SRB - Mauser 1878/80

opakovací puška
Mauser 1878/80 Serbian


History
In 1879, the Mauser brothers learned that Serbian army officials were deciding to introduce a new single-shot rifle. In June of that year, Wilhelm Mauser therefore went to Belgrade, where he presented a rifle Mauser 1871, modified to load 10.15x63R. After many months of trials, the weapon was deemed fit for introduction into the arsenal, and on 14 February 1881 a contract was signed for the supply of 120,000 rifles. The new rifle was officially designated the Model 78/80, but is also known as the Mauser-Milovanović or Mauser-Koka rifle, after the Serbian Major Koka Milovanović, who headed the weapon selection committee.


The M78/80 rifle differs from the default M71, apart from the calibre, primarily by the rearward extension of the firing pin nut, which ran all the way to the neck of the stock. This extended guide prevented the firing pin nut from rotating when the bolt was open. The M78/80 rifle already had (in contrast to the M71) a cartridge ejection treatment - when the breech was in the rear position, the extractor hit the stop screw in the left part of the breech housing, the extractor moved forward and gave the cartridge the impulse to eject from the chamber. The design of the safety was also modified, with a coiled spring fitted to the pin, pushing the safety backwards into the tooth in the firing pin nut, again preventing it from rotating.
The guiding part of the bore of the barrel was very interesting - the bore fields, which were 4.7 mm wide at the transition cone, tapered to 3.9 mm wide towards the muzzle. Major Milovanović promoted this design feature because of the more regular flow of the penetrating force and better sealing of the bore as the bullet passed through (sic!).


In 1907, the M78/80 rifles were reloaded with a 7x57 cartridge and fitted with a five-shot box magazine. The weapon thus modified was then designated M80/7S (some literature states M80/7C, which is due to the failure to convert the letter "C" from Cyrillic to Latin)


The M80/7C was not used in combat until the First Balkan War against Turkey between 1912 and 1913, and the Serbian army continued to use it during the years of World War I. The original M78/80 never saw combat service.


Design
The Mauser-Milovanovic 1878/80 rifle is a single-shot rifle with a sliding cylinder breech, designed to use single-shot metallic cartridges. The breech is locked via two opposing locking teeth located at the front of the breech. Both teeth lock into recesses in the breech housing sleeve.
Sights open, sight adjustable up to 2050 meters.


Technical Data
Caliber - 10.15 mm
Cartridge - 10.15x63R Serbian Mauser
Length - 1290 mm
Weight - 4,5 kg
Barrel length - 780 mm
Number of grooves in the barrel - 4
Bore pitch - 550 mm
Pitch sense - right
Groove depth - 0,15 mm
Groove width - variable, 4,7 mm at the chamber and 3,9 mm at the muzzle
Sight range - 300 to 2025 m



Manufacture
The M78/80 rifles were manufactured only at the Mauser plant in Oberndorf. Whether the total quantity produced exceeded the 120,000 units ordered is unknown, but most likely it did not.


Markings
The M78/80 rifles were marked on the left side of the breech housing with the Serbian Cyrillic "BR. MAUZER I LI OBERNDORF N/N, VIRTEMBERG. PEŠ O.M. 1880"
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