“Der Luger”

The 9mm cartridge is one of the most popular handgun calibers in the world, and there are more different manufacturers of these pistols than the average person can memorize.   If you own one, look at one of your boxes of ammunition.  To THIS DAY, it is still marked 9mm Luger.  You might be shooting a Glock, a Sig Sauer, or one of two dozen OTHER brands, but stamped right there in the bottom rim of the cartridge case. credit is still given to Georg Luger for his design of the ORIGINAL 9mm automatic, the P-08 Parabellum (meaning "pistol for war")....or as it is most commonly called for it's inventor, the Luger.

The Luger is probably the most recognizable pistol in the world, and was WAY ahead of it's time back in 1902.  If you showed this gun even to a NON-gun person, he would most likely recognize it immediately........."Oh, that's a LUGER"........or "one of those NAZI guns " that he's seen in the movies.

It was originally chambered in 7.65 caliber, but when feedback dictated that they wanted more power, they merely enlarged the "bottle-neck" case to a straight-wall, and it became the 9mm, that has endured to this day. 

Before long, small countries all over Europe ordered them for THEIR armies as well.  It was even tested HERE in America, before John Browning's 45 automatic was chosen over it.  But in NAZI Germany, the gun never left center stage.  It was very modern in design even by TODAY's standards.  It was a uniquely designed pistol that served in both world wars.

Ever since the wars,the Luger has become a pistol of  mystery and "mystique".  like ALL old military weapons...."if it could talk........"   The Luger has forever been linked to the "sinister."   

This particular Luger is a 1939 vintage and was taken from a dead German soldier by a late friend of mine who gave it to me for my collection a few years before his passing in 1987.

Easily the most distinctive feature of the gun is its shape,in-which the handle is slanted 55 degrees back from the frame, and fits perfectly into the inner contour of the human hand, making the gun a "natural pointer."

The Luger is so perfectly balanced, you can pick it up, fix your eyes on a target (such as a light switch here)........close your eyes, then raise the gun to where you think that "target" is......OPEN your eyes, and you'll be RIGHT ON IT, nearly every time!  Try that "exercise" with any other pistol and you'll be 2 to 3 feet off!

They shoot well, even after 100 years, because they were BUILT well to begin with.  Lugers today vary in value, depending on the chamber markings from both the German military, and the other countries that bought them.  (Just the other day, I personally held one with the American Eagle stamped over the chamber-----one of the "test guns" that was in the running with our 45).  You don't see many of those.

Of particular interest are the "SS" Lugers, carried by the Gestapo, identified by the "Death's Head" and "lightning runes"......the DARKEST of histories, but collectors are willing to cough up "serious coin" for them, when one becomes available for sale.

Most Lugers you'll ever see have 4" barrels.  The German NAVY (Kreigsmarine), for some odd reason, ordered all of THEIRS with 6" barrels.  I always thought that was a bit strange, because when you're shooting at enemy ships at 10 to 15 miles with your main batteries, what difference did an extra 2 inches of barrel make, on a pistol you couldn't reach the enemy with anyway?  But their Navy INSISTED on 6'" barrels for their sidearms.

.....and a bit of "trivia"...........a lot of people think that when Hitler shot himself in the bunker, he did it with a Luger.   Not true.  He used a Walther PPK in 7.65-----a cartridge more commonly known today as the 32 automatic.

Very much like the one pictured below.......(this is a newer PPK, in 380 auto)..............as in "Bond".........."James Bond."..............