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Originally Posted by Gatorade
I had no idea Lugers were made in 1971. My grandfather has a bring back from Germany and another he bought in the US after the war with some accessories. I am in the will for the US bought one. I plan on hand loading some reduced power loads because I really want to shoot it as well, just not that often!
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In all fairness, Mitchell Arms (Texas?) made/had someone make Luger style pistols in stainless steel in what I believe were the mid-eighties to the early/mid-nineties and I believe Krieghoff (a German arms maker) currently or recently offers new Lugers on a very limited basis. With the Krieghoff you're getting a real Luger in that Krieghoff was tasked in the 1930s to 1945 in making Lugers for Hermann Goring's German Luftwaffe (Air Force) pilots. They are very pricey, though, running I believe in the $15,000-$20,000 range.
I recommend not loading reduced power loads for your grandfather's Lugers. The reason being is that they would likely not have the power to cycle the weapon making it a jam-o-matic mightmare. Most Lugers seem to be happy as ducks in water firing 115gr Winchester White Box rounds and I'd suggest using reloads similar to these in power. Since you reload, I would suggest additionally that you take a look at the historical 9mm rounds used in the 1900-1945 period in that the OAL of those rounds are a smidgin longer than today's and can feed(?)/shoot(?) "better" than what's available today. I'm sure this info could be found either at the LugerForum.com or the Luger.gunboards.com sites. By all means stay away from +P or +P+ rounds as the gun is not set up for these. Remember, no dry firing the weapon. If it is cocked, you can uncock it by pulling the toggle back about half an inch (you'll feel it change its motion) an then, while holding onto the toggles and not letting go, pull the trigger and slowly ride the toggle foreword while holding the trigger down. You might want to use new Mec-Gar Luger magazines instead of the older ones that came with the pistol. Two reasons being that the older ones are, well, older and age issues might cause feeding issues and older, good condition mags tend to be pricey (by pricey I mean selling for up to hundreds of dollars) so breaking one could cost you some bucks for the mag itself plus, if its matching numbers with the gun, could take a good percentage off the gun's value. The Mec-Gars can be found on EBay for under $30 including shipping and work swimmingly.
Rick