Mauser rifle

“ Is the army service breech-loading rifle used since 1874 by the German infantry. It was invented in 1871, and derives its name from Mauser, a gunsmith of Würtemberg, who modified and greatly improved it. Its advantages over the needle-gun, the weapon used in the Franco-German war, are numerous. It is lighter, weighing about two pounds less, and carrying a heavier charge of powder and a lighter ball, is of longer range, being effective at 1300 yards; the manner of loading it is simpler, and it can be fired with greater rapidity. ”

“ It is true that the modern Lee-Enfield and Mauser claim to be the most precise and deadly weapons of destruction ever devised. But they were intended for proper, gentlemanly warfare, with the opposing sides set out in straight lines, a convenient distance apart. In the hand-to-hand butchery which calls itself war to-day, the rifle is rapidly becoming démodé. For long ranges you require machine-guns; for short, bombs and hand-grenades. Can you empty a cottage by firing a single rifle-shot in at the door? ”

“ The present arm of the United States army is practically a Mauser. The Remington resembles this rifle in the fact that, although it is an autoloading arm, it has a bolt action, that has overcome the African hunter's prejudice against arms of American manufacture, the breech actions of which although strong, do not appeal to the professionals who have been educated to prefer the bolt- action Mauser and Mannlicher. To emphasize the fact that no one firm could supply everything, take, for instance, the ammunition. The large express rifles use a special powder known as "strip cordite." ”

“ The problem, then, seems to be to combine the shock, or killing power, of the old, big, lead bullet with the high velocity and extreme accuracy of the modern military rifle. With the Mauser and the Lee-Enfield one can hit his man or his beast at a great distance, but the shock of the bullet is much less than that of the old, round, lead one. The military bullet simply drills a little clean hole which disables the soldier, but does not bring down the beast, unless it passes accurately through some vital spot. ”

“ The Mauser bullets themselves made a small clean hole, with the result that the wound healed in a most astonishing manner. One or two of our men who were shot in the head had the skull blown open, but elsewhere the wounds from the minute steel-coated bullet, with its very high velocity, were certainly nothing like as serious as those made by the old large-calibre, low-power rifle. If a man was shot through the heart, spine, or brain he was, of course, killed instantly ”

“ I think that, as you say, it is only fair to give the man a chance, though I don't suppose it will be of much use to him, for he is not likely to be a good shot even with an ordinary rifle, and he would know nothing of the working of a Mauser. ”

“ Such tumbling causes a bullet to curve as a baseball thrown by a good pitcher, destroying its accuracy.
Early in our fighting with Germany we captured Mauser rifles and hastened to compare them with the Springfields and modified Enfields. We found in the American rifles a marked superiority in the rapidity of fire, the quickness and ease of sighting, and in the accuracy of shots fired. The accuracy was due not only to our standard Springfield ammunition, but also to the greater mechanical accuracy in the finish of the chamber and bore of the American [Pg 185] rifles. ”

“ The story that the Boers only used those they had captured from the English is quite inadmissible, for the Mauser rifles, which were used exclusively in the Transvaal, were largely provided with them.
I will try to describe the patterns chiefly used:
1. Section in the nickel casing, leaving the extremity of the leaden bullet exposed; the lead, getting very hot, emerges partly from the casing, flattens at the slightest resistance, and expands. ”

“ At the farthest rearward position of the bolt the cocking-stud on the cocking-piece is well behind the nose of the trigger sear, and is thus held when the bolt is pushed forward again, the spring being thereby compressed. All Mauser rifles have a safety-catch and a double pull-off. None have cut-offs except the Turkish pattern. All are constructed for clip or charger loading, but the box magazine contains only five cartridges as against the Lee-Enfield’s ten. ”

“ They kept on firing that gun, and sometimes they hit the wall and sometimes the house; and presently Miller, who had woke up, peeped over the wall, and said he could see the gun, and he lifted me up to look over, and I saw it as well, under some trees, about five hundred yards away, along the ridge on which the house was standing. He and Mr. Ching and the bluejackets began firing at the men round it; but they couldn't see it clearly because of the smoke it made and the fog, and as they didn't really know how to sight the Mauser rifles properly, they didn't seem to be able to hit anybody. ”

“ Machine-guns and shrapnel did the damage mostly, but the Mausers took their share. Only in one thing had we the advantage—the bayonet. When we got to hand grips with them the Turks couldn't stand up to our chaps, who went for them with the cold steel like devils red-hot from hell.
No man who took part in that retirement will ever forget it. Overhead burst the shells, underfoot the dust rose and the twigs snapped as the unending rain of rifle, machine-gun, and shrapnel bullets zipped! and spattered around. Men fell fast, killed and wounded ”

“ No matter how perfect the gun, men, in the heat and excitement of battle, will hardly be deliberate in aim, or effective enough in firing to stop a charge of determined men; the bayonet, with the most of mankind, will always be the queen of weapons in a pitched battle; only for skirmishing, for sharp-shooting, and artillery, will the rifle equal theoretical expectations. Men, not brought up from boyhood to such constant use of the rifle as to make sure aim an act of instinct with them, will never repel with certainty a charge of the bayonet by rifle-balls. ”

“ A foul murky cloud of dust and smoke formed and went with the thinning companies, a cloud lit with red flashes and full of howling death.
The silent ridge to the left awoke with machine-guns and rifles, and sibilant rushing flights of nickel-coated missiles from Maxim and Mauser struck down where the shells spared. An increasing trail of crumpled brown figures lay behind the battalion as it went. The raw smell of blood was in men’s nostrils. ”

“ The pressure of gas at each explosion does all the work of pushing back the closing piece of the breech through the recoil of the shell, extracts and ejects the shell, cocks the hammer, and also compresses recuperative springs, which effect the reloading and closing of the weapon, all of these functions being performed in proper sequence at each explosion in a fraction of a second. The act of firing thus prepares the pistol for the next shot automatically. In Fig. 278 are shown two makes of pistol of this type. No. 1 is known as the Mauser (United States patent No. 584,479, June 15, 1897) ”

“ All of us who are big game hunters, however, know how greatly the average of hits has advanced since the introduction of the small-bore high-velocity rifles. In 1895 came the British ·303, the German ·275 Mauser, and the Roumanian ·256 Mannlicher, and these weapons possess such accuracy and flatness of trajectory that a poor shot becomes a moderate one, a good shot a first-class one, and a first-class performer something remarkable. ”

“ Small-bores have become the fashion of the day, and for military purposes they are decidedly the best, as a greater amount of ammunition can be carried by the soldier, while at the same time the range and trajectory of his weapon are improved. The new magazine rifle adopted by the Government is only '303, but this exceedingly small diameter will contain 70 grains of powder with a bullet of hard alloy weighing 216 grains. ”

“ The gun’s narrow frontage in action renders it easy to conceal, and when discovered it presents a very small and difficult target to the enemy’s riflemen; on the other hand, when once discovered if it cannot be moved unseen to another position it is liable to suffer a prolonged and concentrated fire from the widely scattered riflemen of the enemy, to which it cannot effectively reply, and which must in time cause loss. Again, its range being limited, it is powerless against artillery except under special circumstances at effective rifle range. ”

“ A small part of the gas generated by the explosion of the individual cartridge operates the mechanism, discharging the bullet, throwing out the empty shell and making ready for the next shot.
A machine gun is designed to enable one man to fire the equivalent of a volley, or series of volleys, discharged by an entire platoon (one-third of a company) of infantrymen. As at present developed, it represents a step toward the evolution of a shoulder-rifle that will throw a continuous stream of bullets. ”

“ At times our firing was so rapid that the gun barrels became heated to the point that they could not be grasped and the men held their guns by the sling strap. I had some personal experiences in this battle that were unique in my service. Our muskets were the Enfield rifle, an English gun, much like the Springfield. They were, of course, muzzle loaders, breech loaders then were the exception. The Minnie bullet had no device for cleaning out the barrel, and after a dozen shots it would become foul, and often it was difficult to ram the bullet home. ”

“ The old, smooth-bore field-guns of the enemy would be completely disabled before they could be brought within cannon-shot of the ten thousand. As soon as the enemy came within rifle range, the ten thousand would open on them with their thousand automatic machine-guns and magazine-rifles. As an automatic machine-gun fires at the rate of 600 shots a minute, a thousand would fire at the rate of 600,000 shots a minute. The magazine shoulder-rifles would fire aimed shots at the rate of twenty-five a minute, and the quick-firing field-guns would each fire shrapnel at the rate of forty a minute. ”

“ The muzzle-loading rifle—and it was the pioneer's gun—with its long barrel and its fine sights, gave confidence to the American soldier who carried it, for he trusted the weapon in his hands.
Progressive inventions finally displaced this rifle in military use, but for the accuracy of the shot it has never been surpassed, and it is to-day a loved relic and a valued hunting-piece. Men trained to shoot with it, used to the slender line of its silver foresight and to the delicate response of its hair-trigger, have made rare records in marksmanship. ”

“ Nothing gives such confidence to the gun-bearers as the fact of their rifles being good slayers, and they quickly learn to take a pride in their weapons, and to strive in the race to hand the spare rifles. Dust storms, such as I have constantly witnessed in Africa, would be terrible enemies to breech-loaders, as the hard sand, by grating in the joints, would wear away the metal, and destroy the exactness of the fittings.
A small handy double rifle, such as my little Fletcher 24, not exceeding eight pounds and a half, is very necessary, as it should seldom be out of the hand. ”

“ The general direction of the improvement in firearms is to lessen the size of the bore and increase the flatness of the trajectory. Thus the high-angled fire of the Snider, converted from the muzzle-loading Enfield, was changed for the Martini-Henry, in every way a more deadly weapon, and this, as has been already remarked, has given way to an even smaller bored rifle. And with the increased rapidity of fire and the larger number of rounds of the lighter ammunition that can be carried, the bayonet, that was lengthened in 1878, was reduced to its present dimensions. ”

“ We use two sizes, one with .45 bore for the Navy, which takes an all-lead bullet weighing 480 grains, and the other with .303 bore, the ordinary nickel-coated [Pg 101] rifle bullet for the Army. But as the Maxim gun can be adapted to every rifle-calibre ammunition it is patronised by all governments.
The gun itself weighs 56 lbs., and is mounted for use in various ways: on a tripod, a field stand, or a field carriage with wheels. This carriage has sixteen boxes of ammunition, each containing a belt of 250 cartridges, making 4000 rounds altogether. ”

“ The office of the spirally-wound feather in communicating a rotary motion, and thereby balancing, by an opposite force, the tendency of the missile to swerve in any given direction, is fulfilled by the spiral groove of the rifle. Of course, the ordinary smooth musket is unfitted to the conico-cylindrical ball. Discharged from such a barrel, there being nothing to keep the point in the direction of its flight, it soon tumbles over, like an arrow without a feather, and strikes wide of the mark. ”

“ And trained Americans fight best with rifles. Men get tired of carrying grenades and chaut-chaut clips; the guns cannot, even under most favorable conditions, keep pace with the advancing infantry. Machine-gun crews have a way of getting killed at the start; trench-mortars and one-pounders are not always possible. But the rifle and bayonet goes anywhere a man can go, and the rifle and the bayonet win battles. Toward midday, this 6th of June, 1918, the condition around Hill 142 stabilized. ”

“ The tremendous range of the modern rifle, single arm, or rapid-fire gun, and the development of more powerful explosives for ammunition have wrought this change. The bullet will travel a longer distance at a horizontal position than in the old days when ordinary black powder and a smooth-bore gun were used, and so at hundreds of yards distance the soldiers can aim direct to kill, without making elevation allowances. ”