Coordinates | 41°52′55″N87°37′40″N |
---|---|
name | Mauser |
logo | |
genre | Guns |
predecessor | Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik |
successor | Mauser Jagdwaffen GmbH, Rheinmetall |
foundation | |
founder | Wilhelm & Paul Mauser |
defunct | 1995 (sold to Rheinmetall), 2004 (Mauser-Werke Oberndorf Waffensysteme GmbH merged to Rheinmetall) |
location city | Oberndorf am Neckar |
location country | Germany |
area served | Europe |
key people | Mauser brothers |
industry | Defence industry |
products | Firearms |
services | Military and public firearms |
owner | Rheinmetall |
intl | }} |
Mauser was a German arms manufacturer of a line of bolt-action rifles and pistols from the 1870s to 1995. Mauser designs were built for the German armed forces. Since the late 19th and early 20th centuries, military Mauser designs were also exported and licensed to a number of countries, as well as being a popular civilian firearm.
In the late 20th century, Mauser continued to make sporting and hunting rifles. In 1995, it became a subsidiary of Rheinmetall. A division of the original company, ''Mauser Jagdwaffen GmbH'', was split off and merged in 2000 with SIGARMS; it continues making rifles, while the Rheinmetall subsidiary, called ''Mauser-Werke Oberndorf Waffensysteme GmbH'', made other products for a time before being merged in 2004 into ''Rheinmetall Waffe Munition Gmbh''. The Mauser name has also sometimes been licensed by other companies.
Peter Paul and Wilhelm Mauser continued development of their new rifle in Paul's father-in-law's home.
Wilhelm Mauser suffered from health problems throughout his life, which were aggravated by his frequent business travels. A combination of these led to his death on January 13, 1882. The partnership became a stock company with the name of Waffenfabrik Mauser on April 1, 1884. The shares held by the Württemberg Vereinsbank and Paul Mauser were sold to Ludwig Löwe & Company on December 28, 1887, and Paul Mauser stayed as the technical leader. Mauser A.G. was formed on April 23, 1897. After World War II, DWM was renamed Industrie-Werke Karlsruhe A.G. (IWK). The rifle was first patented in Austria by Samuel Norris on December 24, 1867. The bolt head did not rotate, a feature chosen by Paul Mauser to "protect the heads of paper cartridges from friction and possible damage while locking the bolt, and to provide a non-rotary seat for the extractor when metallic cartridges were used." This rifle was shown to the Prussian government, and after some design changes to the safety, was accepted for service as the Infantry Rifle Model 71 on February 14, 1872.
Slightly modified versions were widely sold to other countries, firing bullets that would today be considered very large, typically 9.5mm to 11.5 mm. Such large bullets were necessary due to the limitations of black powder, which limited velocities. Serbia designed an improved version of the Model 71 in 10.15 mm, made in Germany and called the Mauser-Milovanovic M1878/80. In 1884, an 8-shot tubular magazine was added by Mauser, known as the Model 71/84. The Turkish Model 1887 rifle was the first of a series of rifles produced for the Turkish Army. Its design echoed that of the German Gewehr 71/84 service rifle, as a bolt-action weapon with a tubular magazine beneath the barrel. The Turkish contract specified that if any other nation ordered Mauser rifles with more advanced technology, that design would be substituted for the Model 1887 to fill the remainder of the Turkish order. This clause was utilized after Belgium adopted the Model 1889 rifle.
The German Army adopted the best features of the Lebel to the Gewehr 88, also known as the Model 1888 Commission Rifle, along with a modified Mauser action and a Mannlicher style box magazine. There was a carbine version, the Karabiner 88. Both would be updated in the early 20th century and saw limited use in World War I. (Note that the Gewehr 88 was not actually a Mauser designed and engineered rifle.)
The Gewehr 88 was built for the new 7.92x57mm I with a 0.318-inch bullet The I and IS designations are used to differentiate the two size bullets eventually connected to the same basic cartridge. The actual 8.1mm diameter is 0.318898...inch cartridge, commonly known today as the "8 mm Mauser I", as it was used for later Mauser rifle models. This also was not a Mauser designed and engineered cartridge. The 7.92x57mm I incorporated the advantages of smokeless powder and higher velocity found in the Lebel. It was rimless, which allowed smoother feeding for both rifles and machine guns. The original bullet had a round nose and was relatively heavy by modern standards but was typical of early smokeless powder small bore military designs; several redesigns, including the adoption of the ''spitzer'' bullet of 196 grains weight brought about the change of rifling groove depth from .10mm to .15mm to solve problems brought about by the greater velocity and the "new" designation 7.92x57mm IS or 7.92x57mm JS 8.2mm or 0.323-inch bullet). This bullet type, with a sharp point and boat-tail, brought the cartridge to its eventual potency. Only later .323 caliber versions of Gewehr 98 or converted Gewehr 88 and Gewehr 98 rifles could safely fire the larger 7.92x57mm JS rounds.
The Mauser 7.92x57mm JS or JSR (8.2mm or 0.323-inch) cartridge should not be fired out of a rifle designed for 7.92x57mm I (8.1mm or 0.318-inch). Due to the different bullet sizes between the two, an older I rifle could blow up. Please have a qualified gunsmith verify the correct chambering by slugging the barrel before attempting to fire any such gun with any cartridge from any source or check, if applicable, the mark and calibre applied by the Proofing house.
As an added note, the R included in this style of designations indicates a cartridge with a rim, which functions better in some types of rifles, especially drillings and other types of combination guns. These often have slightly lower power to match the weaker actions
The system proved very impressive at the 1884 Bavarian Arms Trials, and both firearms were a success, but nevertheless they failed to convince decision-makers of the stripper feed's massive superiority over the en-block system employed by Mannlicher at the time. In response, Mauser started small-scale production of his design to interest foreign nations, but failed to convince any of the European major powers.
It did, however, convince the Belgian attache, whose report urged the Belgian government to contact Mauser in the hopes the design might give them a chance to found a domestic arms industry. The heavy-barreled Mauser with the barrel shroud resulted in the founding of FN as an arms manufacturer, but because FN (150,000) could not keep up with orders, they outsourced production to BSA (70,000) in Birmingham, England.
The Belgians talks with Mauser prompted the Ottoman Empire to consider the design, but they wanted something simpler and ordered their own variation of the would-be 91 Argentine Mauser. It was known as the 90 Turkish, but as this was taking place, the South American countries engaged in an arms race. The Argentine Small Arms Commission contacted Mauser in 1886 to replace their Model 71's; since they wish to keep retraining of their armed forces to a minimum, they went for the Mauser 91. As with other early Mausers, most such arms were make by the Ludwig Loewe company, who in 1896 joined with other manufactures to form DWM.
All variations used the same 7,65 mm round-nosed cartridge. Likewise, many parts were interchangeable, with the exception of the bayonets of the 89 and 90/91, since the barrel shroud made the bayonet ring too wide. In an odd twist, the 89 Mauser rejected by Germany in 1884 would enter service in 1940 with to second-line units in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium.
In the Model 92, a non-rotating Mauser claw extractor was introduced. The Model 92 in several variations participated in rifle trials for the U.S. Army of that year, though the Krag-Jørgensen rifle was chosen instead.
The new 7x57mm round, which used a full metal jacket bullet developing from a barrel, became the standard infantry arm for the Spanish armed forces, as well as for the military of several Latin-American nations, and is known in common usage as the "7mm Mauser".
The 1893 Mauser was used by the Spanish forces Army in Cuba against both U.S. and Cuban insurrectionist forces. It gained a deadly reputation from the 1898 Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba, where 750 Spanish regulars significantly delayed the advance of 15,000 U.S. troops armed with a mix of .30–40 Krag-Jørgensen and older single shot Trap-Door Springfield rifles, causing 1,400 U.S. casualties in a matter of minutes. The Mauser's 7mm cartridge gave some higher velocity and resultant flatter trajectory over the .30 Army cartridge used in the U.S. Krag-Jorgensen rifle, extending the effective range of Spanish defensive fire, while the use of smokeless powder gave the Spanish a major advantage over the single-shot, black powder Springfield that was also issued to many U.S. troops. In addition, the M93's stripper clip system allowed the Spaniards to reload far more quickly than could be done with the Krag, whose magazine had to be loaded one round at a time. This experience directly resulted in the commissioning of a U.S. Army board of investigation on the issue, which recommended replacement of the Krag. By 1903, U.S. authorities had adopted the M1903 Springfield rifle, which copied the 1898 Mauser's bolt and magazine systems, along with a higher-velocity .30 caliber cartridge, the .30-03 (later, .30-06).
On November 3, 1893, the United Kingdom of Norway and Sweden adopted the 6.5x55 mm cartridge. As a result, the Swedes chambered their new service weapons, the M/94 carbine and M/96 rifle, in this round. The rifle action was manufactured relatively unchanged from 1896 to 1944, and the M/94 Carbine, M/96 Rifle, M/38 Short Rifle, and M/41 Sharpshooter models are known by collectors as "Swedish Mausers". They are often sought after by military service rifle shooters and hunters. Initial production of the weapons was in Germany by Waffenfabrik Mauser, with the remainder being manufactured under license by Sweden's state-run Carl Gustaf factory. The Type 38 carbine was produced by Husqvarna, with additional carbines being converted from Model 96 rifles.
"Swedish Steel" is a term for the steel used by the German Mauser, and later Swedish manufacturing facilities to make the M96 rifles. By chance, Swedish iron ore contains the proper percentages of trace elements to make good alloy steel. Thus, though lacking the industrial base necessary for mass producing steel and iron, the Swedish steel industry had developed a niche market for specialty high-strength steel alloys containing nickel, copper, and vanadium. Swedish steels were noted for their strength and corrosion resistance and especially suited for use in toolmaking, cutlery, and firearms. As a consequence, when Mauser was contracted to fabricate the initial production runs of Swedish Mausers in Germany due to production delays, Sweden required the use of Swedish steel in the manufacturing process. The Swedish Ordnance Office continued to specify the same Swedish steel alloy in Swedish-made Mausers until the last new-production m/38 barrelled actions were completed in 1944.
Eventually in 1898, the German Army also purchased a Mauser design, the Model 98, which incorporated improvements of earlier models, and officially entered German service as the Gew. 98 on April 5, 1898. This remains by far the most successful of the Mauser designs, helped of course by the onset of two World Wars that demanded vast numbers of rifles.
Noticeable changes from previous Mauser rifle models included better ruptured case gas venting, better receiver metallurgy and larger receiver ring dimensions for handling the pressures of the 7.92x57 cartridge. Mauser also incorporated a new, third "safety" lug on the bolt body to protect the shooter in the event that one or more of the forward locking lugs failed. In 1905, the "spitzer" ( pointed ) round was introduced. This was in response to the French adoption of a pointed and boat-tail bullet, which offered better ballistic performance. The bullet diameter was increased from to . This improved round also copied the pointed tip design instead of the previous rounded nose profile. Pointed rounds gave the bullet a better ballistic coefficient, improving the effective range of the cartridge by decreasing aerodynamic drag.
Most existing Model 98's and many Model 88's were modified to take the new round, designated "7.92x57 IS". Modified model '88's can be identified by an "S" on the receiver. Due to the possibility for overpressure from the undersize barrel, the spitzer round should never be used in unmodified guns. Even then, caution should be exercised, particularly with model '88 rifles, where the modification was long-throating the existing barrels.
Paul Mauser died on May 29, 1914 before the start of World War I that August. World War I would see very large spike in demand for the company's rifles, as well as a number of variants of it. This included the several 98 carbines, as well as an experimental version with a twenty round, rather than five round, box magazine. The extended magazine was not well received, however.
A number of carbine versions known as Karabiner 98's had been introduced and used in World War I. Some of these were even shorter than the later K.98k. These carbines were originally only distributed to cavalry troops, but later in the war to the special storm troop units as well.
The Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr was the world's first anti-tank rifle, i.e. the first rifle designed for the sole purpose of destroying armored targets. The weapon was essentially an enlarged G98 and fired 13x92mm TuF (.525-caliber; the abbreviation stands for "Tank und Flieger", "tanks and aeroplanes") semi-rimmed cartridges. In May 1918 the Mauser Company began mass production of the ''Mauser 13 mm Tank Abwehr Gewehr Mod. 18'' in Oberndorf am Neckar.
Following the collapse of the German Empire after World War I, many countries that were using Mauser models chose to develop, assemble or modify their own G98-action rifle designs. The most prolific of them were the Czechoslovakian M1922 CZ 98 and M1924 CZ vz.24 and the Belgian Fabrique Nationale M1924 and M1930, all in 7.92x57mm.
The Belgians and Czechs produced and widely exported their 'Mausers' in various calibers throughout the 1920s and 1930s, before their production facilities were absorbed by the conquering Nazi Germany government and used to produce parts or whole rifles for the German Army. Strictly speaking, these were not "Mauser" rifles, as they were not engineered or produced by the Germans. It is a common misconception that the Czech and Belgian "Mausers" are copies of the K98k due to their superficial similarity in length, but in reality, these were developed at least 10 years earlier and as they were peace-time products, they are renowned for their high standards of engineering and manufacture.
Meanwhile in Germany, in order to use the widespread and popular German single-shot target (and light hunting) cartridge 8.15x46R (comparable to the US-American .32–40) also in a military-looking firearm, a modified Gewehr 98 was designed in 8.15x46R and referred to as a "Wehrmannsgewehr", indicating civilian shooters' pre-military training usage. These were made primarily as single shots, though some only had a wood block in the magazine space to accomplish that. These became the 1936 Olympic team rifles for the Germans.
As the restrictions on production were increasingly ignored by the Germans, a new version Mauser was developed in the 1930s, from the rifle-length Karabiner 98b, the Mauser Standard Modell, which was nominally intended for export and civilian sales. While many Standard Modell rifles were indeed exported, it was meant primarily for use by the revived German military, and would rapidly evolve into the famous Karabiner 98 Kurz (carbine, short). The K98k was adopted by Nazi Germany as the standard infantry rifle in 1935, and would serve until the end of World War II, (see later paragraph).
The Karabiner 98k "Mauser" (often abbreviated "K98k" or "Kar98k") was adopted in the mid- 1930s and became the most common infantry rifle in service in the German Army during World War II. The design was based on developed from the Karabiner 98b, one of the carbines developed from the Model 1898. The K98k was first adopted by the Wehrmacht in 1935 to be their standard issue rifle, with many older versions being converted and shortened as well as the design itself entering production.
In 1896, Mauser also branched out into pistol design, producing the C96, commonly known as "Broomhandle," designed by the three brothers Fidel, Friedrich, and Josef Feederle (often, erroneously, spelled "Federle"). All versions were made to use detachable shoulder-stock/holsters. Over a million C96's were produced between 1896 and the late 1930s.
In 1897, the Mausers were given control of the factory, forming Waffenfabrik Mauser AG.
The Mauser HSc was a self-loading handgun introduced in the 1940s. It was offered in .32 ACP, and was a compact double action blowback design. Production ran from 1940 until the end of production in World War II, and for a period in the 1960s and early 1970s. The post-war models were also available in .380 ACP
In 2004, Mauser-Werke Oberndorf Waffensysteme GmbH was incorporated into Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH, along with several other companies.
Category:Companies established in 1874 Category:Companies disestablished in 2004 Category:Bolt-action rifles Category:Firearms manufacturers in Germany Category:Defence companies of Germany Mauser
ar:ماوزر ca:Mauser de:Mauser (Waffenhersteller) es:Mauser fr:Mauser id:Mauser it:Mauser he:מאוזר nl:Mauser ja:モーゼル no:Mauser pl:Mauser-Werke Oberndorf Waffensysteme GmbH pt:Mauser ru:Mauser sv:Mauser tr:Mauser zh:毛瑟This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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