Luger upgrade: Installing a replacement spring kit

[Malygris]

I have a Luger that I inherited from my wife's grandfather. Although he was in Germany during WW2, this piece wasn't a bring back, but was actually given to him by my wife's aunt's previous husband, who was a collector. The guy was a philanderer, and during/after the divorce actually asked my wife's granddad for the Luger back, and was promptly told to go to hell. That's the story.

My wife's aunt had the piece examined by a gunsmith at some point who recommended replacing the main spring.

I'd thought of just getting a replacement kit and replacing all of the springs.

I wondered if anyone had undertaken this, and what should be watched for, and if any special tools were needed for the mainspring itself?

Thanks for any advice on this project. Also, if any kit is better, I'd like to hear that as well. I have looked at some on both Gunbroker and Ebay. I think Wolff makes a kit for this.

This particular Luger appears to be a hodge podge of commercial and military parts, and also appears to have had the barrel replaced with a 6" barrel at some point; which has a different finish than the frame. Some of the parts have the characteristic serial number marks, but the receiver itself is undated; the toggle has a DWM sigil, but I think is a replacement. I really have no idea exactly what is original to the gun, not being an expert.

I have one other Luger that is a Sarco Inc import with only one part of the toggle keeping it from being all matching, and is a nazi era 1940 dated model. This one has some of the characteristics of the 1940 military model but doesn't have the serials stamped at all locations my 1940 example does.

Information

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[villiers]

I also use the Wolf spring kit on all my Lugers. The main spring´s the most difficult one but there´s a good description on http://www.lugerforum.com/

[Dutchman]

The early Lugers used a leaf spring for the mainspring while later models used a coil spring.

A recommendation: Do not take apart a Luger if you don't know Lugers. You'll be sorry.

Dutchman

[villiers]

Think it might well depend on the technical ingenuity of who takes it apart. The luger is held together by only two grip screws. All the rest is a kind of rubic cube puzzle. But, as mentioned previously, there´s a quite good pictorial instruction manual on http://www.lugerforum.com/ and, once it´s been done, you´ll always be able to do it again. If it proves too difficult, you can always take the bits to a gunsmith who´ll probably put it together again while you wait.

[Malygris]

No problem on taking Lugers apart and putting them back together again, been doing it for years. I learned dis assembly as a kid using a issue of Guns and Ammo and one of the metal replicas from Collector's Armory.

No, the problem I had was in compressing the new main spring. It was hellaciously stiff compared to the original. But I got it. I didn't have the special hooked tool, but I had a brass nail set that worked Ok. Took a few attempts to manage to get the spring in and then get the hook to grab correctly. It's quite a mechanism.

After that I got busy with other things and haven't installed the other springs in the kit yet, but that main spring sure made a difference. The original spring wouldn't even collapse the toggle all the way if you lowered it down gently - it would stay propped up in the bent position. Now it closes all the way no matter what, and feels much more like my other Luger.