School Me On the Luger P08

[tipoc]

If that were the case, companies would be making them today like the 1911.

Well no, not necessarily. There isn't much relationship to my (and many others) opinion that they are good looking and well balanced pistols and whether or not companies are making them today. The one thing has not much to do with the other. No one makes the Radom Vis either. Other than the Hungarians no one has been commercially successful at making clones of the Browning High Power.

The 1911 remains a viable option for personal and duty use, not so much the P-08.

Like the Colt Python, there is no market for new ones at the prices they would have to sell for. (Although when Mauser remade some, some years back they all sold out). There is not enough return on the investment it would require.

In it's day 1900-1942 it was the most widely distributed military sidearm in the world. Millions were made and sold. It was widely commercial successful. It was replaced in Germany officially in 1938 when the Walther P-38 was adopted but production continued there till '42. It was fairly common to find them still in service during the Viet Nam war.

Production of the guns was brought to a halt completely by Germany's defeat in the war. It was barred from producing them even if the factories that could do so were not destroyed and stripped of their machinery by the allies.

By that time the design was dated. The toggle link action was reliable but limited in the range of 9 mm ammo that the gun would function with compared to the Browning tilt barrel action. The toggle would not function with weaker loads of 9mm while the Browning or Walther actions would and still do. It would not work with the silencers of the day which required sub-sonic loads (desired as an option for military use).

A complex gun, it's production was time consuming with many machining operations. More than the 1911, for example, which was a model of simplicity by comparison. The German military wanted a design less costly to produce and maintain as it geared up for war in the 30's and they wanted a da/sa gun to do it with. So the P-08 was phased out, machinery placed in storage and the Walther P-38 brought in.

By the late 1930s-early 40s it's desirability as a military or law enforcement sidearm was nil (it did hang on for decades here and there). There were other more versatile designs. Even if Germany had not been barred from producing them there was no longer a significant market for them. The market for used ones took off though and is still thriving, but as a curio. But that ain't bad at all.

One of the top 5 most influential semis of the 20th century. Iconic to boot.

tipoc

 

[3GunEric]

I love my WW1 era Luger but - the finish is 100% gone, a magazine is stuck in the mag well, the recoil mechanism is permanently frozen shut, and the wood grips are missing!

I found it in the trenches of the Argonne Forest, France in 1987!

 

[Monac]

Well no, not necessarily. There isn't much relationship to my (and many others) opinion that they are good looking and well balanced pistols and whether or not companies are making them today. The one thing has not much to do with the other. No one makes the Radom Vis either. Other than the Hungarians no one has been commercially successful at making clones of the Browning High Power.
tipoc

Clones of the High Power have been successfully made by Canada, Argentina, and India. This is a much better record than the Luger, which was only successfully cloned in Switzerland, and unsuccessfully in the United States. It is not much, of course, compared to the 1911, but there is much more demand for 1911 clones than High Power clones.