel strip tank. I didn't remove much material at all off the top of the center link. The breech looks very good and was one of the easiest parts to restore on this job. The rear toggle is a replacement, an Erfurt "78"

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