Experience with Stoeger Luger .22lr?

[tja6435]

My father passed before Christmas 2018 and I ended up with his Stoeger Luger .22lr.

I am pretty sure he told me he bought it new in 1976. It has the leather holster and magazine loader, 2 magazines.

From the looks of it, it has never been taken apart for a deep cleaning. I will be doing so before this summer.

This is the first firearm I ever shot at around 6-7 yrs old. It will be passed onto one of my boys eventually.

Does anyone have experience with these pistols? This one seems to be put together pretty well.

[arcticap]

I also have a Stoeger Luger .22lr but never took it apart.
It has an aluminum frame but others were made with steel frames.
My safety lever is quite loose and can drop at anytime while firing it if not propped up.

I made a video about testing ammo the first time I took it to the range.
At the time I didn't realize how to get the toggle to release after removing the magazine because it was difficult to
pull the toggle back any farther to release it, and I didn't want to force it back as much as it needed to be.
But after making the video, I did find that it could be released if enough force was used.

I don't have the skills needed to take it apart with confidence.
And I wouldn't have it taken apart unless it was necessary because there are solvents that can be used to clean & flush it out
without as much risk of damage, and risk of loss or breakage of small parts that may be very difficult to replace.
But that's just me.
Does yours have an aluminum or steel frame?

In the video, I fired the gun holding the safety lever up with my left thumb.
People must be very interested in that model because that video gets watched by multiple people every day:--->>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaKfhHC0-Cw&t=143s

[tja6435]

Thanks for the info.

Maybe I'll set up my GoBro camera (generic GoPro) and do a detailed disassembly and reassembly for everyone looking to take their pistols apart, perhaps fix the spring for the safety, etc. Numrich has some parts, I guess I should figure out what may need replaced at some point and buy sooner than later while available.

[mattw]

I have shot 3 different ones from way back... they were all junk! They had ejection issues, FTF issues and the safety on each had issues, either to loose or did not want to move. I think the root was all QC stuff. Likely, if a person got a good one they would be fine. At the time, they were in such a hurry to make them that they did not test or proof them well.

[roysha]

My brother-in-law had 5 or 6 of these things. He thought they were the greatest thing since canned beer and would buy one anytime he saw one for sale. He probably 15+ magazines for them. EVERYONE of them was utterly unreliable. It was a rare occurrence to be able to run a full magazine without a malfunction using virtually any HV 22LR ammo. I spent more time dinking around with these things, than I care to think about. We finally tried the Aguila hyper velocity, the name escapes me at the moment, and the guns all ran ok with that. Naturally we discovered that during the 22 shortage so finding a reliable source of ammo was difficult. About the time the ammo supply loosened up, he got sick and died. His DA kids took everything and who knows what happened to them, (the guns).
I wouldn't walk across the street for one if they were giving them away, well maybe if they were giving them away, but I for sure wouldn't buy one for a nickel unless I figured I could sell it right away for a dime. I love Lugers but these buggers are, in my opinion, a blot on the Luger name.

[Drm50]

I never had a new one but have had used. They shot ok but jammed a lot, not mag issue. One cracked the toggle link. Have no idea how many rounds may have been put through them before I got them. I had Erma 22
Lugers too. I think they were the same gun, with same problems.

[aap2]

I owned one back in the 1970’s and it was a fun plinker and reasonably reliable with ammo that it liked. The mechanism comes out in one piece for cleaning rhen you can clean the bore from the breech via a hole in the rear of the frame. There are a few small springs and keepers that can fly off upon disassembly so I would be careful...gun parts corp probably has parts. There are many better 22 auto pistols out there such as the ruger and buckmark.

[tja6435]

I owned one back in the 1970’s and it was a fun plinker and reasonably reliable with ammo that it liked. The mechanism comes out in one piece for cleaning rhen you can clean the bore from the breech via a hole in the rear of the frame. There are a few small springs and keepers that can fly off upon disassembly so I would be careful...gun parts corp probably has parts. There are many better 22 auto pistols out there such as the ruger and buckmark.

I have a couple of Ruger MKII Gov't Target models one with a 6.875" barrel and the other with the 10" barrel.

I've found that my Stoeger will run any round nose standard and high velocity round, lock the action open as long as I keep it clean. Once it starts getting fouled up it'll start getting stove pipes. I think these NEED to be super clean to be reliable. My first Ruger MKII wouldn't run a brick of ammo before I got failure to fires, once I cleaned it up it'd run perfectly until about 350-400 rounds and begin the light strikes again. That pistol got every spring and the firing pin changed maybe 5-6 years ago and now will run several bricks of ammo before requiring cleaning.

[Gunslinger1911]

I had a Stoeger 22 waaaaay back in the 70's. Bought new. Shot the snot out of it. Really regret selling it. I've always heard good things about them.
I know there was a "Erma" version of a 22 Luger, never heard a good thing about those.

Little tidbit : Anybody ever "rattle" your finger on the trigger while holding a 22 auto in your off hand? (yea, not really safe, I know). Can rip off 10 rounds in a hurry !
With a Ruger, I could "over clock" the trigger and make it misfire, the Stoger - never jammed.
Surprisingly that toggle action was faster than a "normal" action.