Excellent article by Society Member; "Mausers of the Dragon"

[Pat Holscher]

The current issue of The American Rifleman arrived today, and I was reading an excellent article on Chinese Mausers. Very well written, and very informative. It filled in a lot of details on these which I was unaware of, and it's a tough topic to do that with, given that the subject has traditionally been very murky. This really cleared a lot of the story up.

Then I noted an item in the article, and found that it was written by Society member J. V. Puleo together with Stuart Mowbray. No wonder it was so informative and well written!

Excellent article.

The article also notes that the authors have just written a new book, Military Bolt-Action Rifles of the World. I'm going to order it.

[Trooper]

http://www.gunandswordcollector.com/Tem ... ul_BA.html

You will find it very informative - and a visual feast.

[JV Puleo]

Thanks, we're glad you liked it.
If you call the office and order it from Kristin, tell her you're a friend of mine and we'll sign it for you.
Those are probably the best Chinese Mausers in existence. They belong to one of our friends who is planning a multi-volume history of Mauser as a retirement project. I'm not sure how many he has...and I be he isn't either. We're committed to the publishing end and really looking forward to it. I can guarantee it will not only be good, it will probably stand as the benchmark for a "gun book" for a very long time.
Recently when this gentleman was asked how he knew so much about them he answered "All you have to do is spend more money on books than on guns." There is a ton of information out there but almost none of it is in English.

Joe P

[Pat Holscher]

Thanks, we're glad you liked it.
If you call the office and order it from Kristin, tell her you're a friend of mine and we'll sign it for you.
Those are probably the best Chinese Mausers in existence. They belong to one of our friends who is planning a multi-volume history of Mauser as a retirement project. I'm not sure how many he has...and I be he isn't either. We're committed to the publishing end and really looking forward to it. I can guarantee it will not only be good, it will probably stand as the benchmark for a "gun book" for a very long time.
Recently when this gentleman was asked how he knew so much about them he answered "All you have to do is spend more money on books than on guns." There is a ton of information out there but almost none of it is in English.

Joe P

I was going to ask you how you found so many nice looking Chinese Mausers. Most of the ones I've seen have really been beat up, but the ones in the article are beautiful. A lot of them appear to rival European Mausers in appearance.

I've always shied away from Chinese Mausers as I've heard their manufacturing and steel is questionable. But clearly they turned out at least some fine examples of the 98.

[JV Puleo]

There are some bad ones but in general they are much better than most people expect them to be. Most have had an extremely long life having been used hard for far longer than any European or American military arm (except maybe the Remington Rolling Block) ever has been. What we usually see is the effect of 60 years of continuous service under harsh conditions, often in the hands of a semi-literate peasant soldier who, even if he wanted to maintain his arms, might not have had the facilities.

There is another model that should have been in the article, except that there was an organizational problem with the book and it ended up in the Japan section. It is so well made that there is/was a consistent rumor that the Japanese "must" have had something to do with it. They didn't, but we didn't learn the full story until it was too late to rearrange the pages and thus had to re-write the description to get around the problem.

This is the so-called "Mukden Mauser". It is actually the most advanced version of the '98 ever made. It was being designed in 1917-1918 to eliminate problems that WWI had exposed in the original design. This was a joint German/Austrian project gearing up for a war they expected to continue into the 1920s. The prototypes were made in Austria. When the war ended, and the allies broke up the Central Power's military manufacturing, the entire production line, machines, jigs, tools & drawings etc was sold to China. Thus, the final, most advanced '98 design was only made there. They are very well made but like all the other Chinese rifles suffer a bit by association.

Think of Egyptian RBs...they are nearly all worn to a thread. Even the good ones haven't any finish (they never did to begin with) and have worn and rounded corners. But, in that case we know who made them and what they looked like new so we don't say "look what poor guns the Egyptians made".

[Pat Holscher]

There are some bad ones but in general they are much better than most people expect them to be. Most have had an extremely long life having been used hard for far longer than any European or American military arm (except maybe the Remington Rolling Block) ever has been. What we usually see is the effect of 60 years of continuous service under harsh conditions, often in the hands of a semi-literate peasant soldier who, even if he wanted to maintain his arms, might not have had the facilities.

What about the metallurgy?

One of the reasons that 98s have been so durable is that they make such a fine civilian sporting rifle, and they're very easy to convert to a sporting rifle. Rebarreling them is an easy thing to do, for example. Indeed, many very fine European commercial 98s were actually built on WWI actions, and later WWII actions, after those wars.

Beat up Chinese 98s are always at the bottom of the barrel, price wise, and most folks who would be inclined to use a 98 action shy away from them, although I did once run into a very nice looking custom made 98, made by custom rifle maker, which was made on one. He claimed, when I talked to him, to have no idea that he'd used a Chinese action. Anyhow, metallurgy wise, how do these compare with Western arms?

[JV Puleo]

Pat,
I don't know...but I have never heard any complaint voiced about them. One of the strengths of the Mauser action is that it could, and was, often made with fairly soft metal. When we hear references to superior quality German/Danish/Swiss/Swedish metal (much of which, I feel, is meaningless hype) especially barrels, I think it has much more to do with wear characteristics than it does with outright strength. Have you ever heard of any 98 action blowing up without having been horribly abused? The fact is that none of those early bolt actions were weak and as long as you keep within the pressure parameters of the original cartridges you have virtually no chance of having one let go.

The 98 Mauser is popular because of the ease with which it can be modified to other uses and calibers, not because it is especially stronger than any of its contemporaries.

The real problem would be finding one that isn't horribly worn. One of the rifles in our article is one of only two completely matching examples known, and that because when it was new it was sent to the US to be used as a test rifle for a huge order of 7.92 ammunition for the Chinese Republic. I can't see too many people wanting to use a horribly worn action. But, collecting is rapidly overtaking the market so that in all cases an original military rifle is always going to be worth more than anything but the very best sporterized version and be easier to sell in the bargain. Custom rifle makers will have to go to new commercial actions or do what I've heard lately is a trend, buying up the "hack job" sporters that were made back in the 50s and 60s for their parts. Untampered with rifles are no longer a practical source but a lot of those cheap sporters were made from guns that were in really good condition and would be worth 100 times more if the original owner had just left them alone.

[Pat Holscher]

Thanks, we're glad you liked it.
If you call the office and order it from Kristin, tell her you're a friend of mine and we'll sign it for you.

I intend to shamelessly avail myself of that offer. Thanks.

[Pat Holscher]

What was the 6.8 cartridge your article mentioned?

[JV Puleo]

The Chinese adopted that cartridge with the pre-WWI export Modell Mausers. I really don't know much more about it aside from the fact that is was abandoned for the 7.92x57. It may simply have been the result of the typical early 20th century desire on the part of every country to have ordnance distinctions of their own...or the ability to control the availability of ammunition should arms fall into the hands of their enemies.

[Pat Holscher]

Just ordered the book! I'm looking forward to reading it, it looks great.

[detriquette Φ]

I have a "Broomhandle" Mauser with Chinese markings that I got in a trade with a Thai Policeman 30 years ago. He was using it as his service weapon. I had a S&W model 60 that he liked so we made the deal. I've only fired it 2 or 3 times but it did fine. The interesting thing is that it takes a magazine rather than being loaded with a stripper clip. I believe the magazine holds 5 maybe 6 rounds, I can't recall off hand. It is a semi auto.
Tom