100.00 Luger

K

Kev

New member
Hello guys,
Been gone awhile but wanted to share this Stoeger Luger in 22lr.
I belong to a few local Facebook gun groups and this was posted along with a Remington 1100 shotgun with a simple "must go make offer"
Some people were saying 50.00 on the Luger so I sent the poster a message saying the Luger is worth 300.00
He asked if I was interested and would I give him $100.00?
Heck yes!
I learned the story about these was his FIL committed suicide (with the shotgun) and his wife wanted them out of the house.

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That pistol, as you know, is what is called a Stoeger Luger, not the original German military pistol. In the 1920's, Stoeger was importing Luger pistols and for trade reasons, registered the name "Luger" as a trademark. They had that .22 pistol made for them around 1985 and applied the Luger trademark. (They later did the same thing for a copy of the original Luger.)

They are not bad guns, but dis/re-assembly can be tricky and is not suggested.

The tragic story of the gun's previous owner is unfortunate, but not the gun's fault. $100 was a good price; they usually run, in top shape, around $250-300.

Jim
 
Yes I know about the Stoeger..
This one with the aluminum frame however was made in the late 60's or early 70's
The later models had all steel components and were more durable.
 
Ha ha, folks seem to take issue with your title.

Neat little pistols, the most accurate .22 I've fired incidentally. Something about the toggle action popping up and down while firing is just kinda fun too. I can fit 11 in the magazine, I'm guessing its only meant to hold 10 though?

At any rate, its a shame about the owner, but I'm glad it went to a home that appreciates it.
 
This is not a "real" Luger.

It is a .22 LR copy made by Stoeger.
Click to expand...

It IS a real Luger. It says "Luger" on it!

What it is not, is a Pistole Parabellum P.08. (none of which says "Luger" on them)

It is a blowback .22LR pistol with the overall shape and a toggle action made to imitate the P.08 "Luger". Not a exact copy, much different mechanically.

Stoeger owns the rights to the name "Luger" in the US. Legally, anything that they put the Luger name on, is a "real" Luger.

I have two of the .22s and a stainless 9mm, which is a copy of the P.08, and which says "Luger" on it.

 
Actually, the original pistol was not called the Luger except in the U.S., where the original importer used (but did not trademark) that name. Elsewhere, it is called the Parabellum pistol or, in German military circles, the Pistole 1908 (P.08). Similarly, SAAMI uses the names "9mm Luger" and ".30 Luger" for cartridges known elsewhere as the "9mm Parabellum" and "7.65mm Parabellum."

FWIW, in the days of yore, when the latest and greatest way of communicating was the international cable system, large companies had "shorthand" cable addresses, sort of like a URL today. Deutsche Waffen-und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) borrowed from an old adage in Latin which translates as "If you want peace, prepare for war." The last two words, in Latin, are "para bellum", and DWM chose that as its trademark and cable address, "Parabellum Berlin". Several DWM weapons were given that name, including a machnegun commonly used on German WWI planes.

Jim
 
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Kev, I hope yours works better than the aluminum frame piece of crap I bought around 1971. Jamomatic, the worst pistol I've ever owned. I sent it back to Stoeger twice with no improvement, in fact their gunsmiths were butchers. Maybe it was a lemon, some people got good ones I hear. I still wish I'd bought an Erma 22lr Luger.

I finally got a real P08 Luger in 1975. It worked and still works today.
 
I hope so too!
I heard stories that they could be bad but for 100 bucks I was willing to risk it.
I'll get to the range with this and a few other new toys soon!
 
My first handgun. Proved to be a jam-o-matic and traded it back to dealer for something else. In a moment of nostalgia 2 years ago I bought one I saw at a local show. Works great. I thought I did well paying $215 for mine but yours was a steal. God bless widows and old ladies who don't want guns in the house.

THIS is the real Luger if being precise in terminology. The German 9mm is actually the P.08.

The Luger I picked up 2 years ago...

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My P.08...

standard.jpg
 
I found one at a local shop, w/a beat up box, for a bit under $200. Gun only was running $200+ at the shows at the time...

They had it "marked down", because they had tried to use it as a range gun, and it constantly jammed.

I looked it over, it seemed ok mechanically, but you know semi .22s, looking ok is no guarantee of working ok...

Bought it, too it home...tried it, and yep, first mag, the thing was a Jammo Matic.

Then, I oiled it.
:eek:

Second mag, and several after, flawless function.
:D
 
I've often been amazed at how much a good breakdown & cleaning with proper inspection can fix a Jam-o-matic ;)
And in .22lr's, using the GOOD ammo, not the Remington miss-fire short-powder crapola...

Altho sometimes it takes the stoning and/or polishing of all parts that move against each other...
which was the case with both my Stoeger Luger & my Erma KGP68A :D

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It's annoying that Stoeger claims legal rights to the name "Luger" when Georg Luger's various pistols, including the German Army P.08, have been called Lugers since 1898. Stoeger wanted Americans to believe their .22lr pistol, very different from Luger's design, was the real Luger and Luger's pistols were not. Ludicrous!

Stoeger has sold real Lugers, their American Eagle Luger sold back in the 1920s was a real Luger and their stainless steel American Eagle Luger in the 1990s was a close copy.

Mauser, a true P.08 manufacturer, sold the Mauser Parabellum in the 1970s which was pretty much a Swiss Luger. Of course Stoeger made sure they couldn't legally call it a Luger!

Georg Luger also designed the 9mm Luger cartridge and it's a wonder that Stoeger doesn't sue all of us for using the term Luger. It pleases me to see Luger plastered all over the box and the cartridge!

Anyway, good luck with your Stoeger, Kev! That's what this thread is all about.
 
Quentin2 said:
...Stoeger has sold real Lugers, their American Eagle Luger sold back in the 1920s was a real Luger and their stainless steel American Eagle Luger in the 1990s was a close copy.
Click to expand...

Lugers were called American Eagle Lugers before that, too -- as you can see in the following link, which show several different models, including weapons submitted to the U.S. military for testing.

A little of the reading I've done on the early American Eagle Lugers (and I've only done a little) suggests that AE Lugers were being sold as early as 1903, BEFORE Stoeger bought the rights to the name for U.S. use in the mid-late '20s. None of this is meant to suggest that Stoeger didn't import and sell "American Eagle Lugers" in the 1920s... The following link shows some photos of examples: http://www.landofborchardt.com/AEluger-article.html

I've owned a three Lugers -- two Soviet-captured WWII shooters (both of which had matching serial numbers except for the side plate) that were badly reblued, and one nice, almost pristine collectible, bring-back. One of my WWII Soviet Captures was badly corroded inside the barrel (near the chamber) but was one of the most accurate 9mms I've owned. I may try to find a "shooter" again, one of these days.

As I read and learned more and more about the nicer Lugers, I decided I was getting in over my head -- too many fakes out there, and I was unlikely to become expert enough to really know the differences. I sold mine to a local dealer (Cherry's, in Greensboro, NC) and never looked back. I never shot the "bring-back" as it was complete with holster, tool, and magazines. It was a handsome weapon. (I never kept pictures of that one, and I wish I had.)
 
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Good info, Walt! I've also owned three Lugers if I count the Stoeger .22lr. Still have two P.08s, one a mixed parts 1913 DWM that I still shoot and the other a pristine all-matching Mauser, 41 byf "bring back".

Unusual story came with the byf, I bought it around 1998 from a retired LEO who was the third owner. He apologized for the "ugly" black plastic grips but now a "black widow" is desirable. He bought it from a guy who said he got it from a German doctor who brought it to the U.S soon after WWII. Whatever the story, the pistol must have lived in a sock drawer most of the time, it probably hasn't been fired 100 times. It lives in my safe now and I've never fired it. The old DWM is a lot more fun - over the last ten or so years it gets 50-100 rounds a year and only one broken part (easily fixed) since 1975. I fired it much more the first 20 years I had it.

Edit: After trading off the Stoeger for a song, a happy ending, I bought a Ruger Mark I Target that still shoots great today. I probably should have kept the Stoeger, maybe someone over the years could have fixed it. It had a very rough chamber and extraction problems. When it did eject the spent casing the next round usually didn't fully chamber. Stoeger's factory service bubba'd it twice so I just got rid of it.
 
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Whether you don't care, or it irritates you, or something else, you have to give Stoeger credit for a stroke of marketing genius, not just for obtaining the legal right to the Luger name, but KEEPING it for close to 100years now.

Luger named the gun the Parabellum, and also gave that name to the 9mm cartridge he developed for it. The rest of the world knows them as that. (or by the pistol's military designation P.08)

Only is the US is the gun called the Luger and the ammo 9mm Luger. I think this may have begun because Parabellum, being Latin, was just too "foreign" sounding for the American buying public at the time. Luger, while Germanic, "sounded" better to the customers. (also a bit shorter, easier to spell, and remember).

Once Stoeger began selling "Lugers" and got the US legal rights to that name, it became firmly entrenched, and even today, people who know almost nothing else about guns know the Luger name.
 
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