Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian, and today I'm here taking a look at an extraordinarily rare
World War One German Flieger's rifle
Actually, this is the infantry rifle version of what became known as the ...
Flieger Selbstlader-Karabiner, the flyers self-loading rifle.
These were a product of the Mauser company, Paul and
Wilhelm Mauser, who had spent really a couple of decades
trying to develop a good mechanism for a self-loading rifle.
They went through a whole bunch of different mechanisms,
long recoil, short recoil, gas-operated guns, the works.
And ultimately, this is one of the few types that actually made it into German military service.
Now this is the scaled up, basically mechanical copy of the Mauser 1906/08 pistol,
which looks externally kind of like a broom-handle Mauser, although it's really mechanically totally different.
I have a video on one of those pistols, which you might be interested in watching as a companion piece to this.
At any rate, this is a flapper locked, recoil operated rifle.
However, ... typically when we think of recoil operated,
we think of the barrel moving. In this case the barrel is fixed in place, and what we actually have here is a
spring-loaded, recoil operated cam plate, right here in the back of the receiver.
And that's what moves under recoil to unlock the rifle.
It then has a pair of large flapper locks
similar to say, a Degtyaryov system.
And we'll take a look at those when we bring the camera in for a closer shot of this.
Anyrate, it's a ... mechanically it's a very cool looking system.
There was a ton of work and engineering and machining that went into making these guns.
Unfortunately, they didn't work out very well in practice.
Now, ... you'll see these referred to as both 1915 and 1916 Pattern guns.
There doesn't really appear to be a mechanical difference between the two, it's just nomenclature.
And some of this is kind of confused, there's not a ton of information about these out there.
At any rate, there was both this standard infantry version, which of course has standard Mauser hardware,
we have a bayonet lug, cleaning rod, the stowage hook for the sling, all that material.
There was also a carbine version, which was used by aircraft and Zeppelin crews.
And that is pretty distinctive for having a stock cut off about halfway up.
It's got a wooden sort of vertical front grip /
... front support for the magazine right here.
Well those ... that's ... those are the two obvious differences, and the barrel's a little bit shorter.
Now interestingly the carbines are more common today by a factor of, like, two.
There's significantly more carbines than there are infantry rifles.
That said, there are only as far as I know of, 2 of these infantry rifles still existing,
and then maybe 6 or 8 or 10 of the carbines. So neither one of them is common by any stretch.
This is also interesting in that it is one of the very few German rifles
of the period that actually used a detachable box magazine.
This looks like a later MG13 magazine, it's not,
(although if you have one of these and you're missing the mag, the MG13 is the best replacement to start with).
This is a 25 round magazine, it's chambered for the standard 8x57 Mauser cartridge, which is what these rifles used.
And, initially the idea was to give soldiers in the field the firepower of a semi-auto rifle.
The problem is because of the somewhat finicky nature of the recoil system,
and very tight machining tolerances and clearances,
these weren't reliable guns in the field. So, I mean, in the field they were like really not reliable guns.
So they took them and decided, well, they'll work better if they're up in airplanes where they're not getting full of mud.
And they did work better in aircraft, however,
in general, the use of self-loading rifles as aerial armament
ended fairly quickly once they started putting machine guns in aircraft and Zeppelins,
because the machine guns were far better in every way.
And just took a little while before the machine gun technology was developed a little bit better,
and the aircraft were developed a little bit better, and could handle a little more weight.
Once machine guns became feasible they were the obvious solution for arming aircraft.
There were a couple other self-loading rifles that were used by the Germans, most notably
Mondragon rifles, purchased from Switzerland.
The Mexicans had contracted for the manufacture of those guns and then backed out,
which left SIG in Switzerland with a large stash of Mondragon rifles that they didn't know what to do with.
So they did actually re-chamber some in 8mm,
gave some to the Germans (or sold them to the Germans), for testing.
The Germans never ultimately bought those ... in substantial quantities.
And ultimately both the Mondragons and these Mauser
Flieger rifles were were dropped in favour of full machine guns for aircraft use.
I think with that in mind,
why don't we go ahead and take a closer look, and pull the top cover off this so that you can see how it works.
Because, ah man, it looks really cool inside.
Alright, let's start by taking a look at the markings. There are only a couple of markings on these rifles.
On the left side of the receiver, we have the manufacturers mark here,
Waffenfabrik Mauser AG Oberndorf, Mauser's patent 1916.
Then moving up, on the back of the barrel we have a bore diameter marking, 7.90.
That's 8mm, these changed by a few hundredths of a millimetre.
You'll see sometimes rifles marked 791, for example, but that's just the exact bore diameter.
Lastly we have a marking up here on the top of the barrel over the chamber, which is the serial number.
It's got a prefix 'S' and then this one is number 272 and then a 'K' suffix.
In total, probably only about 600 of these guns were made, both rifles and carbines combined.
And all of the known examples follow this same serial number pattern, with the 'S' prefix and the 'K' suffix.
Exactly what those mean I don't know. You could speculate that the 'S' might stand for Selbstlader, or self loader.
No idea about the 'K' however.
The highest known serial number is 566.
You'll see a lot of different estimates for how many were made, up to like some people will say up to, like, 2000.
Seems more likely to me that the number is probably smaller: 600, 700 maybe, something in that range.
Now looking at the mechanical features of the gun, let's start with the magazine.
Like I said, this is a 25 round magazine, 8mm Mauser.
To remove the magazine we have a mag release button here, in the front of the trigger guard,
which does something a bit unusual. It actually releases the entire trigger guard, which drops down.
... The magazine catch is actually just a plunger that comes out right inside here, locks the mag in place.
And when you pivot this down the plunger is attached to the front of the trigger guard itself,
so this pulls it back out of engagement, and we can then pull the magazine out. This magazine is pretty stiff,
... whether that's a characteristic of the design
in general, or just this example, I don't know.
I should point out that ...
the ...
(well, I don't know about the infantry rifles),
the aviation carbines were actually issued with a transit chest
of magazines, and came with either 5 or 6 magazines,
all serial numbered, each matching each carbine.
So, they actually issued a lot of magazines with these guns.
There's our magazine, looks very much like an MG13 mag,
and they are similar, but not interchangeable.
Now moving on. We'll go ahead and snap the magazine,
or the trigger guard, back in place ... the magazine catch back.
But I'm leaving the magazine out just to make the rifle a little handier.
This big lever on the side is our safety.
When you rotate it down it locks the trigger and it also locks the bolt from opening.
And then ... push it back up ... to fire obviously.
And that's pretty much it for controls on the gun.
Not a whole lot else going on, except for the actual mechanical workings,
which I'm sure ... is what you've been waiting for.
So the two major elements here that are exposed are this knurled plate, which expands across the top of the rifle.
This moves forward under spring tension,
and then we have our gigantic winged bolt handle here,
which is quite easy to grasp.
It's cut out in the centre so that you can see the sights through it.
Kind of like ... the charging handle on the Thompson subgun, actually.
So to open the bolt, what we do is push that plate forward until it locks,
and then you can just grab the bolt and pull back. This does lock open on an empty magazine, however
it doesn't have a specific hold open feature or a mechanism.
So when you pull the magazine out, the bolt simply drops closed.
And there's no way to manually lock it open without the magazine.
Fortunately we don't need to.
What we are going to do is now take off this rear top cover, and expose the mechanical workings of the action.
So the first step is to take this little tab, and push it out that direction
(it's fairly stiff), then this whole top cover comes off,
and there is the, "Oh my God, complicated and expensive to manufacture" internal.
So what we have in there are two of these flappers,
and they've got pins in the top and bottom here to locate them.
And then they've got this roller bearing on the top and that is used to control where they're positioned.
So you've got two of them in here, ... there we go.
And when the gun is ready to fire they are held in position like this,
so you can see that they prevent the bolt from moving backwards, because they're holding onto it.
Then the recoil-operated plate, what it does, is actually pull these to the sides like this,
where they are now no longer obstructing the bolt, and the bolt can cycle backwards in between them,
(that's your main recoil spring),
(the top of the bolt here),
like so.
Now the way this plate actually works is that it ...
has to move forward when the rifle is fired. So it's in this position and
this is a recoil operated piece. So because of inertia when the rifle is fired
this piece which is free to move, wants to stay where it is,
while the rest of the rifle moves backwards like that.
That causes this plate to, in effect, move forward relative to the rest of the rifle,
and when it moves forward, the two roller bearings move from
this front position (where they're being pulled inward and locking against the bolt), they move to this
outer position, where they're now out of the way of the bolt, allowing it to cycle.
That's what's going on here. Now there is a second little spring latch right here,
which is what's holding this plate locked in the front.
That is on there to allow you to easily manually cycle the rifle.
Because when it's at rest, this spring-loaded plate is backwards
and it's holding the ... flaps in the locked position, so that you can't open the bolt.
For example, if you wanted to cycle the bolt because you ran the magazine dry,
you replace the magazine then you have to rack the bolt. In order to do that
you push this forward, and this little spring catch,
right here,
snaps into place.That allows you to not have to hold this while you try and move the bolt.
This locks in place, the gun is now unlocked,
and then you can cycle the bolt by hand to, say, chamber a cartridge.
However, they built in another little detail to it. You can see
there's this little triangular tooth, and when I push that down it unlocks the plate.
Snaps back. That tooth runs in this little track in the bolt.
So what happens is I can lock the bolt
... I can lock the flaps open, so that I can cycle the bolt by hand,
but as soon as I move the bolt back,
that little tooth is pushed up, which disconnects
the
cam plate. So as soon as I start to cycle the bolt, it moves back and then
when I let go of the bolt, it automatically reverts to its fireable condition.
Hopefully that made sense.
Basically the whole thing is a giant workaround to allow you to manually cycle the bolt.
You can probably see how this is ... potentially a pretty finicky system.
Recoil-operated guns are always subject to an awful lot of factors
like how stiffly the rifle is held when it's fired,
power of the ammunition potentially.
And if you don't get it just right, you can end up with a pretty unreliable gun.
I haven't found any good original records to check out,
but I suspect that the field problems with these guns were a mixture of
the system itself being a little too susceptible to just
being right on the edge of working, and the parts not being exactly balanced,
and environmental factors like how the soldier was holding the rifle causing problems,
and also its susceptibility to getting dirt and mud in it.
Because it doesn't take a lot in this
to make things not really work quite so well.
Guess that ultimately total production, I suspect, was, like, 600.
They did see use in World War One. That's part of the reason
there are so few today is this combination of not many being made in the first place, plus
we're going to throw them into the Western Front or into German aircraft,
and they're all going to get lost in combat over time. These were being used in
1916, so you had two full years of war
in which to have them damaged or destroyed or lost in combat.
And as a result very few of them exist today.
Thanks for watching guys. I hope you enjoyed the video.
I don't think there're all that many opportunities to take a look up close at some actual video footage of these guns.
So, very cool for me to be able to get a chance to take a look at this one.
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