[ Uruguayan M1908 Short Rifle ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we have a rifle that's
rare and cool for two separate reasons.
This is an Uruguayan
DWM Model of 1908 Mauser short rifle.
And just for that it's really a very scarce rifle,
especially here in the United States.
However, it's made doubly interesting from a
historical perspective in that it was actually
purchased by the Winchester Company in 1912, this one specifically,
and put into Winchester's reference collection as basically an ammunition testing rifle.
So let's start with what this rifle was built for, and that is the Uruguayan military.
Uruguay got Mausers ... from the very beginning,
they actually started off with 1871 pattern single-shot Mausers,
which they bought in the late 1870s, into the 1880s.
... When smokeless powder came about those became pretty quickly obsolete.
Uruguay actually experimented with converting those rifles
to a new small-bore smokeless powder cartridge.
And I actually have a video on that conversion attempt.
That was done about 1894/1895, and it didn't go very well.
They ended up not being happy with it, and instead they decided to buy 1895 pattern Mausers.
And it is at this point that Uruguay adopts the 7mm Mauser cartridge,
which is brand new at this point.
It was first developed for the Spanish, and it is an excellent military cartridge.
It's relatively low recoil, it's got great ballistics, high velocity for the time.
It's a magnificent compromise cartridge.
And Uruguay gets 1895 pattern Mausers and they're quite happy with them.
But they don't quite have enough, and so in 1908 they signed another contract
to get another batch of Mausers, and that would be this pattern.
So the design has advanced,
instead of 1895 pattern, we now have essentially Gewehr 98 style rifles.
And they have all of the modern developments
that Mauser would put into the Mauser bolt-action system.
And Uruguay purchases 10,000 full-length rifles and 4,000 short rifles,
and this is one of the short rifles.
The long guns come between 1908 and 1910,
the short rifles consist of an order of 2,500 that are delivered in 1908,
and another 1,500 that are delivered in 1911. This is a 1911 one.
Now Uruguay would continue to be very happy with the Mauser bolt-action system,
... and they kind of did ... like the sample pack from all the different Mauser manufacturers.
Later on, ... in between the World Wars they would buy Mausers from FN.
And then they would go on and also buy some Mausers from Brno.
So they kind of got a little bit from everybody.
Anyway, let's take a closer look at this one,
I'll show you the specific features of the Uruguayan pattern.
And then we can talk about its life at the Winchester Company.
I feel like I can be honest with you guys about this,
there's really not that much mechanical difference between the whole plethora
of different South American Mauser patterns from this period.
In the years leading up to World War One
it seems like virtually every country in South America bought itself some Mausers.
And they're all reasonably similar.
Different calibres, different lengths, and then a few variations in things like
barrel band patterns, and stock configurations, and that sort of thing.
But what we have here is a pretty typical short rifle.
This did come with a stock disc, which has not had anything engraved on it.
... Well, this rifle seems like it must have got to the Uruguayan military,
although how it got away from the Uruguayan military so quickly
is an interesting question that I don't have an answer to.
Being a short rifle, it has a bit of a limited rear sight.
It only goes up to 1,400 metres instead of the more typical 2,000 for a full-length rifle.
Pretty typical barleycorn front sight there, it is drift adjustable.
There ... are no grooves cut into the front sight for a front sight hood.
We do have a cleaning rod, we have a standard Mauser-type bayonet lug there.
We have an H-band style of ... nose cap, including the little hook to secure your sling.
We have the actual sling swivel there.
And a handguard that goes all the way back to the receiver.
The bolt handle is bent down, as is typical for carbines and short rifles.
And we have a rear sling attachment here.
This would have used a sling with a quick detach rear swivel,
so that you could either attach it here,
or you could attach it to the front of the trigger guard up here.
Now this tag is the Winchester Company
collection tag, we'll get to the inscription there in just a moment.
But first I want to point out the crest on the receiver.
The different crests here really are
one of the most interesting elements of the South American Mausers.
So that is an Uruguayan crest.
The date down here below it is pretty faint on this example,
the "9" in particular, but that is 1-9-1-1, 1911.
And as I said, the short rifles are either from 1908 or 1911.
They were purchased from DWM in Berlin.
We've got our serial number there, 776.
And to be honest, I'm not sure what the "A" on this side indicates.
This example is fully matched, as you would expect
for a rifle that was in Uruguayan service for all of one year.
Because on February 3rd, 1912, this was acquired by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company
as you can see right here engraved on the floor plate.
And Winchester bought this rifle, almost certainly
simply to maintain and expand their cartridge testing collection.
Basically to stay up to standard on what ammunition was out there.
Not just ballistics, but what the exact chamber profiles were.
This is a period when a lot of cartridges are being developed from ... heavy round-nosed bullets
to lighter pointed higher-velocity bullets.
And you can see here this is marked "Uruguay Standard 7mm Pointed."
So there's a little bit of conflicting information about when
the first pointed 7mm Mauser bullets were produced.
It appears to have been, at least experimentally, something like 1902.
By 1913 the pattern was in standard production for the Spanish.
Uruguay had got into 7mm back in the 1890s with the round-nosed bullets.
And so I suspect that part of the reason that Winchester got this was to try and keep up with
what DWM was developing in regards to higher-velocity pointed bullets.
I love the engraving on that, it's just really cool.
Clearly hand done, and very nicely cursive script engraved.
Now in case you're wondering about the authenticity,
Winchester's collection record does survive to this day, they catalogued it and it's been published.
And in fact gun number 390 is documented as being
an Uruguayan DWM Mauser of this serial number: 776. So this is the real deal.
As I said at the beginning, Uruguayan Mauser 1908 short rifles are very, very rare in this country,
especially in matching nice condition like this one.
... This one's condition is explained
by the fact that it sat in the Winchester reference collection for so long.
So this would have been sold from Winchester in 1967.
The collection was still in New Haven at the time,
and there was a sale of 60 or 70 rifles from the collection.
... Pretty much all of the Winchester rifles that are not currently at the Cody Museum
come out of that sale, and this is one of them.
So hopefully you guys enjoyed the video. A chance to look at not just an unusual Mauser,
but also a little peek into the back room of Winchester.
Thanks for watching.