Why people think Luger P08 is pretty??!!

Have you held one? Or one of similar shape?

Aesthetics is in the eye of the beholder, to coin a cliche. An older Luger, with nice wood and that "blue" rust blue is (IMHO) a nice looking gun, but no better than a 1903 Colt pocket hammerless, or a nice Walther, or an S&W Model 1905.

It has been said that some guns don't look like weapons, but that the proverbial "Man from Mars" who had never seen a gun of any kind, would know right away that the Luger was a weapon. Maybe there is a kind of aesthetics there.

Jim

It's beautiful, a mechanical joy. A pox on anyone that can't see that.

It's kind of a mix between graceful flowing lines in the grip and trigger guard plus the toggle grip combined with straight lines intended for hard use. I personally love them but it's absolutely right up my alley. It's kinda like cars...some folks like the Nissan Cube, the Toyota FJ, or the scion xb. I think they are hideous...but a bunch of them sold so obviously people are attracted to different things for different reasons. Same goes for antique tractors, clothing, women, etc... it's all a bunch of opinions, and as they say opinions are like anuses, everybody has one and they all stink.

Because it is a good lookin gun . Several pistols have the eye appeal others the unique specialty appeal . The Luger has both .

For the life of me I cannot fathom why people think the Luger P08 is a nice looking pistol.

I personally think it's one of the ugliest guns ever made.

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Its hard to argue aesthetic tastes, as everyone has their own. I too, find the Luger P08 a handsome looking gun, but that's me.

Esthetics is in the eye of the beholder.

Personally, I like the looks of the Luger P08.

Heck, lots of people out there like the looks of a Glock, a gun which I think is uglier than sin.

Put a Luger P08 next to a Glock and here's what I see:

A finely crafted piece of elegant engineering with curves and lines that are a thing of beauty next to something that looks like it was carved out of clay with a butter knife by some kid.

stchman said:

For the life of me I cannot fathom why people think the Luger P08 is a nice looking pistol.

I personally think it's one of the ugliest guns ever made.

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<shrug> OK.

"A finely crafted piece of elegant engineering with curves and lines that are a thing of beauty next to something that looks like it was carved out of clay with a butter knife by some kid."

As an engineer and master machinist, I appreciate the beauty of the design and fine fitting that go into the P08. That plus the in-hand feel of the pistol make it beautiful to my eyes. A Glock or any other plastic pistol will never measure up. (IMHO)

There is no accounting for taste but I venture to guess most people think the Luger looks great! I sure think so.

I like the look of the Luger...but if you put it next to the Walther P-38, it'd lose out by comparison for me.

Beauty isn't just in the eye of the beholder...it's relative, too.

I'm sure I'll catch some flak for this, but I think it's badly proportioned, has a bad operating mechanism ergonomically, and the grip angle is way too high.

Like some others, I like the grip angle, because it points "naturally". But it falls down mechanically from the toggle mechanism, and its propensity to garner dust and dirt in the action.

The Ruger Mkxxx (non-22/45) .22 is a fine example of a "Luger style" pistol with a well-engineered mechanism. However, the Ruger just wouldn't handle a 9mm Para round.

I've always thought that Lugers had a very high "cool factor" in the looks department. Plus; they really do point naturally, at least in my hands. Add in all the history surrounding them and you're suddenly holding something famous in the firearms world. Mine was "liberated" from Germany's V2 Rocket factory ( The Mittleworks At Nordhausen) in 1945 by one of my late uncles. But Germany had just surrendered, the war was over, so he wasn't worried about getting capture papers for it. I sure wish he had gotten them, as I can't prove where it came from and it would certainly give the gun some historical provenance.

I read that the Ruger Mark series .22 semi auto pistols are close in design to the Japanese Nambu which is mechanically different inside than the P08.

I love the Ruger Mark pistols and I hope they keep making those almost all steel jewels.

I think the luger looks goofy.

It is a mechanical marvel for the era it was developed in.

And I sort of like it the way I like the looks of any machine with exposed moving parts.

Classic hand fitted

I have had several lugers. When you see the close tolerances made hand fitting the parts you will appreciate the skills necessary to make a luger. The luger was never ugly! I have had a broomhandle in my collection at one time. They are so ugly that they are beautiful! Everything is machined out of solid steel. No pins. The only screw in the whole ugly machine holds the grips on.
Anyone who appreciates the classic precision of German pistols can't be all bad!

stchman said:

For the life of me I cannot fathom why people think the Luger P08 is a nice looking pistol. I personally think it's one of the ugliest guns ever made.

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I think that's pretty cold. Georg Luger has always spoken pretty highly of you.

Like the guy said about porn.
I can't explain it, but I know it when I see it.

If you can't see it, I can't explain it to you.

It is true it is an antiqued design that realistically became obsolete in 1911 when John Brownings short recoil breaching system came along.

Everyone to this day copied it and still uses it in slightly different forms.
But nobody copied the Luger toggle-link system.

But if you can't appreciate the intrinsic beauty of a P-08 Luger as one of the high points of firearms looks and craftsmanship.

I just don't know what to tell you.

rc

P08 looks better than Glocks.

*raises fists*

I was gonna say it but herrwalther beat me to it...ya wanna see an ugly gun?

Check out a Glock.... And I *like* Glocks but they are butt ugly. The P08 to me is fascinating and beautiful...like an exotic female that maybe dun't look like a movie star but has something about them that holds the interest and is attractive to a high degree. It's subjective.

VooDoo

It's beautiful, a mechanical joy

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Classic, ingenious, and deadly.

To each his own.

I like the looks of the Luger P08, maybe not my favorite, but a good looker. The engineering and design is interesting.

I'll bet if you show about anyone on the earth a Luger, they will know what it is.

I used to have a WWII byf code Luger made in 1942. I personally found the ergonomics to be overrated. Yes, the gun points naturally, but the grip felt so wide, front to back, at the top I never really liked the feel of it. The safety lever works backward of what it should ergonomically as well. And finally, the magazine was an absolute bitch to load without the assistance of a loading tool.

That said, I've always thought the claims about the Luger's alleged extreme unreliability to be overstated as well. I never had any malfunctions out of the thing, and it's worth remembering that the Germans didn't replace it with the P-38 out of dissatisfaction with its reliability, but because it was an old design that required too much machining, and was therefore very expensive to produce. Yes, it is more apt to get dirt in the mechanism as a result of its design. And it's more sensitive to variations in ammo. But it worked well even in the muddy trenches of World War One.