Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another
video on ForgottenWeapons.com. I'm Ian, and today I want to give you a basic overview, foundational, instructional video on the Luger. Specifically the mechanical development of the Luger. Because there's about approximately ten billion Lugers out there, and for most people they all look exactly the same. And so the question is what on earth are the differences? What's the developmental path of this pistol? Now in particular comparison, I always
thought about these compared to the Colt 1911. And if you look at the 1911 it had
a substantial developmental track. From the original Sight Safety 1900, through the 1902s,
the 1905s, 7s, 9s, 10s, 1911s, and then the 1911A1s. And there were a lot of substantial mechanical changes
that were made in the gun over that time period. The Luger is kind of the opposite,
the Luger went through only a couple fairly minimal mechanical changes over the
whole course of its mechanical development. Now there were a bunch of other aesthetic changes,
but the mechanical differences, not that many. This is actually really impressive when you think about it. Consider that Georg Luger was given a
Borchardt to work with as a starting point, and he basically created the Luger
pistol and got it right on the very first try. That's really impressive from an engineering perspective. So the basic overview here is we start
with the Borchardt automatic pistol. This is 1893, Hugo Borchardt designs
it, he thinks it's absolutely fantastic. It's manufactured first by the Ludwig
Loewe company and they make about 1,000 and then they combined with
another company and they form DWM. And DWM makes about 2,000 more,
for a grand total of 3,000 produced. And they sell like cold stale hotcakes.
These things sit in inventory until the 19-teens. It's just they're not that popular because
they're a big, awkward, weird pistol. They're better as a carbine, but as a pistol,
man, you know what? This thing's kind of goofy. So 3,000 guns made, we can
consider that reasonably successful. It is the first reasonably successful automatic pistol on the
commercial market, or the military market for that matter. But DWM ... they think they have
the seed of a good thing here, and they want to make improvements and
they want to make it more popular and better. But Borchardt thinks his gun's great. He really has kind of these
blinders on, and can't see how goofy and awkward his pistol is. He won't work with anyone else,
he refuses to make changes himself. And so DWM finally pretty much throws him out.
They own the patents to this thing at this point, and they bring in Georg Luger and
they give this thing to Luger and say, "Make this into something that
people would actually want to buy." So Luger starts working on it and ... by 1898 he
has the first version of the Luger automatic pistol, or as it was actually called at that point the Borchardt-
Luger, still acknowledging Borchardt's original design. Now the 1898 only a handful of those were made, what
they basically became was the 1899/1900 test version. Now, DWM really wanted military contracts for
these because that's a quick way to get a lot of sales. Germany wasn't really interested at this point,
Germany was working with some other guns. And the Swiss, however, were interested. The Swiss
had been doing a lot of testing of automatic pistols. They were very interested in keeping
abreast of the modern military technology. And the Swiss thought this was pretty interesting,
so 40 of these guns were sent to Switzerland for trials. The Swiss tested them out (and by the way this is a Swiss
trials gun, This is serial number 30 of the 40 that were sent), the Swiss tested it out, they really liked it, they
ultimately placed an order for 5,000 of them. But they did request a couple of changes. This led to the Model of 1900, which is this guy
right here. This is a 1900 Swiss contract Luger. And the 1900s were offered with a variety of crests, and they
were marketed to everybody that DWM could get to listen. The US government in particular tested them,
the US government bought 1,000 of these. They were also sold commercially in the
United States. Those are what are called American Eagle Lugers because they have
a big American eagle crest on the receiver. They were also marketed worldwide to everybody. And they're a pretty darn good gun, but there
were a few changes that DWM decided to make. And ultimately these changes
would result in the 1906 model. So we have here an interesting example. This is a really
rare variant, there were only about 50 of these made. It's a 1903 transitional, and it shows elements of both the 1900
and the 1906. So we'll take a look at that one in a moment as well. With the 1906, DWM has basically finalised all
the changes they're going to make to the Luger. So there are really only two major developmental
types of Lugers, or patterns of Lugers. There's the1900 model and the 1906 model. The major changes that were made are a change to the
shape of the bolt, increasing the strength of the extractor, and changing the mainspring from an S-shaped flat
spring to a coil spring, and changing the toggles a bit. So you can see here that they change the face of the toggle. They're ... what are called dished, scooped out on the
1900s, and they're full surface checkered on the 1906s. More significantly there is an anti-bounce lever in
the Model 1900 that turned out to be superfluous, and so it was eliminated, and
the 1906 pattern doesn't have it. That's pretty much it for the
commercial development of the Luger. After 1906 DWM continue to market these
aggressively to anybody that was looking for pistols. The 1906 pattern guns that are sold militarily tend to be
smaller countries, and a lot of South American countries. Places that might not have been really high on
the priority list to get sales agents to right away. So they weren't able to get to these countries while
they had the 1900. It took them a couple of years, and by that time they had an improved
version so that's what they marketed. Venezuela, Bolivia, Bulgaria, bunch of other
countries adopted 1906 pattern Lugers. Of course the biggest buyer and user of the Luger
automatic pistol was Germany, the German military. So we also have three of the German
pistols here to take a brief look at. We have the gold standard P08, the
standard infantry pistol that Germany adopted. And then we also have the
Navy and the Artillery versions. So let's take a closer look at these and I'll show
you exactly what all the changes are between them. So the Borchardt is where this story starts.
And the Borchardt is what contributes ... the mechanical nugget at the heart of the Luger
automatic pistol. And that is this toggle locking system. So the Borchardt, like the Luger, is a
short recoil gun. The slide here, the toggle and barrel assembly have to go
back a couple millimeters when you fire. Once they do, then this toggle is broken, and can then cycle up like a knee joint, just like that. Now Borchardt came up with this system and made it work, but
he did it with this big flat leaf spring type assembly back here, which is really goofy and awkward to use as a pistol. The grip is quite vertical. There's a
... lot of room for improvement in this. And that's where Luger comes in. Georg Luger took this design and really perfected it. He made this from one of the world's most goofily awkward
pistols into one of the world's most iconic and successful pistols. And this is one of the very first 40 guns that was
sent to Switzerland for military trials in 1899 or 1900. And right off the bat I do want to point out these
grips. The original trials guns had these grips with the exact same style of engraving,
or checkering, as the Borchardt, and I personally think these look just
fantastic, and those are awesome. ... Well, most of these guns eventually went
back to the factory and were retrofitted with various updates and upgrades. And most
of the time these original grips are long gone. ... Actually it's also interesting to point out
this specific pistol was in the Swiss trials. Then it came back to DWM, it was
updated with a couple of minor features and was actually sent back out and it
was also tested by the British government. So a lot of been there, done that, by this particular pistol. At any rate, what we see here are going to
be some of the ... fundamentals of the Luger. We have the dish toggles, we have a grip safety that was added.
And this would remain standard on pretty much all the commercial Lugers. And we have this anti-bounce spring which was a carryover
from the Borchardt, which also has that anti-bounce spring. So let's take a look at this and
compare it to the standard 1900 pattern. Alright so here's our trials gun,
here's our standard 1900 Swiss Luger. The Swiss did request a couple
of changes which were duly made. They wanted a larger disassembly button. So you can see that here. This is the 1900 commercial pattern,
or standard pattern, with a nice big coarsely checkered button, compared to the original trials gun that has this
much smaller, much more finely checkered button. So this is easier to grab and disassemble, one of
those little things that trials commissions often find. A similar situation was going on with the ... manual safety.
The trials gun has this rather flat low-profile safety, and the Swiss requested the safety be made larger.
So now it extends much further out from the gun, and it's a lot easier to grab and move. A quick aside, a lot of people
wonder why is this bit not blued, that seems like a kind of goofy oversight
for Swiss and German sorts of guns. The answer is this was actually your
visual indicator that the gun was on safe, seeing that ... unfinished patch.
So that tells you the gun is safe. That tells you the gun is ready to fire. Kind of like having
a red dot on the fire position on most modern safeties. The grip safety was also changed. The trials guns had
this narrow one that's just over half the width of the grip, and the standard 1900 pattern guns have this
grip safety that is the full width of the rear strap. Now I took the grip off of this gun
so you can see the mainspring in it. The standard 1900 pattern guns had this big long S-shaped,
actually pair of flat springs nested one against the other. Flat springs like this were often used in early firearms,
but they actually weren't as good as coil springs. They didn't have the longevity, they take a
set more easily and they break more easily. I do want to take a quick look at magazines, this will seem
very nitpicky but there is actually good reason for it. The trials guns had this larger and flat follower button,
... which was quickly replaced on the 1900 pattern guns with this button which lifts substantially farther
off the surface of the magazine than the original. and the checkering doesn't go all the
way to the outside, it's kind of got a lip. The reason for that was after the trials they ... developed
this loading tool that would allow you to hook onto the magazine button and use your thumb to pull a lever to
hold this magazine button down while you're loading. The Luger ... magazine spring is pretty strong,
and soldiers were complaining that it was too difficult to hold this button down to load
the last couple of rounds in the magazine. That is, by the way, a totally legitimate complaint. And
the loading tool on the Luger is a really nice addition. So that's where that happened is
really early in the Swiss contract, and this would become standard
for all the 1900 pattern guns. Now let's take a look at the 1900 versus the 1906. These will be the two main types of Lugers that you will encounter
and see, because they're the two main types developed. The couple obvious differences are the toggles,
in fact, really the obvious difference is the toggle. The 1906 has this flat toggle with checkering, where
the 1900 has this dished out toggle that's smooth. On the right side the 1900 will also have this anti-bounce
lock, or spring lock, which is not present on the 1906. They realised it simply wasn't necessary, it was an
added cost for no good reason and so they ditched it. The more mechanically significant change, although
you can't see it unless you take the grip panels off, is the change in the mainspring. This
obsolete old-fashioned kind of flat spring was gotten rid of in favour
of a modern new coil spring. That does require a couple of other changes to the
gun. You have to have this L-shaped link here to actually attach to the coil spring.
Where these guys didn't need it. But this ... may be the most significant
change to the Luger, really over all of its developmental history was getting rid of
this old design and using a modern spring. The one other ... substantial change between the 1900
and the 1906 is a change to the bolt and the extractor. So you'll see here this extractor's just
basically a flat piece coming back. On the 1906 it's longer, they've added these wings, and they've
actually cut a recess, or scooped a bit out on the front of the bolt. And all of that was done to improve the
effectiveness and the durability of the extractor. So, a valuable improvement, a good improvement. ... Not quite
as critical as the change in the mainspring, but still a good idea. And again, it's really impressive that,
you know, Luger was able to ... with his first design, really his first shot at
modernising the Borchardt, the only things left were things like little minor changes to the
extractor like this. That says a lot about his talent. Now I mentioned we have here a 1903
transitional gun. This is a French trials pistol, and what's interesting about it there were only
about 50 made in like the 25,000 serial number range. and it has elements of both the 1900 and the
1906, showing some of the iterative changes. So it has a flat checkered toggle, but it
does also have the anti-bounce lock in it still. On a really nitpicky side note here, a really
nuanced detail, this is actually 90-degree checkering. And if you kind of squint and look
at it you'll see a square pattern. The checkering not going all
the way to the edge of the toggle. On the standard 1906 pattern guns
it actually is [60] degree checkkering, and as a result if you squint and look at
this one, you'll see a hexagon shape instead. And again not quite going to the outside of the toggle. You know because of the market in Lugers and the value, things like this 90 degree checking on
the toggle are things that are often faked. So, interesting to be able to take a look at an authentic
one here for comparison purposes in the future for you. So the transitional gun here, the 1903, also has
kind of an intermediate version of the extractor. If we look here we can see these are both dished out, but the
wings on the extractor on the 1903 aren't quite as wide as the 1906. So they made this change for the
transitional guns and then realised, "Nyah, you know ... we can still do a
little more, we can do a little better." And extend them a bit more to get to what
would become the standard 1906 pattern. So there you go, there is pretty much all of the mechanical
change to the Luger over the course of its development. ... What's really remarkable
about it is how little there was. Got the 1906 here, distinctive primarily
for the toggle. And the early 1900 here. One other thing to point out is these guns all have
smooth backstraps, they don't have stock attachments, and they all have grip safeties. Grip safeties were added by DWM for the commercial
market, and they're on most of the military trials guns, but most of the military forces that adopted the
Luger decided that they didn't want the grip safety. The German military being a particularly good example. So when ... the German Army tested the Luger it
was the 1906 pattern. And so it has features like the flat checkered toggles, it does have
the coil main spring, that sort of thing. But the German military made a couple
of requests, they didn't want the grip safety and they did want a shoulder
stock lug, and that's what they got. So this is a standard World War One
German P08, Pistole 08, that's what they adopted. And this would remain pretty much
standard through the end of World War Two. They never did issue shoulder
stocks for the standard 4 inch guns, but they did issue stocks for the 6 and the 8 inch guns,
and they wanted the frames to all be interchangeable. So all the Lugers get shoulder stock
slots and none of them get grip safeties. (With an exception of an early Navy contract, but again
we're dealing in generalities here rather than the exceptions.) Now there are in total three different primary versions
of the Luger that were used by the German military, and because they were produced in very large numbers because
of the, you know, various world wars that Germany got into, you will see these guns in substantial numbers as well. So I thought
we ought to take a quick look at them and just identify the main features. We have the standard P08 that we looked at with a
4 inch barrel and shoulder stock ... lug and no grip safety. Then we have the Navy version. These were
manufactured primarily in ... 1916 and 1917, and they have also the stock lug, they don't have a
grip safety, and they do have a different rear sight. The Navy wanted to be able to take
advantage of its longer barrel length and they thought they might need longer
range shooting for things like boarding parties, or firing from a ship to guys on the shore. So
they got an adjustable sight for 100 or 200 metres. Sits on the back of the toggle like a
standard sight, but works a bit differently. And then of course we have the iconic Artillery Luger. Another
2 inches added to the barrel so these guys have an 8 inch barrel. The rear sight is ... switched out to a tangent
sight, and moved to the back of the barrel. Kind of interesting that as a result this actually has
a shorter sight radius than the standard pattern gun, because the standard pattern gun
had the rear sight way back here. However this does have an adjustable tangent sight.
In theory you can adjust that out to 800 metres. Which is a bit optimistic, but you never know. World War One these were issued with shoulder stocks,
and occasionally with 32 round Trommel drum magazines. And you'll also find these, they're iconic and
popular. And that is what the Artillery Luger is. You'll also see that designated as the LP08,
for Long Pistol 08, or Lange Pistole 08. So there we have the five basic types of Lugers
that you're probably going to run into the most. German Artillery, German Navy, standard German P08,
we have the 1900 pattern and the 1906 pattern. Thank you for watching guys, I hope you
enjoyed the video. My goal here was to give you an overview of what makes
some of these Lugers different. I don't want to try and touch on every minuscule variant.
And by the way I'm also speaking in broad generalities here. These are Lugers, like I said there
are 10 billion of them that were made, and there are exceptions to every single
rule, so ... don't nitpick the descriptions. These are admittedly generalities and they
will serve you properly for about 99% of cases. So hopefully this has given you a better idea for what different
Lugers are out there, and what the development was. And hopefully you enjoyed this. If you did,
do consider checking out my Patreon page. It is the folks on Patreon that really make it
possible for me to bring this sort of material to you. Some of these guns like, man, this original Swiss
trials gun are extremely rare and valuable today. And I have to travel to find things
like that. Anyway I'm rambling on. Thanks for watching, hope you enjoyed the video.
