a piece of history

Retrieved: December 10, 2013

TRX
09-29-2011

I dug my Mauser out the other day. I haven't shot it since... uh... 1987, best as I can figure. I have about 60 rounds of homemade 7.65x53 I loaded about the same time. One box of 20 has the characteristic round shoulders left by the swaging die that reforms .30-'06 brass to 7.65. The shoulders don't get crisp until the round is fired once.

1891:

In the American West, the Dalton Gang was in the news.

In the citified east, Thomas Alva Edison gave the first demonstration of moving pictures via his new "kinetoscope."

In the village of Ranshofen in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a boy named Adolf turned two. His parents went to church and prayed for his health; he was their fourth child. Two boys and a girl had all died before reaching their third year.

In the Third Republic of France, Michelin patented the pneumatic tire.

In Imperial Russia, Tsar Alexander's armorers approved the "3-line rifle, Model 1891," though production was not scheduled to start until the next year. He also started construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

In the British Empire, "The Strand" in London printed the first Sherlock Holmes story. Across town, Freidrich Engels was finishing up "Das Kapital" after the death of its original writer, his friend Karl Marx.

In the Second Reich of Germany, an inspector in the ultra-modern steam- powered, gaslit Mauser-Werke factory in Berlin drove a hardened steel stamp into the barrel of a rifle. It marked the rifle as proofed by the authority of His Imperial and Royal Majesty Wilhelm the Second, by the Grace of God, German Emperor and King of Prussia.

And now, 120 years later and on a different continent, that same rifle is leaning against the side of my desk. The Reich and the House of Hohenzollern are no more, and Mauser-Werke exists only as a brand name in a corporate conglomerate. It has been a quarter of a century since it was last fired. But when I settle it onto the sandbag at the range next week, I expect it will perform flawlessly, as it always has before.

There are few modern sporting rifles that match the Model of 1891 as far as quality of construction. The 1891 wasn't designed for sale to individuals, but to governments, in an era when rifles were still considered a capital investment, and were expected to last indefinitely. I have never found the price the 1891 sold for, or then-current exchange rate between the Reich and government of Argentina, but I expect that rifle cost at least the same as a year's pay for the soldier who carried it. By modern standards the detail on the 1891 is insane; the magazine follower is whittled out of bar stock and polished, and the blue job... of course, the 1891 was designed for export, and "pretty" is always a selling point, even for military weapons. The Model of 1891 isn't "better quality" than my Romanian AK-47; I expect the Romy will perform just as reliably on its 120th birthday. The two rifles are the end products of very different engineering decision trees, their only real similarity being that they both shoot a .311 diameter bullet.

Even knowing that, I still love the smooth snick of the polished, oiled Mauser parts sliding against each other. That feel doesn't make it shoot any better, but I bet it impressed that long-ago Argentine purchasing agent as much as it does me. "This is a firearm of the highest quality, one that our soldiers will be proud to carry, that will serve our nation reliably for many years to come."

TRX
10-01-2011

The 1891, 1893, and 1895 are all fine rifles made to the same ridiculous quality standards.

The Model 1898 offered several improvements over the earlier rifles, but the early ones more closely resemble modern sporting rifles than the 1898 does.

Common calibers were 7mm Mauser (known commercially in Britain as ".276 Rigby", btw...), 7.65x53 Belgian/Argentine, and 6.5x55. You can buy Argentine off the shelf now, but the 7 and 6.5mm are much cheaper to shoot.

I've always liked to view things in context. If you ever want to experience a case of Future Shock, read about the life of Winston Churchill...

TRX
10-01-2011

The 1898's major feature was the non-rotating extractor claw. A few military and commercial rifles copied that for a while, but as far as I know there's no current production rifle that uses the setup. Even the new commercial "Mauser" actions use a hook extractor like the 91-96 Mausers.

The idea non-rotating claw was to positively extract oversize, dirty, or damaged brass, with the thought that in combat, the rifle MUST go "bang!" when required. The claw worked very well, but it left a lot of the case head unsupported, which led to case blowouts with higher-pressure cartridges. Most later small arms designers appeared to be more concerned with that than extraction, so the claws went away.

The '98's other big feature was the "web" between the barrel and the receiver lugs, like the Lee (SMLE) design. It was an evolutionary dead-end as well.

The 98's descendants were the '03 Springfield, the P13, 14, and 17 Enfields, the Remington Model 30, the "Commercial" and "Magnum" Mausers until they were discontinued, and some limited-production 98 variants made for big game hunting.

The 98 is a fine design, but it was just a limb on the evolutionary tree like the SMLE, which might as well have come from another planet...

TRX
10-06-2011

Originally Posted by mtdew
I also have a DOT44 w/ nazi waffenamt markings.

Those are neato.

Over on surplusrifles.com a couple of people have mentioned owning Mausers that have both the Nazi swastika and the Israeli Star of David. Apparently Israel got whatever milsurp they could in their early days. I thought it was a sign of their national character that they left the swastikas alone instead of grinding them off. I can imagine some Israeli grunt standing guard duty with one, running his thumb over the marks, and thinking about things too recent to be called history.

http://www.pakguns.com/showthread.php?10371-a-piece-of-history&highlight=

TRX
22-11-2012

Nice catch! After a few moments of WTF? I found this at Wikipedia:

"was born in Ranshofen, later annexed to Braunau am Inn, on 20 April 1889. He and his family left Braunau and moved to Passau in 1892."

That sort of thing happens where I live, too. And not only do towns occasionally change their names (and the names of their streets, and the numbering of buildings on their streets), but there are multiple towns with the same name, and the same street address might be valid for all of them. No wonder the Post Office employees occasionally go mad...