Читать книгу Gun Digest 2011 онлайн

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The new gun was a beauty, the belle of the ball. Everywhere people were entranced by its striking appearance and the new-found ease of hitting the target with a pistol that it offered. The Luger’s legendary handling qualities took the shooting world by storm. Switzerland was first to adopt it in 1900, with Germany adopting it in 1908 (hence the P08, or Pistole 08, nomenclature). Many more nations adopted it and still more bought large qualities. At last there was a pistol that seemed to accurately aim itself!

The transition of Borchardt to Luger without the input of Hugo Borchardt was not perfect, though. The Borchardt lock was carefully balanced to the recoil impulse of the 7.63 Borchardt cartridge. Luger used the same lock with shorter, higher-intensity rounds without adding the mass to the lock to compensate for them, which resulted in excessively fast action cycling times. This became a critical problem when the grip angle was changed from the vertical Borchardt grip to the steeply angled Luger grip, where the drag on the cartridge reduced the magazine spring’s efficiency to only 60%. A powerful magazine spring that is strong enough to require the use of a loading tool was needed on the Luger to be sure that the magazine could feed the cartridge up to the proper position before the breech closes prematurely, jamming the gun. This is the cause of almost all Luger malfunctions.