[ Mauser C98 Rifle ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are taking a look
at an experimental, flapper locking, Mauser self-loading rifle.
This is a C98, or "Construktion" 1898.
And it is the same basic mechanism that was in a rifle that
kind of exploded and cost Paul Mauser his left eye in 1901.
Paul Mauser, obviously of the Mauser Company, the C96 Broomhandle Mauser,
the whole series of Mauser bolt-action rifles,
well, the one thing that he really wanted to do that he never managed to pull off in his lifetime
was a militarily successful self-loading rifle.
And this is one of his early experiments on that track.
So he would eventually spend more than 10 years working on this project.
He would go through 7 or 8 different major designs,
and then sub-variations on each of them, trying a wide variety of operating systems.
We've looked at some of them before,
but I've never yet had a chance to take a close look at a C98.
Now this is a flapper-locking system, and what's really cool is
... it's very clear from the outside exactly how this works.
And I should point out, when one of these exploded on Mauser,
as far as I can tell, it wasn't actually a detonation of the rifle.
The action didn't fail, what happened is he had an out-of-battery malfunction,
one of the cartridges detonated when it was not fully seated and locked.
And apparently this had a serious impact
on Mauser's view of rifle safety, and it changed a lot of his habits.
And after this he was designing rifles that had every conceivable safety feature in them.
In fact, as best I can tell, he went from this,
which is toggle locked and short recoil, to the C02 pattern.
And we actually have a video on a sporterised C02, but a C02 nonetheless.
And the 02 was a long-recoil action which,
I would say, is probably the safest style of firearm action that you can possibly go with.
In a long recoil the bolt and the barrel are locked together
through the entire length of travel, ... longer than the length of the cartridge.
And by the time that the bolt and breech have recoiled fully,
there's basically no pressure left in the barrel.
It's a system that has a lot of forgiveness.
And it makes sense, I don't have any documents proving it,
but from a coincidental perspective, it makes sense that after an accident
... that broke his finger and cost him his eye,
he would move on to the safest possible system he could come up with.
Anyway, let's take a closer look at this one,
and you can see how Mauser started to try and make a semi-auto rifle.
There are basically no marking on this, it is serial number 3, but otherwise completely unmarked.
This was a prototype test rifle made by Mauser and used in the factory.
Although this one, it appears, didn't see much use at all
because it's in really magnificent condition.
Now, you have a bolt handle here, and there is a spring-loaded button on the bolt handle.
Unless you depress this button you can't move the bolt handle.
We have a safety here on the back.
... I'll be honest, I'm not sure what the difference is between these two positions.
I suspect one is for disassembly, the other is the regular fire position.
I would guess that's fire, that's probably disassembly,
and all the way down here is the safe position.
Looking at this up close, you can see that when this is put in safe
this tab on the bottom actually locks the breech assembly into the lower assembly,
and prevents the recoil system from moving anywhere.
As well as disconnecting the trigger, so a pretty effective safety there.
So the elements that we have at play here are the recoiling assembly here,
which consists of the barrel. ...
When I cycle this back, the barrel actually reciprocates along with it. That's full travel.
Now I have this locked open on the empty magazine follower.
So we have our ... recoiling assembly.
We have our front trunnion ... encasement, I don't know what the technical term for this would be,
because it doesn't really exist on a lot of other designs.
And then we have the actual locking flaps themselves.
And you can see here that they are actually loose.
And if we look right in there, you can see the inside of them.
Now, what's going to happen when I let the bolt down,
these recesses in the side of the bolt right here
are what the locking flaps, right there, are going to lock into.
So, as soon as this goes forward (see if I can control this, there we go),
those locking flaps are going to push in.
They're going to lock into the bolt there,
and then the whole thing moves forward into this encasement.
And this is what prevents those locking flaps from coming out.
This locks the whole system together.
So when you fire, the ... bolt locked into the barrel is going to recoil backwards.
Like that.
And it only recoils a little short way before ... these flaps are free of the locking system.
They can then pivot outward, in fact they are cammed outward
by the movement of this out of the encasement.
Once they open up, then there is nothing holding the bolt in place.
And then the residual pressure in the ... barrel
pushes the bolt backward against its own spring.
It will then eject the empty case, spring pressure pushes it forward,
chambers a new one, and then ...
the whole system locks back up into battery.
Now there are several versions of this rifle that were made,
I believe 4 still known to exist, this being serial number 3.
And they vary, not in the fundamental mechanics, but in a lot of the other details.
So this particular one has an extended magazine down here.
That's probably an 8, or maybe a 10 round magazine.
There's at least one out there that has a flush-mounted magazine.
The design of the trigger guard here, that varies between some of the guns.
The design of the bolt handle changes, the design of the safety changes a bit.
Basically tinkering with the details of the design,
trying to get the action to work as well as possible.
Now this particular one is obviously a military pattern gun.
The whole point for Mauser of these was to get a military contract with the German army.
And you can see on this one there is the cleaning rod, bayonet lug,
sling swivel, so all the standard military hardware built into this design.
So there you go, that is the Mauser C98.
The action that would cost Paul Mauser his left eye,
and change his attitude on safety for a long time.
In total there are only 4 of these rifles known to exist.
This one actually originated in the SIG factory collection many, many, many years ago.
It ... has gone through many owners since then.
But this one is chambered for 6mm, 6x57.
... At the same time, this 1898-1901 time frame,
does also cover when the German military was doing some experimenting with other cartridges.
Or I guess it's a little bit of the late end of this period.
But the military was experimenting with a wide variety of bullet diameters, from 5 up to 8mm.
Including 6mm, ... Mauser built a large batch of Mauser bolt rifles in 6mm for trials.
And so Mauser, Paul Mauser himself, was clearly aware of these experiments by the German military.
And so the self-loading rifles that he made came in a variety of calibres as well.
This one being in a small 6mm, which, had they adopted it,
might have been a better cartridge to be using for rifles.
Anyway, that's a digression that we won't get into today.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed taking a look at this.
I really can't overstress how rare and impressive this particular rifle is.
Rifles like this just really don't exist any more.
The condition and the mechanical system is really cool.
So, if you enjoyed seeing this thing online,
I would appreciate it if you would consider taking a look at my Patreon account.
It is viewers like you who make it possible for me to
track down rifles like this one, and bring them to you online.
Thanks for watching.