Mauser C-96 • • • Main Page • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • NOTE - Total newbies trying to identify a gun might want to start on the Uncredited Net-trawled illustrations, most likely from A.B. Zhuk, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Handguns: Pistols and Revolvers of the World from 1870 to the Present.

The M-30 at upper right has the wrong lanyard ring loop, and the serial number is in the wrong place. These pistols are collector's items. That means that nobody now uses them as workaday guns. No military or police force anywhere is known to carry the C-96 - the last ones I've heard about were the ceremonial guards at Mao's tomb. But mention collectors, and you'll see combat a-plenty - it's the inevitable cage match between the Aristotelians and the Platonists, the 'splitters' and the 'lumpers'.

Some collectors see differences everywhere - they're classic 'splitters.' And the C-96 is good material for splitters. One of the books describes and pictures some seventy distinct variations. I've identified more. It's as bad as collecting PEZ dispensers, but more expensive.

On the other hand, a historian of firearms production would note that not all variants are equal. Some sold in large numbers. Others were duds, and were quickly dropped. In a very real sense, the common ones are the important ones. And they are the ones which approach the Platonic ideal of the Mauser - the one you'd show them when the kids ask, 'What's a C-96?' For the purposes of this site, I am going to make a break with the, ignore the rarer variants, and concentrate on the 'ordinary' guns which anyone, dedicated collector or casual shooter, is most likely to encounter.

SOLD FOR: $2,295.00. LSB#: 150825JL18. Make: Mauser of Orberndorf on the river Neckar. Model: 1896 “Red 9” Persian Contract Configuration. Serial Number: 64003. Year of Manufacture: 1916-1918. Caliber: 9mm Luger / Parabellum / 9x19mm. Action Type: Single Action, Semi-Automatic, Internal. MAUSER C-96 BROOMHANDLE IN.30 MAUSER CAL., WITH 5 14 BARREL. CONDITION 98%+. SERIAL NUMBER 891531. MAUSER MODEL C-96 for sale by YankeeArtifacts on. Browse all new and used Mauser Pistols - Broomhandle for sale and buy. Parts, matching serial number. Mauser Broomhandle, M96, made in 1900, serial.

What Would Emma Do Pdf 7. The vast majority of oddball pistol variations date from the early years of production. It didn't take the Mauser factory long to debug the design, and very soon after startup, reliable and remarkably sturdy pistols were being cranked out by the thousands. Except for an enforced hiatus at the end of World War One, the pistol stayed in continuous production for more than forty years. But for a while, the factory flailed about with a blizzard of minor variations and strange stylistic experiments. Six-shot and twenty-shot magazines, the 'flatside' frame, the cone hammers, the large ring hammers, and the early Bolos all date to the first eight years or so of production. These had all pretty much disappeared by the time serial numbers reached the 40,000 range (very approximately, 1905 - possibly as early as 1902, though I doubt it; lacking documentation, it's all guesswork), and so constitute a very small fraction of the total production of well over a million pistols.

If we eliminate this small percentage of early pistols, a mere half-dozen major variants remain. Ninety five percent of the guns made were one or another of these variants - • Prewar Commercial, of two minor variants - around 240,000 made between about 1905 and 1912-14 (In the C-96 context, the 'war' is always the Great War of 1914-1918.) • Wartime Commercial - around 144,000 made between 1912-14 and 1918 • 1916 Prussian Contract - a.k.a. Red 9 - around 135,000 made between 1916 and 1918 • Postwar Bolo, of two minor variants - around 345,000 made between the early 1920s and 1930 • M-30, of several minor variants - around 120,000 made between 1930 and 1937 • Schnellfeuer - close to 100,000 made between about 1932 and 1937 - rare in the USA, thanks to the 1934 National Firearms Act Most of the terminology is not entirely standardized. And most of it is modern - Mauser never sold a new gun as a Prewar Commercial, for instance.

However M-30 is almost an official Mauser designation, as is Schnellfeuer (more properly, Schnellfeuer-pistole). The unofficial names used by modern collectors are relatively well-known but vary somewhat in practice. On this site, I refer to all variants of the pistol as the C-96, due to habit more than anything else. The name Bolo is common but not standardized. I use it for any C-96 with a small grip and short (3.9 inch) barrel. Others may apply the term to guns with either a short barrel or nasty little grips.

Parts names I use appear on the. And keep in mind that 'prewar', 'wartime', and 'postwar' in the C-96 context refer to the Great War of 1914 - 1918. I refer to the days when these guns were manufactured as the Stable Production Period (something of a misnomer, I'll admit, as it was none too stable for a few years after the war). Stable Production Period is a new term - it doesn't appear in the books.