Two Part Barrel?

[Kyrie]

Interesting Luger on Gun Broker (auction # 693361208). Item described as 'DWM Commercial Luger 9mm 6" Barrel'. Lots of very nice pictures. Picture # 29 shows barrel, with an apparent joint just ahead of the barrel SN and proof.

If this is an extension grafted on to a stubbed original barrel I'd love to hear the back story.

[DavidJayUden]

Interesting. Also the extra ring up at the front sight suggests either alteration or that the barrel was lathe turned up to that point. I initially thought it was a turned artillery barrel, but the numbers throw things off a bit.
Let's hear from our machinist members.
dju

[sheepherder]

Looks like a nice job.

Preserves the original numbers on the barrel, although the C/N is almost buffed away. Definitely a 3-piece barrel. Front sight band, threaded/chambered stub, and tapered blank in between.

A labor of love, I would say.

[Edward Tinker]

I am more inclined to believe its just been scored by a tool - reason is, that barrels have never been that expensive for all the work that would be involved, welding, reboring, etc. The front sight is wonky, so some kind of work has been done tho and folks will do the darndest things to get something to work...

[DavidJayUden]

It would be interesting to look at the chamber from the rear and look for rings around it showing a sleeve job.
dju

[sheepherder]

I think I can see the join line in the muzzle shot.

Still a nice job.

[Kyrie]

This thing rang a bell in the back of my head, and I finally remembered what this Luger reminded me of.

Back in the days of Federal Ordnance, and the C96 rebuild/restorations they did, they would cut the barrel off a couple of inches in front of the barrel extension. They would then core the remaining barrel stub, insert a new barrel into the stub, weld the new barrel in place, and clean up the weld. The muzzle end of the new barrel was turned down and a front sight was added.

For Model 1930 C96 pistols, with the stepped barrel, the cut was done at the leading edge of the step and the fact that a new barrel had been added was only detectable by looking at the breech end of the new barrel in the barrel extension, or by looking at the front sight.

FedOrd, before the transition to Briklee Trading Company, offered the same service for Lugers. It was a slick way of getting a new barrel w/o losing the original barrel SN and proof. I saw a couple of Lugers that had this treatment and they looked very much like what we are seeing here.

I'm not saying this is a FedOrd rebuild, only that it looks like it underwent a similar process.

[Rick W.]

I remember the Federal Ordnance broom mods. I have only seen pictures, none in the flesh.

The Luger looks like a three piecer. Can you say concentric? To do it nicely, lots of time in alignments. Looks like the taper got away a little, tis mighty easy to do. A fair amount of work involved, like one said, a labor of love basically.

the 9mmx19 in SAAMI is about 35Kpsi, so one has run that thru your own conscience for such a project.

This work reminds me of sleeving a single shot rifle, the best smiths will have no visible lines of the insert or plugs. Anyone can drill or ream the barrel, but the final fit separates the skill levels. I hear slight compression is used in certain areas to hide the lines, heard that from the big boys.

Always wondered how things would look if one did such a project and the taper was off just slightly.......then took a form tool to the front sight bulge to align without the jump. Probably cannot do much mini contouring or it looks worse than it was.

[Kyrie]

Rick,

Thank you for your comments - I think they are right on.

FedOrd was a class act. They did several gun for me and I still have a few.

They bought a bunch of Mauser Model 712 machine-pistol parts kits (everything except the frames) from the PRC. FedOrd made up new (semi-auto only) frames and built detachable magazine C96 pistols and carbines using those parts kits. Here is a page from the FedOrd Catalog. The page shows new frames, and a number of M712 barrel extensions with new barrels welded into cored barrel stubs:



This is a scan of the barrel of a FedOrd Model 714 I bought. Old scanner, very bright light, exposed things not visible to the naked eye (like the remaining buffing marks under the blue). This is an old barrel extension with a new barrel welded into the stub:



And here is a Model 1930 they restored for me, including "freshening up" the Mauser banner in the frame panel:



They were a full service shop. They would remark guns to the original markings, replace serviceable parts with new parts, numbered to the gun, and even create C96 variations that never actually existed. They restored C96 pistols to 7.63, or the new barrel could be 9 mm P. All their barrels were marked as to cartridge, unless the customer told them not to do so.

[sheepherder]

It's not clear if you were interested in bidding on this Luger. The last time I checked it was at $931 and I thought that was a good [buyers] price. It's up to $1450 now with 10 minutes left. That's a bit on the high side I think, but not outrageous. I've done some re-barrels and made two and even three piece barrels, and they all turned out well. The straw and bluing look good on this Luger - I wouldn't have minded owning it.

I think the corporate entities you referred to used silver-soldering or even brazing rather than actual welding.

Edit: $1450 was hammer price, 30 bids, but only 11 bidders and only 2 from $1200 on.

I hope the new owner brings it here for comment. It's an interesting conversion.

[Rick W.]

Kyrie,

Simpler times to be sure. I do remember seeing picts of made up carbines with wood stocks and forearms.

I appreciate seeing the picts.

Rick

[Kyrie]

Originally Posted by sheepherder

It's not clear if you were interested in bidding on this Luger.
--- snip ---

I was interested, initially, but lost interest when I saw the alteration to the barrel. That's a serious enough change that I have to have some idea who did the work before I'd commit to buying it as a shooter.