Gun Digest 2011. Dan Shideler
Krieghoff Luger, disassembled.
Great attention was given to getting the precise bluing colors of the original, a job complicated by new environmental laws banning some of the original ingredients in the blueing formulas. However, Krieghoff succeeded with true Teutonic precision. Every color is absolutely the same. The full attention of this German industrial giant was devoted to getting every detail exactly right. The finish has no tool marks except for the obligatory milling machine swirls in the safety area which also had to be exactly reproduced. A Luger without these would just not be an authentic Luger.
The parts all begin as precision forgings for maximum strength. The original alloys are used where they are still available and when new ones had to be substituted, careful chemical experimentation was done to be sure the bluing was exactly the same as the originals on the new alloys. Most people would not be able to tell the difference, but Krieghoff could, and only perfection was acceptable. The forgings were then sent to a modern five-axis CNC milling center to make the pieces that will be hand fitted together. The machine requires custom tools and contoured cutters.
The Krieghoff Luger’s frame has more than 600 points where measurements are taken. A 13-pound forging is milled and broached down to a half-pound semi-finished frame. It takes 7.5 hours to reduce 20 to 25 pistol frames to this stage with the most modern production equipment. The rear cuts to hold the trigger sear flat spring proved a difficult problem to solve, as did many others in the 100-year-old design. This gun was not intended for easy modern production. Specialized broaches like the one used to cut the slide guides in the side of the frame had to be made. It should be noted that it is a huge financial undertaking to tool up to make the Luger or any other gun, and Krieghoff has not done that – nor could anyone – for a mere 200 guns. What they could do was machine it to a point that a master gunsmith could take over with his hand files and hand-make it the rest of the way in the same manner that Best Quality doubles are hand-filed from forgings provided by a blacksmith. Believe me, it is a long way to go. You are paying one of the world’s greatest gunsmiths to hand-make you a pistol just as he would hand-make a Best Quality double shotgun or rifle. You are getting every cent’s worth of the price. Indeed, Krieghoff cut profits to the bone on this tribute to their old friend the Luger. The guns are only sold direct to the customer without a middleman to keep the price below $20,000. This is a true labor of love by Krieghoff.
The artist doing all the hand work on the Krieghoff Luger is Frank Kaltenpoth. While the English gun trade has tended to keep their gunmakers at the bench and away from the fame they are due as individual artists, this attitude has actually worked against them, as today most people imagine “Best Quality” guns to be mostly machine-made. Nothing could be further from the truth, and that mistake is not to be repeated with the Krieghoff P08.
Frank Kaltenpoth was born on October 20, 1963, the son of a lockmaker. He started his apprenticeship as a gunsmith at Ferlach in 1980, graduating with honors in 1984. He then spent four years in military service as armorer in charge of all hand-held weapons and the main gun of the Leopard 1 tank in Panzer Battalion 134 of the German Army stationed in Wetzlar, Germany. He began working as a gunsmith at Kettner in Augsberg in October of 1988. After four years, he was eligible for the two-year master gunsmith course in Ulm, where he graduated with honors in June of 1993. He then worked for Kirstein, remodeling and custom-building M1911-A1 pistols. There he learned to use CNC machines to rough out a part to a point where he could hand-file and hand-fit a gun to Best Quality standards. Combining the latest machining techniques with traditional Best Quality handwork is a great skill and one that few men have. As befitting a great master, Kaltenpoth is technically self-employed but since 1999 has done work only for Krieghoff.
Krieghoff’s production of the Luger pistol dates back to 1934, when they were awarded a Luftwaffe contract for 10,000 pistols. The last of these were delivered in 1937. Most significantly, they delivered on the Luftwaffe’s contract clause that required interchangeability of parts. Previously all Lugers were hand-fitted. Furthermore, they did this with a massive reduction in rejected parts during production, reducing Mauser’s 40% rejection rate to a more acceptable 10% rejection rate. This heightened standard of machine production raised the bar for Mauser and the other German firms. For Krieghoff, it resulted in lucrative contracts to make the MG 15 and other weapons.
Both Mauser and Krieghoff remedied a problem found in the 1920s-vintage Lugers made by Simson. The top rear of the ear on either side of the Luger’s frame must be of sufficient thickness to prevent the head of the rear toggle link axle being completely exposed as the toggle cycles. If fully exposed, the axle (or pin, if you prefer) can drift out during recoil and prevent the toggle from returning to battery. This was found to occur only on Simson Lugers, which had the most metal removed from this area. Mauser and Krieghoff both increased the thickness here beyond even that of the DWM Lugers to make sure this would not happen to a German soldier in combat. To draw attention to their fix, Mauser added an extra machining cut to produce a slight bulge over the area needing more thickness, a sight that many former Simson users found comforting.
The Luger is a natural pointer. Fully extend your arm, lock your eyes on the target, nestle your chin on your shoulder, and squeeze. Chances are you’ll hit what you’re aiming at.
Holsters for the Luger, left to right: Strong Leather pancake with thumb-break snap, post-war East German military, and fast-draw pancake without safety strap from El Paso Saddlery.
The Luger is a gun well worthy of such attention to detail. It is the easiest pistol of all to hit with; nothing points faster or more accurately. It is the most accurate service pistol ever issued. Most Lugers will shoot 10mm groups or less at 25 meters, and the only repeating pistols that I know of that have shot a 1-inch minute of angle group at 100 yards are the Luger and the 8-3/4-inch-barreled S&W .44 Magnum, although the latter hardly qualifies as a service pistol because of its huge size, recoil, and inability to fire rapid fire. Despite the many slanders leaped on it by gun writers over the years, when given the correct ammo and a magazine with a powerful spring, the Luger is also one of the most reliable pistols in the world – the number one spot being held, of course, by the M1911-A1 .45 automatic.
These virtues enabled the Luger to become one of the top three gunfighting pistols of all time based on the number of kills made. The other two are the M1873 Colt Single Action Army revolver and the sainted M1911-A1. The latter is the gun I carry but the fact remains that the Luger points better and is more accurate. It’s the pistol I use for varmints and trick and fancy shooting.
The Luger was one of the most popular military pistols in the world in the first part of the 20th century. Many nations adopted it and used it in far-flung corners of the world, but its greatest combat use was by the German Army. The German soldier was not a pistoleer and did not know about instinct shooting without sights. In the rough and tumble brawl of trench raiding and close-quarters fighting, the P08’s handling qualities gave him all the lessons he needed. It was quickly found that if you looked at the target and pointed the Luger at it, you usually hit exactly where you were looking. In the close confines of a trench, the Luger was a far more deadly weapon than the bolt action rifle and bayonet of his adversaries. The Luger continued to rack up its score through WWII, where German officers who intended to actually shoot someone with their pistol went for the Luger and those who wanted a pistol as a badge of rank opted for .32s. A good example was the SS officer who, as legend has it, was presented one of the first Walther P38s but continued to carry his Luger because he could hit better with it.
The Luger was often slandered by contemporary American gunwriters, perhaps out of an admirable sense of national pride or perhaps because they could do so without offending an advertiser. They attacked “the enemy’s gun,” the Luger, calling it unreliable and saying things such as, “If your Luger jams, use hot ammo. Lugers like hot ammo” and “The Luger’s magazine spring is unnecessarily strong and makes it too hard to load. Clip a few coils off to make it easier.” The truth is that Lugers don’t like hot loads and they won’t work with a weak magazine spring. Today, perhaps as many as nine out of 10 Luger