Luger 30 cal or not? `

[WOLFGUNNER5150]

My friend has what I belive to be a 1920 commercial Luger in 30 cal luger.
Now here is the problem , it has no markings other than DWM on the toggle,made in Germany on the right side of the frame near the barrel ,and gesichert near the safety.
The barrel dose not look like itt is big enough for a 9mm so I think it is a 30 l`uger.
I got him a box of Winchester super X that are bottle necked and need o make sure they are the right ones.
A round will feed but I'm still worried about case failure.
If any has one or knows how to tell for sure "safely" pleas let me know. Thank you.

 

[Jim K]

You can check the barrel with any .30 bullet; just drop it into the muzzle. If it falls through, that barrel is 9mm.

It sounds like you have what you say you do. In any case, the worst that could happen if a .30 Luger (7.65 Parabellum) were fired in a 9mm Luger (9mm P.) chamber is that the gun won't work and the case will come out looking like a 9mm.

Jim

 

[Quantrill]

Why not have a gunsmith look at it? He can check it for safety as wall as caliber. Quantrill

 

[Johnny Guest]

Humm.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but - - -

I think the only cartridges for which DWM (or any other mfgr) ever produced the Luger pistol were 9x19 and 7.65. I know about the little conversion units, sure, but I mean complete pistols. Oh, yeah, the .45 for the US trials, but that was not a production item.

Best,
Johnny

 

[Jim K]

With those exceptions and the few .45 Lugers made by custom makers in this country in fairly recent years, and the "Baby" experimental Lugers made in .32 ACP (7.65 Browning) and .380 (9mm Browning Short) that is correct.

I think the intent of the original question was whether the pistol was .30 Luger (the U.S. standardized name) or 9mm. A large number of Lugers imported into the U.S. in the 1920's and 1930's were in .30 Luger because of treaty restrictions on manufacture of 9mm pistols in Germany. There are also many older models in that caliber, which was the original Luger caliber, the 9mm being created by opening up the cartridge case to meet German army requirements for a larger caliber.

The .30 Luger is a delight to shoot, with low recoil and much better reliability than the 9mm. Its only drawback is that it was not much used as a military caliber so there are no huge stocks of surplus ammo available cheap, and there is not enough demand today for mass manufacture to reduce cost.

Jim