once in a great while a gun is so successful it redefines its class forever

guns whose engineering is so good they simply become synonymous with the way its supposed to be done

this is the mauser bolt action

its story is one of constant improvement over many decades

its origin goes back a hundred and fifty years

but to this day almost every bolt action rifle you can buy is copying it

lets see why

so two brothers

wilhelm and peter paul mauser

they made guns in what was becoming germany

germany wasnt actually a country until the late 1800s

italy was like that too

kinda weird

so its like 1871 and gun technology is getting a lot of advancements

and germany just kicked the baguettes out of france in the franco prussian war so they need to take advantage of that

so the new germany adopts a new rifle by these mauser guys called the infantry rifle 71

its a single shot bolt action firing black powder metallic cartridges

and its got neat safety features like a big ol wing you flip to the side

why single shot

theyre very durable and militaries are always slow to change

overall it works ok

but pretty quick it becomes apparent that oops we actually need a repeating rifle

the ottomans just kicked the borscht out of russia using winchester lever actions

you may remember this also caused the russians to adopt the mosin rifle lol

so germany is like dang can we get repeaters

well the mauser brothers were very cool

very often in their contracts with these governments they would put a clause allowing for upgrades to newer models

so mauser made a new rifle called the 71/84 which added a magazine

this was actually an 8rd tube magazine if you can believe it lol

so then they made a bunch of those and various countries bought them

small interlude here as wilhem mauser dies after a life of health problems

as a result mauser was unable to compete for the new german contract and they adopt whats called the 1888 commission rifle which is a weird compilation of different designers

heres a diagram

tho i will point out the 1888 carbine is where the iconic rear sling slot came into being

anyway paul keeps on going and makes another design called the belgian 89

it has cool stripper clips and a detachable magazine

which kinda sticks out and gets lost wait dang

so then the spanish are like amigo were interested but can you make that not happen

and give it a muy grande extractor

mosin for comparison

so mauser was like ja wohl and made the 93 with internal magazine that was flush with the bottom of the rifle

it used the new smokeless powder and staggered the rounds internally

the spanish went on to use them in the spanish american war

and while america kicked the paella out of spain

their charger loading mausers were way better than our krag jorgensens that cant use them or handle high pressure

for real guys there are multiple instances of hundreds of spaniards holding off literally thousands of americans

so after we won we flat out illegally copied the mauser with the 1903 springfield lol

the boers in south africa bought tens of thousands of the 1895 pattern rifle and used them in the second boer war

once again although the british kicked the bobotie out of the boers they realized the accuracy of their lee metford rifles kinda sucked tea compared to the mauser and incorporated elements into their new rifles

in fact they were working on a full on copy but wwi broke out before they were finished

tho with further modifications it became the american 1917 enfield

thats right america adopted a mauser copy multiple times lol

are you sensing a pattern

everybody wanted these

meanwhile in germany mauser was approaching the pinnacle of his design with the gewehr 98

the g98 introduced controlled feeding which meant the bolt grabbed the cartridge as soon as it left the magazine

this made everything consistent and very jam resistant

in the 1930s the final major variant was developed

the k98k

this was a gewehr 98 that was 6in shorter

smaller sights than before

and a turned down bolt handle

the 60 years of continuous improvement is a big part of why the germans kept their bolt actions to the last days of the war even when everybody else was big into semiautos

another cool thing is all the safety features

safety vents in the bolt to vent gas

a shield on the back of the bolt to protect against shrapnel

even an extra bolt lug in case of explodey rounds

i cant totally tell you how many were made

clearly tens of millions

its potentially the most produced gun of all time

heres a map of countries that used a mauser derivative

and the blank spots are almost entirely just the british empire or russian empire

hard to top that lol

pew pew

#click here for previous articles