Luger snail drum assistance

Forgive my ignorance but if the loading tools we see now are post WW1 "police " issue how were the snail drums loaded during WW1? I have had a snail drum magazine and loader and both carried the same makers marks and proofs. I cleaned mine out with a good soaking in ordinary solvent, shake out the dirty solvent, resubmerge and let soak, etc. until the solvent comes out clean. It was all still working when I sold it years ago. Joe
 
I'm not convinced that the loading tools we see today were made for police only. I suspect surplus war time stock was reissued and / or continued production delivered to police forces, so it is not possible to tell if a loader was made during the war or post war. The wartime TM's were issued with loaders.

Info from the luger.gunboards forum:

Original loading tools should be much more expensive than snail drums as there was only one tool issued for five TMs. As no authoritative drawings were made of the loading tool, it will be extremely difficult to distinguish between fakes and original items. I take it that the Simpson repros are stamped with the Bing trade mark. An attempt was made some time back on this Forum to establish criterea but without definitive results. [Posted - 10/06/2006]

Another interesting snippit;

Devices that were used exclusively by the police and not during the war were TM unloaders (a modified loader that would push out a round when the lever was pulled down), the understanding is that in the trenches it was easy to unload, turn to the west and open up, whereas the police could not do this and required a tool.


FYI TM = Trommel Magazine = Drum Mag
the proper designation of the mag is the TM-08
 
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john@ said:
...the understanding is that in the trenches it was easy to unload, turn to the west and open up...
Click to expand...

Hehehe...if some of my ancestors hadn't been "to the west" I'd probably find this line funnier, but it's still, um, amusingly said.

NS
 
Not trying to be funny NS, just something I read elsewhere. Its also possible that a soldier that wanted to unload the TM-08 could find the nearest berm, or just leave it loaded for the next sortie.

More info on the loading tool from lugerforum.com

According to the “Ausbildung mit der langen Pistole 08 mit Trommelmagazine 18.2.1918” the TM08 were delivered inside P-Kasten (Wooden box) in the following configuration:
• 5 Trommelmagazine mit Schutzappen (5 TM08 with dust cover)
• 1 Fuller (One loading tool)
• 480 Pistolen-patronen (16 Patronenschachtlen)

The unloading tool was not present in the aforementioned items.

The unloading tool is not described in the “Anleitung zur Langen Pstole 08 mit ansteckbarem Trommelmagazin” the TM08 instruction and use manual.
At the contrary, the use of loading tool was described in the aforementioned manual.

There are no evidences that this item was used in the WWI.
The Sturmtruppen do not have time to load again a TM08 during the attack!

I guess that this item is a post-war modification.
Ciao
__________________
Mauro Baudino
Author of "La Luger Artiglieria - The Luger Artillery" book.
http://www.lugerlp08.com/
Click to expand...
 
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For those of you who might want to clean and lubricate your snail drum mags here is some more info I found on luger.gunboards

Schmitt's Police Manual from 1928 says 'keep the cartridge channel slightly greased' and 'avoid loading dirty and damaged cartridges'.

I used Militec-1 grease, I'll find out how well it works tomorrow.
 
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