Mauser C96 marks

[haibin]

The Mauser C96 was very popular in China before 1950 and was copied extensively as well. So this raises a question, how to tell the Chinese copies from authentic German products?

Recently I came across several Mauser C96 and found them looking similar to me. On the left side there are ordinary text WAFFENFABRIK MAUSER OBERNDORF A. NECKAR D.R.P.U.A.P
I also noticed that on the rear side of the hammer there is a figure composed of S and N (please see the attached picture) and a number below it. What does it mean?

With best wishes,

HaibinIMG_7903.jpg

[chapmen]

Neue Sicherung = new safety

[Dan Patch]

Generally speakng it's easy to tell a real C.96 from a Chinese copy because the German pistols were properly made in a proper factory, while most of the Chinese copies were filed out of bits of iron in a facility more like a blacksmith shop than a gun factory. They do look crude. That said, some of the Chinese copies were evidently of good manufacture; the Taku Naval Dockyard-marked pistols look good in photographs, but I've never handled one.

Your question brings up a matter that may only expose my ignorance of the fine points of these pistols, or may be something worth following up. This is the matter of the D.R.P.U.A.P. marking and the Neue Sicherung mark. It was my understanding that the NS mark was found on pistols made during and just after the Great War, while the patent legend appeared on later pistols from the late 1920s and into the 1930s. Do you have in hand the pistol to which the pictured hammer belongs, and is it marked D.R.P.U.A.P.? Perhaps there is a range of serials in which both these markings were in simultaneous use. Dan

[haibin]

Thanks for your info. I checked with two C96s and you are right. The letters D.R.P.u. A.P. do not appear on the same pistols with NS sign.

[haibin]

two kinds of Mauser C96

Dear Dan,

With your tip I looked at the C96 carefully and found there two kind. One (left in the photo) has a bigger grip and longer barrel. It has D.R.P.u.A.P. below the factory name. The side of the barrel is also different.

I remember after 1919 the Mauser C96 was produced with barrel shorter than 4 in and smaller caliber. Is it possible the left one was made either before 1920 or long after it when the limitations were simply put aside?

With best wishes,

Haibin
Mauser C96.jpg

Generally speakng it's easy to tell a real C.96 from a Chinese copy because the German pistols were properly made in a proper factory, while most of the Chinese copies were filed out of bits of iron in a facility more like a blacksmith shop than a gun factory. They do look crude. That said, some of the Chinese copies were evidently of good manufacture; the Taku Naval Dockyard-marked pistols look good in photographs, but I've never handled one.

Your question brings up a matter that may only expose my ignorance of the fine points of these pistols, or may be something worth following up. This is the matter of the D.R.P.U.A.P. marking and the Neue Sicherung mark. It was my understanding that the NS mark was found on pistols made during and just after the Great War, while the patent legend appeared on later pistols from the late 1920s and into the 1930s. Do you have in hand the pistol to which the pictured hammer belongs, and is it marked D.R.P.U.A.P.? Perhaps there is a range of serials in which both these markings were in simultaneous use. Dan

[Dan Patch]

Haibin: Actually the pistol at the left side of your photograph is what American collectors call the model 1930 Mauser. This may also be the formal factory designation, but I am not sure of that. This pistol should have a number in the range of about 800,000 or higher. It can be identified by the step in the barrel just forward of the chamber and also by the fact the receiver rails where they overlap the frame below don't have the linear milling cuts along their sides (compare with the other two pistols for the cuts). All these pistols shown are 7.63 m/m, as were about 90% of all C.96 pistols.

I have no clear understanding of how common the four inch barrel (nominal length) was on the C.96, nor any very good grasp of when this variant was in production, but my belief is that most of the short barreled pistols were made before 1914 or during the 1920s. The pistols produced during the First World War and those of the model 1930 type seem to be almost exclusively of the long barrel type. Dan

[Axel E]

The short, 4", barreled Mauser pistols with the shorter, more squarish grips are usually called "Bolo Mausers". They are a result of the Versailles so-called "peace traty". Pre-WW1 most Mauser C96 pistols came with 6" Barrels in the bottlenecked 7.63x25 Mauser aka .30 Mauser chambering. To standardize ammunition, Mauser made the C96 in 9mm Luger too during WW1. These were marked with a big red "9" branded into the grips to distinguish them from the .30 Mauser pistols also in service as substitute standards. As the allies had been at the receiving end of the long barreled, shoulder stocked 9mm Luger pistols like the C96 and the "artillery" lange Pistole 08 with a high capacity "snail drum" magazines in the trenches, the Versailles treaty prohibited the Germans from owning or making pistols in 9mm or larger or with barrels exceeding 4". So DWM made Lugers with Barrels just shy of 4" in .30 Luger, Mauser C96s with 4" barrels in their original chambering .30 Mauser, to circumvent the restrictions. As some of the short C96s were used by the Russian bolshewiks, they were nicknamed "Bolo Mausers". But most of These 1920s short Mauser pistols were exported to China then, Where they were heavily used by the various warlord armies and later in the war with the Japanese. Judging by the typical, heavily worn condition of the pistols in your photo, they apparently came from China.

[Dan Patch]

I was going to fix the second paragraph in my recent post but see Axel has taken care of that very well. There are a couple of comments that might be added. Bolo might refer to Bolshevik, but there is a second fairly serious candidate for the source of this name. That is a man known as Bolo Pasha, a French-born intriguer active during the Great War. The Wikipedia seems to cover him well enough.

The serial numbers of the C96 run from 1 to perhaps 280,000 at the outset of WW.I, then the Neue Sicherung pistols pick up there and continue to about 800,000 at the end of the 1920s. Wartime NS-marked guns are all of 5.5 inch barrels; those made after 1918 are nearly all Bolos (short barrels). The 9 m/m pistols for German wartime military contract are numbered a separate sequence of up to 135,000. The model 1930 pistols were, as noted above, numbered from 800,000 or so. Total production, including the Schnellfeuer model, run to about 1.1 million. Dan