Thanks to some consideration from you fine folks, I was able to pick up my first P08. A 1915 DWM all matching #’s (minus mag) from Simpson’s LTD. Took it home and tore it all down for a deep cleaning and replaced the extractor and firing pin with replacements. Incase the original parts broke I didn’t want to break the serialized matching parts. All springs were replaced with new Wolff springs. And anyone who wants to replace the mainspring, putting the new one in is PITA! The bore is fairly pitted with some rifling left, but not a lot.
Ammo was my own cast reloads with recycled range lead MP 130grain RN over 4 grains of Win231 with Winchester small pistol primers. Out of 100 rounds, I had 6 failure to feeds. Four of them I just had to tap the top of the toggle for them to fully feed. They other two were nose jams into the chamber requiring dropping the mag and cycling the toggle. It’s not for home defense and it’s 104 years old. I’m ok with it.
At 7 yards off hand, it shoots about 2” high and right. The small circle targets are aimed right at the center. The two square targets and main middle are aimed 2” low and left. This gun is perfect for flinchers! If you can see the tiny green dots, they were my POA for each target.
The sights are diminutive and for a thumbs high and forward 1911 shooter like myself, the pistol wore the skin off my right thumb knuckle joint in only 100 rounds.
I won’t be shooting this that much but it’s a cool piece of history to have sitting in my safe. Completely happy to scratch this off my bucket list.
Next to my 1918 Colt/Rand 1911 from CMP