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A
LITTLE EUROPEAN HISTORY
The genius behind the rifle’s design was Peter Paul Mauser.
 Born in Oberndorff, Neckar, in 1838
son of a royal gunsmith... Working with his brother Wilhelm Mauser
(1834-1882)... he developed the Prussian 11 mm. needle gun that was adopted
by the German Army in 1871.
In
1897 Mauser produced his masterpiece, the Mauser Gewehr magazine-rifle.
It was Germany's answer to the French Lebel M1888. Peter Paul
Mauser died in 1914.
ACROSS
THE ATLANTIC
During
this same time period, starting with the 1860's, American arms
development had reached its temporary zenith with the Winchester
lever action, which had given Civil War Union riflemen unprecedented
firepower. However, the rapid firing lever action was not widely
used by the U.S. military which instead had adopted the much
slower firing single shot Springfield 45-70 since the military
minds responsible for U.S. arms procurement had decided that
the lever action’s quick firing capabilities would be a
waste of ammunition. Long after the death knell of the single
shot rifle should have been heard, the U.S. finally adopted the
30-40 Krag bolt action rifle that had been designed by Captain
Johannes Krag, director of the Norwegian Arms factory and Erik
Jorgensen, another Norwegian.
During the Spanish American War of 1898, the Krag was pitted
against Paul Mauser’s newest creation, the 1893 Mauser,
which utilized a new system of loading employing a stripper clip
which could be conveniently inserted into the rifle’s breech
and five rounds wiped into the rifle’s magazine quickly.
The Mauser was significantly faster loading than the Krag and
its high velocity 7 mm round out ranged the Krag flat out...
a wake-up call for the U.S. military who found that casualties
were more expensive than bullets.
The
Spanish-American War was a wake up call to the American Arms
industry, which immediately started looking for a replacement
to the slow loading and out ranged Krag, which would fit in well
with the new American military mind-set of the precision sharp
shooter ruling the battlefield with his fast-shooting long-range
rifle.
The result was the 1903 Springfield, designed around the legendary
.30-06 cartridge. Open the bolt of a Springfield '03 and the
German 98 Mauser and guess what? Surprise! You can hardly tell
the difference. The American Springfield which would soon find
itself pitted against the 98 on the battlefields of France had
so heavily borrowed from Peter Paul Mauser’s creation that
after the war the U.S. continued paying royalties to Mauser.
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