Broom handle mauser10/23/2023 According to Kersten, Moll and Schmid, these were likely purchased by the High Command of the Armed Forces and issued to motorcycle and flak crews of the Luftwaffe. The weapon had ceased production in 1937 but the order was filled from remaining stocks. They have Wehrmacht proof marks and the Mauser serial numbers come from the early- to mid-1930s. The German government purchased 7,800 commercial M30 pistols in 1940 for use by the Luftwaffe. Thanks to Legacy Collectibles for providing me access to film these pistols! Check out their YouTube channel for lots of other interesting firearms history: The stocks were numbered to match the guns, and do not have the strap staple that was used on other commercial C96 stocks. The guns were all shipped with wooden holster/stock units and leather rigs to hold the pistol, holster, spare magazine spring and floor plate, and cleaning rod. Total production after the war continued into the low 140,000 range. Some, but not all, have a Prussian eagle marking on the front of the magazine. These pistols are numbered in a new series starting at “1”, unrelated to the serial numbers of commercial Mauser pistols. Mauser was unable to completely fill the contract, and only about 95,000 were delivered by the end of the war, although production did continue post-war. The first deliveries were made in January of 1918, and would continue until the end of the war. During those years the pistols remained basically the same, going through some internal and external changes, but nothing that changed the basic premise of how the gun worked. In order to prevent ammunition mixups (as many existing 7.63mm Mausers had been brought into service as well) the new guns were to have large “9” numerals engraved in their grip and painted red – hence the colloquial name of the guns as “Red Nines”. The Mauser C/96 Broomhandle Pistol was manufactured from 1896 until approximately 1936. In July 1917 the German military placed a contract for 200,000 C96 pistols, specifying that they be chambered for the 9mm Parabellum cartridge, instead of the 7.63mm Mauser cartridge the gun was originally designed for. While the design was quite complex, Mauser still had all the tooling set up to produce them, and deliveries could begin relatively quickly. 32 ACP caliber simple blowback pistols as substitute standards, but also took a new look at the C96. The P08 Luger was a slow and expensive gun to produce, and so Germany went looking for alternatives. However, as World War One continued, the German military realized it was going to be seriously short of handguns. It was the first really successful semiauto pistol, but the German military chose the Luger instead, in 1908. The German military did not actually adopt the Mauser C96 “broom handle” before World War One.
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