20 December 2015

Mauser C96


War History Online has an article about a clunky pistol, beloved by Rico:
The Mauser C96 is a semi-automatic pistol originally produced by German arms manufacturer Mauser from 1896 to 1937.
The distinctive characteristics of the C96 are the integral box magazine in front of the trigger, the long barrel, the wooden shoulder stock which can double as a holster or carrying case, and a grip shaped like the handle of a broom. The grip earned the gun the nickname Broomhandle in the English-speaking world because of its round wooden handle.
With its long barrel and high-velocity cartridge, the Mauser C96 had superior range and better penetration than most other pistols; the 7.63×25mm Mauser cartridge was the highest velocity commercially manufactured pistol cartridge until the advent of the .357 Magnum cartridge in 1935.
Mauser manufactured approximately a million C96 pistols, and it was extremely popular with British officers at the time, with many purchased privately. By the onset of World War One, the C96’s popularity with the British military had waned.
The Broomhandle Mauser is a popular collector’s gun. It was popularized in  early Soviet films as the iconic weapon of the Russian revolution and civil war. The C96 frequently appears as a “foreign” or “exotic” pistol in a number of films and television shows, owing to its distinctive and instantly recognizable shape.
Author Ian Fleming outfitted agents of SMERSH in the James Bond series with Mausers, on the advice of firearms expert Geoffrey Boothroyd.
A C96 was modified to form Han Solo’s prop blaster pistol for the Star Wars films. Reproductions of the blaster became so popular in the Cosplay community that gun collectors became aware that fans were buying and altering increasingly rare original Mausers to make blaster replicas.
Rico says he had one, once; ugly but lovable, like Rico himself... (But 'altering increasingly rare original Mausers to make blaster replicas'? Criminally stupid, as you'd expect from Star Wars fans...)

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