Mauser C-96 (Mauser K-96) is a legendary weapon, a heavy, powerful pistol developed by the Mauser brothers.
Brothers Wilhelm and Paul Peter (left) Mauser
The pistol was developed in 1893 by the Federle brothers, who worked in an arms factory for the other Mauser brothers. It took them two more years to finalize a new model of an automatic pistol, already with the participation of Paul Mauser. Since the owner of the weapons factory was Mauser, Federle's design was patented in the name of Paul Mauser, first in Germany (September 11, 1895), and a year later in Great Britain (1896).
Serial production of the pistol began in 1897; Mauser received his baptism of fire during the first Boer War (1899-1902). He immediately received recognition and success from the military. Until 1908, 70 thousand pistols were produced.
Distinctive design features of the Mauser S-96 were an adjustable sight, a shutter hidden in the receiver, a block structure of the trigger (trigger mechanism), a magazine box placed in front of the trigger guard, with a hinged lid placed "on the rifle", staggered placement of cartridges. A wooden holster was included with the pistol, which could be used as a stock, turning the Mauser into a lightweight carbine. Especially for Mauser, on the basis of cartridge 7, 65 "Borchardt" was developed cartridge 7, 63 × 25 "Mauser".
In 1900, the Mauser K-96 had serious competitors, the Browning pistol and the Lugger's Parabellum pistol. Against their background, all the flaws of the Mauser became clearly visible, it was difficult to manufacture, sensitive to pollution, it was inconvenient to load it and the size of the pistol, compared to competitors, was simply enormous.
Lugger "Parabellum"
Browning pistol
This led to the fact that the Mauser was adopted only partially, and then because of the lack of parabellums. At the same time, it was necessary to change the caliber of the pistol to 9 mm, fitting it under the standard cartridge 9 × 19 "Parabellum". For safety reasons, the converted Mauser were marked with the number nine on the grip because when firing a 9 mm cartridge from 7.63 mm pistols, the barrel burst.
In Russia, the first Mauser appeared in 1897 under the name "Mauser in the stock" or "Mauser No. 2". "Mauser No. 1" was the name of a pocket 6, 35 mm pistol model. In Russia, since 1913, Mauser were in service with airplane pilots and in automobile and motorcycle units.
The Mauser gained the greatest popularity in Russia after the revolution, thanks to British assistance to the White Guard units, a large number of these pistols fell into the hands of the Basmachi. In 1922 -1930. for the Cheka-OGPU and the Red Army, a large number of 7, 63 mm Mauser were purchased, these pistols were very popular with the Bolsheviks. In the west, they even received the name "Bolo-Mauser" (Bolshevik Mauser).
Mauser Budyonny
Such mass distribution and popularity of the pistol even led to the fact that in 1928 the 7, 63-mm Mauser pistol cartridge became a regular cartridge. The caliber was leveled with the "three-line" 7.62 mm, and the primer was used from the "Nagant" cartridge.
Mauser K-96 has undergone repeated upgrades. The modernized model of the 1912 pistol featured incredible survivability and improved ballistics. The Spanish Astra 900 pistol was developed on the basis of the K-96 scheme. Astra 901-904 models received a fire mode translator. Automatic models Mauser 711 and 712, in addition to the translator, also received replaceable magazines for 10, 20 and 40 rounds. But pistols with translators had extremely low accuracy rates, so these Mauser models were not adopted for service. In China, the K-96 received the nickname "Boxed Cannon", copies of the pistol were produced in different calibers up to 45 (11, 43 mm). Like all Chinese copies of the pistol, they had the strongest spread of bullets, it was impossible to aim aiming from the Chinese Mauser under any circumstances.
Spanish pistol Astra 900
Mauser were used both during the Great Patriotic War, and even in Afghanistan, and in Chechnya, when destroying bandit formations, our fighters found these legendary pistols, developed a century ago.
