RARE MAUSER ’98 RUSSIAN CARBINE
...on a very rare Model 98 action
DURING HIS BRIEF visit to Oberndorf in 1956-7, Ludwig Olson, the American author of Mauser Bolt Rifles, was shown a BXW Paper photo of a Mauser ’98 carbine supposedly made for Russia in 1913. In Olson’s first bound book, and in subsequent upgraded editions, he mentioned this carbine and stated that it must be some sort of experimental model. Here is what we have learned about this carbine in recent times.
A search through Mauser patents led me to an 1894 US Patent issued to Paul Mauser for various types of box-magazines with floor-plates flush with the stock (i.e. magazines which did not protrude below the fore-stock ahead of the trigger-guard).
During the years preceding World War One, the Mauser firm received requests from various countries for sample rifles designed for use with rimmed cartridges. In 1900, Paul Mauser’s good friend and Hamburg Mauser dealer, Carl Schmidt, received a request from Siam (now called Thailand) for six rifles made up for the early Siamese 8x50r Rimmed cartridge. To accommodate the short, fat, rimmed cartridges, Paul used his 1894 patent concept for a forward-slanted magazine box (to ensure that each cartridge’s rim was positioned ahead of the one beneath it, to avoid feeding failures) but added a push-button floor-plate release in the front of the trigger-guard. The action appears to be of ‘intermediate’ length with the receiver ring’s forward edge recessed to accept a wooden handguard which would fit over the rear tangent sight. The receiver rings were marked WFM 1901 with a small, round chrysanthemum mark above the WFM logo.
During 1903-04, Mauser received a request from their main UK dealer, John Rigby, for some commercial (sporting) Mausers designed for use with the rimmed .303 British cartridge. Paul went back to his wellproven slanted box magazine concept and built a totally new action system which we in Mauser circles call the Short Intermediate form. The .303’s cartridge case was longer and slimmer than that of the Siamese round, so the internal box-magazine specs were a little different. The earlier versions had a push-button magazine floor-plate release which completely freed the floor-plate; on the later versions the floor-plate was hinged in front and pivoted downwards to open.
In order to understand what is meant by ‘Short Intermediate’ (SI) let’s look at the basic specs for this action.
Receiver length: SI 219mm (Standard and Intermediate 222mm)
Receiver ring length: SI 43mm (Standard 43mm; Intermediate 48mm)
Bolt length, stripped: SI 156.5mm (same as Intermediate)
Rear bridge length: SI 45.5mm (same as all other ’98 actions)
Guard screw-hole separation: SI 195.07mm (Intermediate 199.8mm)
DURING 1906, RIGBY ordered their first magnum-length Mausers for their rimmed .400/.350 cartridge; these used larger versions of the slanted box magazine concept.
Now we come to the rare Russian Mauser carbine illustrated here. During 1912-13, the Mauser firm received a request from their main Russian arms dealer, Vetter & Hinkel in Moscow, for a short carbine chambered for the Russian 7.62x54r rimmed cartridge – a short, fat round with an extra-large rim of 14mm in diameter.
For some reason, the Mauser workshop made up an action of oddball dimensions, featuring their slanted box-magazine system. Here are the main specs of this action for comparison with those of the
Rigby .303.
Overall receiver length: SI 219mm (like Rigby’s short action, it has a large notch in the rear bridge for clip-loading)
Bolt length, stripped: SI 156.5mm (same as Short Rigby and Intermediate)
Receiver ring length: 48mm (same as the normal Intermediate)
Bridge length: SI 48mm (longest on record of any ’98 action)
Guard screw-hole separation: SI 195.07mm (same as the Short Rigby but in this case, the rear screw-hole of a normal intermediate or standard action (199.8mm separation) was welded up and a new screw-hole drilled some 2.5mm forward to handle the Rigby type slanted box taken from inventory. The floor-plate was hinged and had a push-button release in the front of the trigger-guard. The carbine’s barrel is 19 inches long and it has a small bayonet mount on the front ring.
This shows us that Mauser went out of their way to make up actions using modifications that were outside of their normal specifications. Mauser made the five experimental carbines ordered by Russia, and at least one more for their own Reference Collection. Russia never placed an order for further such carbines, and I have never heard of any of the five they ordered reappearing in
any collection. Note that the number 7742 stamped on the carbine illustrated here is a Mauser in-house record keeping number, and not a manufacturer’s serial number. Mauser had their own such numbers which they used on sample and test rifles, which can be confusing to collectors. Probably no more than a half dozen or so of these Russian Mauser carbines saw completion.
HOW THEN, DID I come to own the one illustrated here? After WWII, the French occupied Oberndorf in Germany, and took over the Mauser factory. Before destroying it, they removed large numbers of firearms to France, including Paul Mauser’s entire arms collection and the firm’s Reference Collection. During 1967-69, the French returned some 600 of those rifles to the Mauser firm at Oberndorf, and by very good fortune, the Russian Mauser carbine you see illustrated in this article, happened to be among them. I was extremely fortunate to have obtained this carbine from one of Germany’s leading arms historians, Hans Lockhoven, who received it as a gift from the Mauser firm as partial payment for evaluating all the 600 rifles that the French had returned. Mauser donated some 150 of these rifles to the new Arms Museum in Oberndorf. Interestingly, the French did not return the pistols in this collection.