Mauser Modell 1871/84

Mauser 1871/84 Rifle

History

In 1872, the newly unified Germany adopted the Mauser 1871, a single-shot rifle of caliber 11.15×50R. However, as early as the late 1870s and early 1880s, the armies of developed countries began testing the first models of repeating rifles, and it was only a matter of time before they were introduced en masse into the arsenal.


The superiority of repeating rifles over the then state-of-the-art single-shot rifles was practically demonstrated by the battles of the Russo-Turkish War between 1877 and 1878 (especially the Battle of Pleven in 1877), when Russian soldiers armed with Berdan 1870 single-shot rifles were massacred by Turkish troops armed with American Winchester 1866 lever-action repeating rifles. Importantly, however, they gradually managed to break the resistance of older, conservative officers who feared that entrusting such weapons to the rank and file would only lead to a disproportionate waste of ammunition.

Paul Mauser had been working on developing a repeating rifle since 1880, using the M1871 system. After unsuccessful attempts at a box magazine design, Paul Mauser used a modified tubular cartridge box of the Austrian Kropatschek system, mounted longitudinally under the barrel.


An interesting design feature of the weapon, created specifically for the sake of conservative officers, was the ability to easily disable the cartridge feeding mechanism by simply changing the position of the lever on the left side of the slide. The weapon could thus function as a single-shot weapon, with eight rounds stored in the cartridge box, ready for use in the event of a combat emergency.


Two variants of the repeating rifle were presented to Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany in Stuttgart on 27 September 1881. In 1882, the Emperor decided to test arm four battalions of the Imperial Army, and after the successful completion of the trials, the refined weapon, which no longer had much in common with the original model 1871, was officially introduced into service on 31 January 1884 as the "Infanterie Gewehr Model 71/84". In order to conceal the actual combat values, the word "repeating" was deliberately not used in the name of the weapon.


However, the introduction of the weapon in 11.15 mm calibre earned German military officials a wave of criticism, as it was quite clear at the time that the development was moving towards the use of a smaller calibre weapon. However, the rapid introduction of the 1871/84 was of important foreign policy significance. At the time, tensions were rising between Germany and its traditional enemy, France, eager for revenge for the loss of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, which threatened to escalate into a regular war. The very fact that the German Imperial Army introduced the repeating rifle into its armoury was one of the factors that caused the French nationalist voices to cool down and sparked an escalating crisis.


The production of the Mauser 1871/84 rifles, apart from the Mauser factory itself, also began at the state armouries of Amberg, Danzig, Erfurt and Spandau.


The rearmament of the Imperial Army to the Model 1871/84 was completed in 1886, but by 1889 it began to be replaced by the new commission rifle Model 1888 of 8 mm calibre, and the M1871/84 rifles were handed over to the troops policing the German colonies in Africa.


With the introduction of the new Mauser 1898 (G98) rifle to first-line troops a decade later, the M1871/84 rifles were also withdrawn from colonial troops and stored.


During World War I, however, there was a shortage of G98 rifles, which were therefore preferentially allocated to front-line units, and the Imperial Army's second-service and security units were armed with a wide range of obsolete and looted weapons. One of the weapons that left the peace of army depots was the Mauser 1871/84 rifle.


The end of World War I also marked the definitive end of their military service. The surviving guns were sold off on the civilian market. For many years they were used mostly in North America for hunting purposes.

Design

The Mauser 1871/84 rifle is a repeating rifle with a slide-locked cylinder breech, locked by a prism at the root of the breech handle.


The cartridges are stored in a tubular non-removable cartridge box under the barrel. The cartridges are fed into the chamber by a feeder lever, mechanically activated when the bolt is moved to the rear. A lever on the left side of the bolt could be used to disable the feeder function.


The loading of the tubular cartridge box was done by individual rounds through the chamber after the breech was opened. The gun was already equipped with an ejector for fired cartridges.


The sights were open, adjustable. The sight was fitted with three flip-up slide plates, with a V-shaped notch. The standard slice was designed for firing at 270 yards, the small slice at 350 yards, and the large slice was adjustable for firing at distances from 400 to 1600 yards.

Technical Data

Manufacture

The Mauser 1871/84 rifle was manufactured at the Mauser plant in Oberndorf and the state-owned Amberg Armory, Danzig (Gdansk), Erfurt and Spandau.


A total of 950,000 guns were produced between 1885 and 1889.
Of these, Mauser produced 19,000, plus 2,000 pre-series, test guns.

Markings

Mauser M1871/84 rifles were marked on the left side of the breech housing with the swabach "I.G. Mod. 71/84", with the manufacturer's name on the top of the octagonal breech housing sleeve, along with the Imperial Eagle.


On the left oblique face of the octagon was stamped the Imperial crown, below which was a letter identifying a particular German state - Prussia had "F.W." (Emperor Frederik Wilhelm), Bavarian "L" (King Ludwig), Württemberg "W" (as Württemberg), Saxon "F.A." (King Frederick Albert).

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