1899 Mauser Recoil-operated Rifle

Patent Pending Blog - Patents and the History of Technology: Mauser Recoil Operated Rifle, 1899

Mauser Recoil Operated Rifle, 1899

Paul Mauser patented a recoil operated rifle in 1899, 45 years before the M1 Garrand was adopted as the first recoil operated main battle rifle by any army. It would be interesting to compare the M1 and the 1899 Mauser, and see the similarities.

 

One comparision that could be made is that the Garand is gas operated, not recoil.

 

the joys of accurate journalism

 

This reminded me of another semi-auto that was pretty early on, a Remington. Back when I was a real youngster, in the fifties, one of my Dad’s friends had a really weird semi-auto rifle for deer hunting. I was fascinated by the thing since it was sort of "stocky" looking and had a barrel in a barrel, with a thin case surrounding the inner "barrel" that moved back with the recoil to eject and reload. It really was a "recoil" operated unit, like the Mauser. I'm not sure but wasn't there also a French semi-auto that actually was issued (in small numbers) to French troops for WW1? I'll have to look around on that one.

I remember Perry telling me it was a Remington and more powerful than Dad’s 30-30 Winchester, and was a 32 Remington round. Turns out the ballistics are nearly identical between it and the 30-30. I had forgotten all about that thing until this business about Mauser’s recoil operated rifle caught my attention. I looked for it and discovered it was another of John Brownings many designs, that he had perfected in 1900 and sold to Remington. They started producing it as the civilian Model 8 before WW1 (1906?), and it remained in production into the thirties when it was replaced with a "newer" model, the 81. I remember Perry telling me he got it from his Dad who had purchased it new in the twenties.

 

the french one you're thinking of may be the RSC 1917;

Modern Firearms - Rifle - RSC Model 1917 and 1918 semi-automatic rifle

your Remington Model 8;

Shooting with Hobie
http://thegreatmodel8.remingtonsociety.com/?page_id=8

fascinating action

there were quite a few semi auto mods fitted to Lee-enfields during ww1 as well, but all external gas operated, and none in series production.

 

Yes, that looks like the French one I was "sort of" remembering.

You can see why so many people thought that there were BARs at the taking of Bonnie and Clyde. They really look quite a bit alike, but the BAR wasn't the same action. The Texas Ranger named Hammer had a special made Model 8 with a HUGE box magazine, and that was what he was using when they ambushed the pair and shot the bejesus out of that Ford.

 

That reminds me of the Pedersen device which was developed for the 1903 Springfield in WW1. It didn’t get perfected until the war was almost over, and the smaller .30 caliber round was strangely much like the later .30 carbine round, except it was mildly shouldered. It is in the pics mix in the second site.

Goto:

Springfield Armory National Historic Site - AUTOMATIC PISTOL (U.S. National Park Service)

and for a collection of pics:

Goto:

pedersen device - Google Search

 

I also found the patent drawings for Browning's Oct. 1900 recoil operation.

Goto:

RECOIL-OPERATED FIREARM - Google Patent Search

 

This was the South African Reider conversion, which was 1941 but largely based on the one-offs that were made in ww1;

DELVILLE WOOD

there was a similar idea to the pedersen device tried in Mauser 7.63x25, called the Howard Francis machine carbine Howard Francis machine carbine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

but never entered production and was not a drop in and out concept.

Didn't Brownings mechanism end up basically being that used in the M1941 that failed against the M1?

something to do with mis-cocking when the bayonet was fitted or it was upside down due to something in the design?

 

The thing that amazes me about the "Pedersen" is that it didn't alter the Springfield to the point of it NOT being able to be both a semi-auto pistol caliber "lead pump", and a regular 30-06 service rifle. It was only a matter of less than a minute of conversion time from one to the other. The only major modification for the rifle itself was a milled ejection port on the left-hand side of the receiver, and this didn't weaken the weapon in the least.

I suppose that in "combat" conditions its flaws and drawbacks might have come to the fore, but it was a revolutionary design for its time.

Here is a great site concerning the "device", and notice that the little 80 grain; .30 caliber pistol round has about 1,300 feet per second muzzle velocity.

"WORLD WAR ONE'S John D. Pedersen was a well known firearms designer and inventor, who approached the U.S. Ordnance Department in 1917 with a conversion of the Model 1903 rifle that could change the balance of power on the front lines in France, where the opposing armies were stalemated by trench warfare. He soon found himself on a rifle range just outside Washington with two officials of the War Department.

His demonstration started with the firing of the M1903 rifle in the usual manner, manipulating the bolt action to eject a spent cartridge casing and loading and firing a fresh round, repeating until the five round magazine was emptied. He then astonished the officials by removing the bolt and replacing it with a mechanism which accepted a forty round stick magazine which stuck out at a 45 degree angle to the right of the receiver.

The magazine held (40) small pistol size cartridges of .30 caliber. Pedersen started firing the converted rifle as fast as he could pull the trigger. He had changed the M1903 from a bolt action to a semi-automatic rifle, and made the conversion easily and readily reversed, so that a soldier could make the change quickly when ordered to do so.

Goto:

National Park Service - Detail Record

 

You'd think something similar would be very useful in a modern situation like Afghanistan, where a proper rifle is needed at times, and something with low power and high rate of fire at others. Would save the problem of having a carbine when you want a rifle and vice versa.

 

An old wives tale concerning the Remington Model 8 is that the by removing the inner barrel the outer "barrel" could be used as a 12 ga. shotgun. The 8 was chambered for 4 rimless proprietary cartridges; the .25, .30, .32 & .35. Only the .35 is still chambered in a currently produced firearm, the Marlin Model 336 lever action.
Another commercially produced semiautomatic of the era that did see military use was the Winchester Model 1907 self-loading rifle chambered in .351 WSL. These had limited use in WWI & were used early in WWII by the French. The cartridge is the ballistic equivalent to the .357 Magnum cartridge if used in a comparable length barrel. The rifle is of carbine length & is blowback operated where the weight of the bolt & pressure of the return spring are designed to keep the bolt closed until the bullet has left the barrel. There is a large piece of steel inside of the forearm which is connected to the bolt to provide enough mass to the mechanisim.
Spartan; are you thinking of the Johnson Rifle when you say M1941? That is recoil operated & was used for a short period of time by the USMC. It was eesigned by Melvin Johnson who was a USMCR officer.

 

That's the one thanks forgot the name.