![]() ![]() ![]() Later models however began to sprout various odd appendages such as wooden shoulder stocks that doubled as carrying cases or holsters or lengthened or widened the grips and barrels. It came with six, 10, or 20 round magazines and, because the muzzle velocity was so high, the gun was “approved” out to almost a 200 foot maximum effective range. The first C96s were pure, albeit unorthodox, handguns-a box magazine in front of the trigger, a longer barrel and the namesake grip that to some eyes is shaped like a broom handle. It would maintain this pace right up until the start of WWI. This lead to a taste for imported Broomhandles among the middle and upper classes and the C96 sold out in its first year of manufacture. The first group to truly embrace the pistol were British officers and this was largely the fault of legendary British gunmakers Westley Richards, who imported and resold C96s for private purchase (usually from military personnel). Originally called the “Mauser Military Pistol” (in hopes of courting lucrative military contracts) not a single country’s armed forces adopted it as their primary sidearm-though this didn’t stop Mauser from continuing production of the weapon until 1939 as the gun caught fire on the commercial market in other countries. In spite of his reservations about the broomhandled handgun, Mauser was a businessman first (as it turns out, most gun tycoons are) and, with the oddly alluring design finalized in ’96, he put the pistol into production at his Oberndorf-Necker factory in Germany. Fidel was a higher up in one of Mauser’s workshops and he and his brothers worked up a prototype in this facility (without the knowledge and then against the wishes of Fidel’s big name boss) for what they called the P-7.63 or Feederle Pistol. Credit goes to the Feederle brothers, Fidel, Friedrich, and Josef. The Gun That Mauser Didn’t Want Madeĭespite the name, Paul Mauser did not design the Mauser C96. And around the turn of the century, it seemed like just about everyone, from Germany to China, was making them. The reigning high velocity pistol of its day, the world would not see a hotter handgun until the introduction of. Yet, aside from its design choices (and, as we’ll see, flaws), the C96 pistol, chambered in either 7.63x25mm or 9mm Parabellum, was a considered one of the best sidearm options out there when it first debuted in 1896. It’s one of those guns that turns heads and a great number of shooters over the years, from soldiers to generals from directors to royals, have holstered the unconventional C96 ‘Broomhandle’ Mauser to seemingly elicit this very response from would-be onlookers. ![]()
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