Hi guys
thanks for tuning in to another video on https://www.forgottenweapons.com/ I'm Ian I'm here today at the Rock Island auction company looking at
Some of the guns they're going to be selling in their upcoming December of 2016 premiere auction, and I have a really cool
Single-shot pistol here now normally single-shot pistols are kind of blasé and boring
But this one's actually got a lot of neat stuff going on for it
Most significantly this is the first pistol actually designed and produced by the mouser company
This is a Mauser C. 77 or construction
77 dating from
1877 although this particular example is dated 1876 and
This was mousers very first kind of tentative attempt to get into the pistol market in
1871 Mauser Had their Single-shot bolt-action rifle adopted by the then Brand-new German
Federation German nation and it would have been really cool to couple that with a handgun being adopted at the same time
so there were trials coming up the trials ultimately resulted in the adoption of the
1879 Reich's Revolver
Which was not a mauser revolver mauser did follow this with a revolver design which we've looked at previously
Can check those videos out if you're interested, they're linked in the description below
But before they did that they tried their hand at a single-shot pistol now this kind of seems weird in retrospect like
okay, it's
1877 Or 1876 A couple Years ago the us Army of all people adopted the single action [Colt]
Which is a quite fine nice
Very functional revolver the French have adopted the 1873 revolver. Which is even better than the American one it's double-action
Why would you at this point
Take a step back to just a single-shot pistol? and it appears this must have occurred to Paul mauser because they didn't actually
Even bother submitting this to the government after [they'd] [finished] it in total
They made like about a hundred of these probably a little less than a hundred they were available by private purchase
To individual officers, but they were never adopted
They were never formally tested by the military because clearly mouths are finished producing this pistol and looked at it. When wow boy that's
It's just no way. They're ever going to accept that so let's not even bother
However that being said there's some cool features to this as a single-shot pistol goes
It's actually kind of slick
And it's got some neat mechanical functionality and turned out to be kind of this niche popular Target gun
In some officers hands
I think you'll see why in just minute let's let's take a closer
Look at it and see how it works and what I keep saying is actually interesting about this
So mauser clearly realized that if you've only got a single-shot pistol you do at least want to be able to reload the thing
Fairly Smoothly and quickly and easily and so that's what the main
Mechanical function of this pistol is all designed around is easy fast loading. You've got a grip that actually fits the hand quite well
You raise this up in a single hand target shooting type of stance, and you actually get a remarkably nice sight picture
right there
It handles. Well the safety it does in fact have a safety even though
It's only a single shot gun comes right under your thumb. If you're right-handed which being a proper german officer
You are of course right-handed now to reload this what you do is simply
thumb down this reach block piece when you do that the extractor is going to push the empty case out
I Believe if you do this with a little bit of gusto a lawn
It will actually kick the fired case completely out of the gun you've then got this nice
rounded surface in here
Drop your new cartridge onto here slide it in and when you hit this ejector
Which the rim of the cartridge is going to do
That's going to push in and it's going to automatically close the breech block for you in that way
It's kind of like a little artillery piece
Once that's closed
All you have left is a trigger pull so with a little bit of practice. You could reload this thing quite quickly and easily
That breech block really does fall right under the thumb
Second hand drops cartridge in and you're ready to go on the other hand however
One I should point out the safety is properly designed in that up is safe. So when it's under your thumb
All you have to do is snap the safety down to disengage it and it's ready to fire
The Trigger pull however is quite. Heavy and quite long
This is a quintessential revolver style double action only Trigger, and it's really
Stiff and heavy
If your target shooting with this thing boy, you're going to get really good Trigger control
now possibly that's in there because
the German
Ten point six millimeter
Revolver ammo or ten point six ordnance ammo which is what this fired which is the same as what the later Reich's revolvers would use
I Suspect that stuff had some pretty hard primers in it the Reich's revolver had a very heavy trigger
Because it had a very heavy hammer spring, and I suspect this is done the same way
Pushing this down does re-cock the trigger or reset the trigger, so when it once it's dry fired
Ya got nothing left the firing pin remains in the downward fired position until
You re-cock by dropping the breech block now. It's ready to fire again
So we do have one set of stamped markings on this pistol, and that's here on the left side
patent gebrüder Mauser and C
That was in fact one of the very early names for the Mauser company
they were in Orbandorf in vertanberg and I said this one's dated
1876 my information was that all of these were manufactured in 1877
To be honest. I'm not entirely sure if the the 1876 date is based on
Development of the model Or if they were perhaps
manufactured over a short period of time from late 76 into early 77
I did not find a serial number anywhere on this piece
So I can't tell you where it may have fallen in the production line up
Thanks for watching guys. I hope you enjoyed the video very cool to see one of these guns
They're very rare out there as I said earlier
They only made a hundred or a little less than a hundred of them, and that was boy almost 150 years ago now
So they've been through a lot this one's not in fantastic shape, but it's totally functional it looks good
The bore is actually a lot better than you would expect looking at the outside as well, so if you would like your own
Really cool and historic single-shot pistol whip up some 10.6 German ammunition and do your own Target shooting with it
well
Well take a look at the description text below you'll find a link there to rock Islands catalog page on this piece
Where you can see their pictures read their description and place a bid online over the phone or live here at the auction
Thanks for watching