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Greetings, CalGunners!
My son picked up a nice pistol from a local store here in the greater San Diego area (Discount Gun Mart); but after doing a fair amount of online investigation, I'm beginning to think he might have been... well... I don't want to say ripped off since I believe DGM is an upstanding store (one I go to often), but I think he may have been misled a little. Can anyone shed some light on this pistol?
As 99.99+ % of you know, this is a Mauser C96 "Broomhandle". At first glance it looks like it is one of the Prussian contract pistols for the Imperial German Army, as indicated by the big red '9' on the grip; but something doesn't add up.
According to my investigation (I'm doing this from memory, so my numbers might be off a little bit), the Prussian contract called for 154,000 pistols, of which approximately 135,000 were delivered. They would have been numbered 000001 thru 135000, as Mauser was in the practice of reusing the same serial numbers across various contracts. As you can see from this photo, the serial number on my son's gun is in the 658xxx range... with all numbers that I can find matching, by the way.
Further, from what I read, the Prussian contract pistols only had sights marked for 500 meters; and again, you can clearly see that this pistol is marked out to 1,000.
There is no Prussian Imperial Eagle on the front of the magazine well.
And I might as well throw in a bottom view just to complete the photo set. You can't see it became my big dumb fat hand is in the way, but the lanyard ring is parallel with the bore line (actually, you can see it perfectly in the photo of the right side of the pistol); and it is my understanding that the lanyard ring was perpendicular to the bore line until very late in the pistol's production.
The pistol really is chambered in 9mm, though. I determined this through a very scientific method... a .30 bore brush is too loose and a .357/.38/9mm bore brush is a nice fit.
The loaders that came with the pistol just plain don't belong with this pistol. They're too wide to hold the 9mm round, and too wide AND thick to fit in the loading slit in the top of the pistol. As you can see in the photo, had they actually fit the 9mm, they would only hold 6 rounds... but the magazine on my son's pistol holds a full 10 (I loaded it by hand, with snap caps, to verify this... not an easy endeavor, I might add).
So my conclusion is that although this is an exquisite Broomhandle specimen in Excellent+ condition, it is certainly not a Prussian contract example. More likely, it's just a regular later-model (late '20s early '30s?) commercial C96 whose owner had it rebored to 9mm, and then bought a second set of red-9 grips so as not to confuse anyone. Alas, this is the only set of grips that came with the gun, though.
Does anyone else have other information to share, either to verify my conclusions or offer an alternate possible explanation of the gun's history? Was it worth the nearly $1,000 that my son paid for it?
All this aside, I stripped the pistol down to the bare frame, cleaned & examined every part, relubed, and put it all back together. The inside condition is just as good as the outside. This is a great looking piece of history! We're going to get some functional 10rd loaders for it, and then we're going to go shoot the dang thing!
So sad that Obama and his chronies, and 90% of the CA state legislature, would prefer to simply toss this beautiful pistol into an incinerator never to be seen or appreciated again.
One last question if you don't mind. If we were to buy one of those wooden holsters that doubles as a buttstock for this pistol, would mere possession of that item constitute an SBR violation, or are we okay so long as we never attach it to the pistol in CA?
Thanks, everyone!
My son picked up a nice pistol from a local store here in the greater San Diego area (Discount Gun Mart); but after doing a fair amount of online investigation, I'm beginning to think he might have been... well... I don't want to say ripped off since I believe DGM is an upstanding store (one I go to often), but I think he may have been misled a little. Can anyone shed some light on this pistol?
As 99.99+ % of you know, this is a Mauser C96 "Broomhandle". At first glance it looks like it is one of the Prussian contract pistols for the Imperial German Army, as indicated by the big red '9' on the grip; but something doesn't add up.
According to my investigation (I'm doing this from memory, so my numbers might be off a little bit), the Prussian contract called for 154,000 pistols, of which approximately 135,000 were delivered. They would have been numbered 000001 thru 135000, as Mauser was in the practice of reusing the same serial numbers across various contracts. As you can see from this photo, the serial number on my son's gun is in the 658xxx range... with all numbers that I can find matching, by the way.
Further, from what I read, the Prussian contract pistols only had sights marked for 500 meters; and again, you can clearly see that this pistol is marked out to 1,000.
There is no Prussian Imperial Eagle on the front of the magazine well.
And I might as well throw in a bottom view just to complete the photo set. You can't see it became my big dumb fat hand is in the way, but the lanyard ring is parallel with the bore line (actually, you can see it perfectly in the photo of the right side of the pistol); and it is my understanding that the lanyard ring was perpendicular to the bore line until very late in the pistol's production.
The pistol really is chambered in 9mm, though. I determined this through a very scientific method... a .30 bore brush is too loose and a .357/.38/9mm bore brush is a nice fit.
The loaders that came with the pistol just plain don't belong with this pistol. They're too wide to hold the 9mm round, and too wide AND thick to fit in the loading slit in the top of the pistol. As you can see in the photo, had they actually fit the 9mm, they would only hold 6 rounds... but the magazine on my son's pistol holds a full 10 (I loaded it by hand, with snap caps, to verify this... not an easy endeavor, I might add).
So my conclusion is that although this is an exquisite Broomhandle specimen in Excellent+ condition, it is certainly not a Prussian contract example. More likely, it's just a regular later-model (late '20s early '30s?) commercial C96 whose owner had it rebored to 9mm, and then bought a second set of red-9 grips so as not to confuse anyone. Alas, this is the only set of grips that came with the gun, though.
Does anyone else have other information to share, either to verify my conclusions or offer an alternate possible explanation of the gun's history? Was it worth the nearly $1,000 that my son paid for it?
All this aside, I stripped the pistol down to the bare frame, cleaned & examined every part, relubed, and put it all back together. The inside condition is just as good as the outside. This is a great looking piece of history! We're going to get some functional 10rd loaders for it, and then we're going to go shoot the dang thing!
So sad that Obama and his chronies, and 90% of the CA state legislature, would prefer to simply toss this beautiful pistol into an incinerator never to be seen or appreciated again.
One last question if you don't mind. If we were to buy one of those wooden holsters that doubles as a buttstock for this pistol, would mere possession of that item constitute an SBR violation, or are we okay so long as we never attach it to the pistol in CA?
Thanks, everyone!
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