Tag Archives: broomhandle mauser

How about a Wauser?

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Here we see what looks to be a 1930s-era C96 “Broomhandle” Mauser Model 712 Schnellfeuer auto pistol (or, Blaster if you prefer…) currently in the Royal Armouries Collection.

However, on closer look, it is a Chinese-made copy of a 712 covered with badly emulated spurious markings and a substandard rust bluing “though appearance is closer to browning.” Marked “Manufactured by the Third Battle Area Arms Repair Department,” the banner scroll reads “Wauser.”

C96s were a cottage industry in China for decades, where they were known as “box cannons” and carried/sold as status symbols among warlords and village strongmen from the Yalu to the Yangtze.

The Joy of a Broomhandle Mauser

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In military service for more than a half century with some of the most unlikely of people, the C96 Mauser Military Pistol began a new era of semi-automatic pistols on the modern battlefield.
In the 1890s, most if not all handguns in the world were revolvers of either single action (Colt 1873) or double action (Smith and Wesson) type. These types of guns equipped gentlemen officers, travelers, and law enforcement personnel around the world. This was fine, but in Germany, there was a team of three brothers by the name of Feederle that felt they could do better.
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com

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