Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and we have an awesome firearm to
take a look at today. This is an authentic and original
Mauser Model of 1917 Trench Carbine.
This is a design that Mauser came up with
to enter into competition [for] the German military, the GPK, for
a weapon to arm stormtroopers, Sturmtruppen, trench raiding parties.
This was part of the German search for more infantry firepower in the later stages of World War One.
Now the guns that were actually used in this role were a combination of, earlier on,
Artillery Lugers with 32 round snail-drum magazines, and then Bergmann MP-18 submachine guns
right at the very end of the war (also with those same 32 round snail-drum magazines).
Well, Mauser figured that they had come up with something that would fill this role equally or better,
and there were definitely some benefits to their design over the guns that were adopted.
However, not enough benefits for this to actually to be adopted.
So in total Mauser made about 40 of these, we think.
They're all different. There are three known examples, there might be a fourth one floating around as well.
And all of the surviving ones show substantial differences: in the frames, the barrels, the hammers, the stocks.
I'll show you some of those differences when we take a closer look at this in a moment.
But the really big advantage that the 1917 Trench Carbine had over all of its competitors is the magazine.
... First off, this is the first time Mauser put a detachable magazine in the C96.
People are going to think of the Schnellfeuer, the full- auto C96. That didn't come around until 15 years later.
That was a 1932 production gun, so this vastly predates it.
What Mauser had at this point, and before World War One, that actually used detachable box magazines was the 06/08 pistol,
which was another experimental gun that never went into significant production.
But they took the magazine design from that and they ... introduced it into the C96 here,
and that magazine's a really good double stack, double feed, well-made, it's a great magazine.
And it would have been far and away better than the snail-drums for the Lugers and the MP-18.
The problem though was the rest of the gun was presumably too expensive,
and may have had some reliability issues as well that overwhelmed the benefits of the magazine.
So enough of my rambling, let's take a closer look at this awesome thing.
So when Mauser first began making C96 pistols they offered them with this combination shoulder stock and holster,
kind of setting the stage for where this design would go.
Now the Trench Carbine is significantly distinctive from all of the standard Mauser carbines.
They didn't make a lot of these carbines, but they were basically a production option
throughout almost the whole run of C96 pistols.
And as the pistol design evolved (you'll notice that this one is a very early cone-hammer pattern),
as the pistol design evolved, the carbines were made on basically the exact same pattern as whatever the pistol of the day was.
So, hammers changed, flat sides, those sorts of of changes.
However, the standard Mauser carbines they all have a number of the same basic features as the pistols.
They were all made with integral magazines, they're not detachable magazines.
The floor plate differs a little bit because it has to incorporate the front handguard there.
But the internal parts are all identical to standard Mauser pistols.
The way that the stocks attach is actually with a button here, allowing the stock to slide off the bottom of the frame.
This was standard to all of the commercial Mauser carbines.
The Trench Carbine would change all of that.
First off, of course, the Trench Carbine incorporates a detachable magazine.
There is a nice magazine release catch right there, magazine comes out.
This is a 20 round example. They did also make both 10 round (there's a 10 rounder), and 40 round versions of this.
This is actually one of the places where the existing Trench Carbines differ
is that on this one the magazine well comes down right about to the midline of the trigger guard.
Where on one of the other surviving examples, the magazine well actually comes all the way down to the base of the trigger guard here.
That is interesting in particular because these magazines have over-travel stops in them,
and so even among the existing Trench Carbines there are at least two different patterns of magazine.
With the stops here, this magazine could not fit and feed in an example of the carbine with a longer magazine well.
We also have a slightly different than normal short bolt stop. Not for any particularly obvious reason. But it is.
This gun by the way is numbered 5 on the internal parts,
although I don't believe you can see that anywhere externally except for right there on the bottom of the frame.
On other examples of these the hammer has actually been slightly lightened. This is a standard pattern of hammer.
The sight here runs from 50 out to 500 metres,
which is what one would expect on a "Red 9", or a 9mm Parabellum, sight.
These are of course all 9mm Parabellum carbines.
The Trench Carbine also incorporates a little bit of a hand protector back here. So that when you hold the gun, in theory,
you can keep your thumb below that level and you are less likely to have it whacked by the hammer as you're shooting.
It's ... in all honesty it's not the most comfortable thing.
Modern shooters today, we try to kind of have a high grip on guns like this.
And that little hand protector is not going to be enough to protect you if you're shooting like that.
To me still the most comfortable way to do this would probably be to have my thumb alongside the frame, like with a Schnellfeuer.
Now the disassembly is an area where this is completely different from all of the existing carbines,
and actually where it differs from the standard pistols as well.
We have a disassembly catch that's here in the front of the trigger guard.
And when you pull that down we can actually then slide the whole assembly
off like that.
So our frame here is different from a standard frame, and you can see we've got that lug (which is what locks everything in place),
connected to that guy.
We have a little bit of a dovetail here that the front of the barrel assembly rides in.
And then of course the handguard is fixed to the frame. So ... the Broomhandle Mauser is a short recoil gun,
which means the barrel and breech assembly are coming backward with every shot.
Because that's ... not fixed to the handguard you can get a solid hold here while the gun's cycling.
I would also point out there is a fixed sling swivel in the front here.
That's actually screwed in place and not adjustable, doesn't pivot or swivel.
Guess I shouldn't call it a sling swivel if it doesn't swivel.
The rear one is also fixed in one dimension, but it does rotate here.
The Trench Carbines have serrations cut into the back of the stock, but they don't have butt plates
on any of the surviving ones. The commercial carbines do all have butt plates.
That seems like it would be a relatively simple cost-effectiveness sort of change,
you know, this works, why bother putting on the extra parts for the military?
About the only markings on this gun are these bore diameter markings,
which are actually underneath the handguard when the gun's assembled.
Some of them will have a Mauser address up here on top of the barrel flats
(which by the way are longer than you would get on a standard pistol).
Some of them will also have Mauser address lines here on the side of the frame.
But these vary, as do so many other features of the guns.
The barrel length also varies in the surviving examples. As does the exact style of the front sight.
You know, these are all experimental pieces that are being developed for prototyping and trials,
and it's actually not that surprising that they would all be a bit different.
Alright, so comparing the Trench Carbine here to a standard 1917 pistol,
the only difference is this is a 7.63 calibre pistol and a 9mm carbine, but that's a pretty minor change.
You can see the difference in the bolt stop here.
There's a short one on the Trench Carbine, as opposed to this standard one.
When we look at the bottom you can see a number of changes.
So the profile of this has changed, this lug is completely gone, we've added a dovetailed piece of rail up here.
You know, this would explain part of the additional ... cost that it would have required
to actually put these Trench Carbines into production. They're not just standard pistols.
And the same thing is true of the internal assemblies. So this is the Trench Carbine and this is that standard 1917 pistol.
You can see that the whole frame is substantially different.
We've got some bits at the bottom here that are totally different. Even just pieces like the locking block are
not identical, so we've got a cutout in the centre here that isn't on the Trench Carbine.
Spring configurations have changed. These are very far from being interchangeable parts in fact.
Now I suspect that, despite all of the external modifications to the Trench Carbines, I suspect
that this is a standard Trench Carbine internal assembly, and that probably didn't change much
(aside from the the external profile of the hammer), throughout the 40 that were produced.
We can make that same comparison between the frames of the guns.
... Actually the frames are closer than some of the other components,
but still not actually interchangeable or identical.
Notice that there is a tab here for the hold open on the follower, that is not included on the Trench Carbine.
And then of course the takedown lug right there is different. ...
On the pistol you just have a spring for the trigger.
And even just the profile of, you know, where these rails end on the two is different.
Considering the Broomhandle Mauser's reputation for difficult reassembly, the Trench Carbine is actually fairly simple.
You've got this guy, as long as you've got this assembled it just sits nicely up on the frame right there.
And then the whole thing just slides into
the frame assembly like so. And this is bevelled so that you ... have to pull it down to disassemble,
but you can just snap it into place to reassemble the gun. That's actually quite handy.
Now in terms of actual use these were semi-automatic only. These aren't converted to semi-auto for civilian use or anything,
these were not in fact manufactured in full-auto in the first place.
... I think there's a lot of validity to that, especially when you consider troops using the Luger with drum magazines.
That would also have been a semi-auto carbine.
And full-auto is not necessarily that huge of an advantage.
So at any rate, all semi-auto. There is the same style of safety that you would have on a standard Broomhandle Mauser.
So that's engaged, that's disengaged.
And then when the gun is empty it's going to lock open.
And this is kind of interesting because it initially locks open on the magazine follower.
But you can pull the magazine out and it stays open, which is very handy for changing magazines
without having to rack this thing. Which is a little bit annoying because it is a short recoil system,
so when you rack this to charge it, you have to pull the whole barrel assembly back.
The way that this works
is actually a little notch on the bottom of the bolt that the hammer catches in.
So at this point with the magazine removed,
if I pull the hammer down the bolt will go forward.
It comes back and it locks right there. So if I were to put a new magazine in,
assuming that magazine was loaded, the follower would be down.
And all I would have to do to chamber a new round is pull the hammer down.
Now of course, because I've reloaded it with an empty mag it won't, but if we pull this out,
there we go. That would ... have chambered the next round and you'd be ready to keep shooting.
Now if you'll indulge me, I want to take a moment to nerd out on magazines here for a moment.
We have a wide variety of applicable magazines here.
So starting off, this is a Mauser 06/08 magazine. These were chambered for
9mm Mauser Export which is 9x25, so this is the same overall length as the 7.63 Mauser cartridge magazine system.
You'll notice it has a tab on the back to activate a ... bolt hold open.
And it is held in place, it is assembled by having this extra spring for the follower.
So, a couple of over-travel stops. That's our 06/08 magazine, and this would have been Mauser's first
... detachable box magazine of this type: double feed, double stack. Really good magazines.
Now the 10 round magazine...
Actually, let's go to this guy. This is the 20 round magazine for this Trench Carbine.
Notice that it has the same style of floor plate attachment.
However, this has a spacer block at the front because this is in 9mm Parabellum, and that's how
the Mauser company decided to deal with 9mm. It's interesting, they didn't put a spacer at the back, they put the spacer at the front.
So we again have over-travel stops, and again a very good magazine.
Now curiously the 10 round magazine for this Trench Carbine has a different style of attachment.
It uses the tail (right there), the tail of the magazine spring as a lock to hold the floor plate in place.
However, it is otherwise the same with the exact same follower, and of course also 9 Parabellum.
Now once we move a little farther in on our timeline, this is a 20 round magazine from a Mauser Schnellfeuer.
This is in 7.63, as you can tell by the follower design. They have gone back to having a hold open tab.
It would appear that the experiment in using the hammer to lock the ... bolt open on an empty mag wasn't entirely successful,
and so the Mauser Schnellfeuer would have a proper hold open.
And note that it has the same style of floor plate attachment where it uses that little end tab
from the magazine spring to lock the floor plate in place.
And then lastly we have a Schnellfeuer mag for a 9mm gun.
Note the similarity in the follower to the Trench Carbine magazine there.
And, like the 20 round version, this has a hold open tab on it, and it is held in place by the end of the magazine spring.
So that is a cool little selection of Mauser detachable pistol magazines.
Well, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video. It is really fantastic to get a chance to take
a look at one of the three known surviving examples of these Trench Carbines.
This has been a gun that has been of great interest to me ever since I first discovered their existence.
And anyway, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video as much as I did.
Thanks for watching.