Mauser P08 100th Anniversary

Luger P.08 is one of the most famous pistols in the world. In Europe it is better known as Parabellum – “Parabella”.

Self-loading pistol with locked breech. The breech is unlocked after a short recoil of the barrel & bolt assembly, when the breech knobs are deflected from the locked state after striking the stock, which is an integral part of the gun frame. The pistol was developed by George Luger from one of the first commercially successful self-loading pistols, the Borchardt C-93 pistol invented by Hugo Borchardt, which was inspired by the Maxim machine gun system. The Luger pistol was patented by Georg Luger in 1898. In 1900, it was produced in Germany by Ludwig Loewe’s Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken (DWM).

The pistol was usually very well made, and in its day it was one of the most reliable self-loading weapons. The main disadvantage was the relatively high production cost, unsuitable for a service weapon. The pistol was produced in many variants. Examples, original leaf return spring, model short frame, no palm safety, direction of operation of manual safety same as P.08, return spring wound). P.08 originally without the possibility of attaching a stock, during production (after the LP.08 was introduced to facilitate production) the possibility of attaching a stock was retained, barrel length 100mm, calibre 9 mm Luger. LP.08 – barrel length 203 mm, extension stock, adjustable tangential eight-position sight with adjustment of shooting distance (theoretical) up to 800m, first model with possibility of correction of sight and sights by screws, second model simplified without possibility of correction. From 1938 onwards, it was slowly replaced by the new German Walther P 38 pistol, which was much simpler and cheaper to produce.