Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian, I am here today at the James Julia auction house
up in Maine. I'm taking a look at some of the guns that
they have for sale in their October of 2015 auction.
So this is an extraordinary example of Mauser's 1906/08 pistol.
It's the same basic configuration as the C96, the Broomhandle, grip in the back, magazine up front.
But it works on a totally different principle. So the Mauser company
actually developed a flapper locking system, and that's what they used in this pistol.
Although it is much more commonly recognised in some of the World War Two German rifles,
the G41 and the G43, as well as a whole bunch of Russian machine guns by Degtyarev, the DP-28,
the RPD, the DShK, a whole bunch of different Russian machine guns use it.
Well, this is probably the only flapper locked pistol ever developed.
It uses a fairly potent cartridge of its own, ... the 9x21 Mauser cartridge.
This particular one has a 20 round detachable magazine to it, which is pretty cool.
And you won't get many chances to see these, they made less than 100 of them.
The ... highest serial number known to still exist today is number 77.
And this is probably the best condition one still existing.
Now this has been refinished, but it's been refinished by someone who knew the right way to do it,
so it's got all the original finish styles to it.
Why don't I bring the camera back. Let's take a closer look at how this works, because
when I pull the top cover off this I think you'll get a kick out of what you see.
Alright, before we take it apart though, let's take a look at a couple of the controls here, so.
This is a detachable magazine, obviously, this is a 20 rounder, which is the largest type that they made.
They also had some 6, 7 and 8 round magazines.
It's interesting, the ... official magazine capacity is probably 6.
You can put in 7 rounds into a 6 round magazine and they fit,
but you cannot then load the magazine under a closed bolt.
However, if you have the bolt locked open you can put in a 6 round mag loaded with 7,
and it'll chamber the first round and you end up with 6 plus 1 and it works.
Not sure if that was an intentional thing, or if it's just a byproduct of the 6 round magazine
needing a little bit of extra space so that it can be loaded under a closed bolt.
At any rate, our safety is right here on the side of the gun. That is the fire position.
Push it down and the gun is in safe. To release the safety (and this is kind of like some other early ... Mauser pistols),
you push the button, that releases the safety.
So that's safe, and then if you want to ... make it ready to fire you simply hit it with your thumb.
Pretty quick and easy.
The sights are fairly typical of this period, kind of little tiny sights, a little difficult to to pick up. But there they are.
Our magazine release is right here, so if you are right-handed, which of course you're supposed to be,
then the magazine release comes right under your trigger finger.
Falls out.
Now one thing Mauser was very proud of. This was an absolute innovation at the time,
was that this gun would automatically chamber the first round and close the bolt when you inserted a loaded magazine.
So let's say we're shooting and we fire our last round.
The gun locks open, like so.
Now I am going to pull my magazine out, and you'll notice when I do that, it kind of clicks.
The bolt goes a little bit farther forward, but it's still held back.
Now when I take a new magazine and insert it into the gun
the bolt automatically closes.
Mauser was very proud of that, they thought that was a natural military development
that it would be a fantastic thing, saves you that little bit of time, you don't need a bolt release control,
when you run empty all you do is put in a new magazine,
snap it into place, and the gun's all ready to shoot on its own accord again.
So that's the controls for this guy.
Now mechanically, like I said, it's short recoil which means when you fire
the whole upper assembly, the bolt and the carrier, recoil together.
The bolt stays locked during that time, and that allows pressure to drop in the barrel.
Once once this is fully recoiled, the bolt becomes unlocked, and the bolt can travel backwards on its own.
Now to see how that works, what we need to do is take off this top plate.
So there's a little catch right here, this is spring-loaded.
What I need to do is pull that out, and then this whole piece lifts up.
Ooh, and what do we have here? We have all the internals of the pistol.
If you have seen the inside of, say, a DP-28 light machine gun, this will look immediately familiar.
The original inventor of this I believe would be a Swede by the name of Kjellman,
but Mauser is the first person to really have put it into a practical firearm that was made in some quantity.
So what's happening here is that these two flaps are both on cammed surfaces.
So when the main assembly is all the way forward in its ready to fire position, these flaps are both angled inward
and they are supporting the back of the bolt. That keeps the bolt locked, prevents it from coming open.
As the ... upper assembly recoils backwards about a quarter inch,
what happens is those flaps are levered out, and out of the way of the bolt.
Once this is fully open
then
the bolt can travel freely against its recoil spring there. At that point it would eject the old case, chamber a new one,
the whole thing goes back into battery like this, and it locks again.
Now I'm not going to disassemble this any farther,
but I can show you a really cool little trick involved in the disassembly process.
So in order to get the bolt out you have to have it locked all the way to the rear.
That's not necessarily uncommon, a lot of guns you
compress the recoil spring into a single unit, and then pull the whole thing out.
Well, you do have a question of ...
you've got this much spring and you're compressing it into like this much area. How do you keep that together?
Well Mauser thought about that, and the top cover here has these two round pegs on it.
Those match this hole and this hole, so when the gun is
fully locked back like that,
I can then take the top cover here,
put it in position just like that.
And that locks the spring inside the bolt and this rear piece.
And then I can now take this entire unit out as a unit under tension.
I'm not going to do that, because what I really don't want to have happen is for this to come out, and then
this piece gets loose and the bolt goes flying across the room and I have to figure out how to recompress it.
I'm not willing to risk that. I will leave that to whoever ends up purchasing this gun for themselves.
So just wanted to share with you that cool little trick.
Thanks for watching guys, I hope you enjoyed the video.
This is not the sort of pistol you will get to see very often.
It's very cool to get a chance to take a look at this particular example.
Of course it is coming up for sale because this is an auction house.
So if you're interested in acquiring this example yourself, take a look at the link in the description text below.
That will take you to the Julia ... catalogue page describing it, you can read their text, see their pictures.
And if it looks good to you, place a bid on-line, or come up here in person and participate in the auction live.
Thanks for watching.
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