waffenfabrik mauser oberndorf 1918 rifle

WAFFENFABRIK MAUSER OBERNDORF 1918 RIFLE FULL SIZE

When the arms were forced down the slide and barrel unlocked allowing the slide to recoil to battery.

When the pistol was fired the slide and barrel recoiled together with the friction between the angled surfaces on the arms and slide delaying the unlocking of the action until the breech pressure had dropped to a safe level.

WAFFENFABRIK MAUSER OBERNDORF 1918 RIFLE FULL SIZE

Mauser’s design for a full size military pistol used a quite unusual delayed blowback system that featured a pair of arms in the frame ahead of the trigger guard that engaged into machined angled surfaces in the slide. The 45 ACP and 9mm Parabellum Mauser Pistols 45ACP and 9mm Parabellum used a delayed blowback system and his designs for the smaller cartridges were of a straight blowback design. Nickl produced designs for pistols in 9mm Parabellum. These designs were most probably created by an engineer named Josef Nickl whom Mauser had employed in 1904. Paul Mauser’s vision for his new semi-automatic pistol was to create a design that could be essentially scaled up or down to suit the cartridge it was to be used for. (Picture courtesy Rock Island Auction).īut there was another Mauser pistol, one that was not Winston Churchill’s favorite, one that was not associated with great political upheavals, but one that was a quiet achiever that sold around half a million copies across its model variants, and that pistol was a design that was originally conceived around 1908-1909 and which became best known as the production models of 19. A rare long barrel Mauser “humpback” automatic pistol. The “Broomhandle” was also used in China, where lots of Chinese copies were made, and during the Russian Revolution where it became known as the “Bolo” Mauser: the “Bolo” being short for Bolshevik. This pistol’s fame came to it in part because it was Winston Churchill’s favorite (although legend has it that he changed his mind when he discovered the Colt M1911). German firearms designer Paul Mauser’s M98 was by no means his only design however, it just happens to have been his most successful.Īlmost as well known as the M98, which formed the basis for the German Military Gewehr 98 of World War I fame and Karabiner 98k of World War II, was Mauser’s C96 semi-automatic pistol which is most often referred to as the “Broomhandle” Mauser because of the shape of its grip. You don’t have to be involved in the shooting sports for long before you will hear the name “Mauser”, often in conjunction with discovering Paul Mauser’s definitive bolt action rifle design, the Mauser ’98. To this day, after over one hundred-twenty years, the Mauser rifle is still one of the world’s most popular bolt action rifles.Introduction: One Pistol to Rule Them All Among those are the M1903 Springfield, Winchester Model 70, M1917 Enfield, Savage Model 110, Remington Model 700, and the Ruger Model 77. The Mauser rifle design has inspired some of the most popular firearms in the world. By 1944, the number of employees at Oberndorf had skyrocketed to an amazing 12,000 people with production being concentrated on the Models 98K, Luger, P-38 and HSC. This may have been the end of the Mauser legacy, if not for the rearmament of Germany in the 1930’s. The Mauser plant at Oberndorf, which had produced so many of the military weapons used in WW1, was greatly scaled down after the war to approximately 750 workers who were engaged in the production of sporting rifles and pistols. Turkey, China, Serbia, Mexico, Costa Rica, and numerous South American countries ordered rifles of the Mauser design. This would also prove to be a highly successful design and just one of many models to follow.įollowing the development of the Model 98, the Mauser name began to receive worldwide recognition. It was twenty some years later that the Mauser Military Model 1896, commonly referred to as the Broomhandle Mauser pistol, was introduced. The long and fascinating history of Mauser rifles began with the acceptance of the Model 1871 by the Prussian War department. Paul and Wilhelm Mauser couldn’t possibly have known the impact their simple yet effective turn bolt design would have on the future of firearms.

Waffenfabrik mauser oberndorf 1918 rifle