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| - One of the earliest successful automatic pistols, this design originated in Germany in the late 19th Century, when Paul Mauser introduced his C96 in 1896. It was significantly more reliable and easier to use than the earlier Borchardt C93 and achieved immediate success. The new pistol's distinctive grip earned it the nickname of "Broomhandle." Governments all over Europe purchased them, as did private citizens in Europe and America, where it became the first automatic pistol commonly seen in the American west. Prominent users of the C96 included Winston Churchill, who carried a Broomhandle at the Battle of Omdurman, and T. E. Lawrence, AKA "Lawrence of Arabia." Originally chambered in 7.63x25mm, Mauser also produced a variant in 9x19mm for the Imperial German Army (Reichswehr) during WWI.
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| abstract
| - One of the earliest successful automatic pistols, this design originated in Germany in the late 19th Century, when Paul Mauser introduced his C96 in 1896. It was significantly more reliable and easier to use than the earlier Borchardt C93 and achieved immediate success. The new pistol's distinctive grip earned it the nickname of "Broomhandle." Governments all over Europe purchased them, as did private citizens in Europe and America, where it became the first automatic pistol commonly seen in the American west. Prominent users of the C96 included Winston Churchill, who carried a Broomhandle at the Battle of Omdurman, and T. E. Lawrence, AKA "Lawrence of Arabia." Originally chambered in 7.63x25mm, Mauser also produced a variant in 9x19mm for the Imperial German Army (Reichswehr) during WWI. These 9mm Broomhandles were differentiated from the visually-identical 7.63mm model by a large red "9" marked on both sides of the grip, earning the 9mm variant the secondary nickname "Red Nine." The Mauser pistol is notable for the fact that it uses no pins to hold the weapon together. The only screw in the weapon is the one securing the grip panels. The pistol's components all fit together and remain in place like an elaborate 3D puzzle. The weapon is accurate and mechanically reliable, but expensive and somewhat awkward to shoot. It was quickly outclassed by Browning designs manufactured by Colt in the United States and FN in Belgium. Nevertheless, it remained popular around the world, and production continued in Germany until 1937. It was more robust than the Luger P08, and was still commonly found in the holsters of German soldiers during and after WWII. In the 1920s, China acquired a large number of Mauser C96 automatic pistols and eventually became the only country to adopt the strange, awkward "Broomhandle" Mauser as a primary military sidearm. The demand was so great, in fact, that even foreign imitations (such as the Spanish Astra Model 900 series) were actively procured, and various local arsenals would go on to mass-produce the German-pattern design. One such indigenous efforts was made by a weapons lab within the country's Shanxi Province, albeit in a modified form. The imported pistols, as well as the majority of Chinese-made copies, fired the German-designed high-velocity 7.63x25mm cartridge, but the Warlord of the Shanxi Provence, Yen Hsi-shan, had the design expanded to chamber the harder-hitting American-designed .45ACP to simplify his supply needs, as his men also used the Thompson submachine gun. When the Republic of China was invaded by Japan, the Broomhandle, including the .45ACP "Shanxi Type 17", saw extensive use in the hands of Chinese Nationalist and Communist troops who resisted the invaders. Many modified their Mausers with the 712 schnellfeuer conversion kit to make them fully automatic. The modified pistols suffered from excessive muzzle climb due to recoil when fired on full automatic, making accurate bursts difficult. The C96 also had ejection problems due to design flaws in the extractor and ejector. Despite being significantly more powerful, .45ACP develops less operating pressure in the chamber than the 7.63x25mm and 9mm rounds the pistol was designed for. Spent cases were ejected from the breech with minimal force as the bolt cycled. Since the C96 design ejects upwards from an ejection port in the top of the weapon, spent casings would not be ejected hard enough to clear the port, causing the pistol to jam due to gravity, of all things. The Chinese learned to counteract this with a specialized shooting style, "bandit shooting" (so called because it was used against bandits, which were a main concern during 1920s China), where they held the gun sideways; the muzzle climb shifted the gun horizontally, allowing for a deadly sweep in close quarters (though this method is useless at any range beyond about 5 yards). The spent casings would eject to the side, negating the issues with jamming, and the recoil actually helped guide the operator's hand in close quarters to acquire the next target; the idea was to aim at the right-most target and use the muzzle jump to guide your aim to the next target. This technique was feared by the Japanese.
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