[elcid1970]

A sloe gin fizz at this hour? mmmmmm......OK. In college that was the first cocktail I got truly smashed on.

I have several C96 & C1930. Some in 7.63mm Mauser with shot out bores were rebored to 9mm, others have relined barrels.

The frame & action are quite strong but it’s best to enjoy them with factory loads. Might go to youtube for some vids on firing, maintenance, etc.

The Mauser `Broomhandle’ is a classic gun with charisma & a fit & finish unknown today.

In 1984 after Ronald Reagan repealed the import embargo on surplus military firearms, Broomhandle pistols flooded in from China where it has the same legend there as the Colt Peacemaker does here. Go to gunbroker.com and browse, and good luck.

[mylife]

I love the C96 and owned one for many years.

Churchill loved his too.

[mylife]

I love the C96 and owned one for many years.

Churchill loved his too.

[The Pack Knight]

I don’t know of any articles, but a .30-30 out of a pistol that weighs less than 3 lbs? Yowch!!! I think you’d want to use the stock, but if it was re-chambered to a different cartridge, I think it would lose its special status as a collector’s item and qualify as a short-barrel rifle subject to the NFA.

Also, .30-30 is a rimmed cartridge, where the C96 was designed to feed the rimless 7.63 Mauser.

A short-barreled firearm with modern materials and a magazine feeding in front of the pistol-grip sounds a lot like an AR pistol.

[Robert357]

I have seen the old C-96 broomhandle in .45 Colt ACP. Not common. So, with modern metals, just about any rimless pistol cartridge should be possible.

I have seen Ruger Blackhawk Revolvers in .30 M1 Carbine. That is also a rimless cartridge, so it could be possible to upgrade the C-96 to that, but the broomhandle grips would likely be a real problem with anything much more powerful than 9mm.

[43north]

And finally the BIG question: Why?

[Terry L Smith]

Don’t forget ... Han Solo carried a McGuffined C96!!!

[Kommodor]

Very pretty. I bought the CO2 bb gun version because no way am I going to pay 2K+ for a paperweight.

(And if I want a paperweight, I’ll buy a Luger instead, marginally more useful)

[archy]

I have seen the double barrel Colt 1911 models...but what about the Mauser C96? With modern steel could one be made to fire small rifle cartridges of the period (30-30 maybe?) And how about the Thompson Submachine gun?

Does someone have some websites or YouTube chanels dedicated specifically to doing cool things with classic ninteen hundred to nineteen thirties designs only with modern materials?

A couple of years back a young pal of mine attending a CNC machine tool class thought a classic old design might be the ticket for his fledgling robomachinist's skills, and came to the conclusion that a M1928A1 Thompson in stainless would provide a pretty good showpiece for his skills. He was nosing around in the right places and was advised by others to seek me out for prints, dimensional exemplars and parts to copy. You can imagine his disappointment when I explained to him about the Firearms Owners *protection* Act and the Hughes Amendment, and that it was illegal to do what John Talliferro Thompson did in 1919.

So he sought out another project, and reasonably came up with the M1916 U,S. Rifle, which most folks have never heard of- by that designation. When the Czar of Russia came up short a few rifles he turned to outside arms manufacturers, the State factories being busy churning out copies of the Maxim Gun [Gorloff) and light artillery, and developing a light automatic rifle. The ancient French manufactory at Chattelerault, the US Firm of Westinghouse's Eddystone, PA factory [1,800,000 units]ordered, at least 750,000 built0 and the firm of Remington dutifully cranked out another 750,000 units. The Russians, soon to be the Soviets. had built some 4 million. and this was long before the Chinese went at it. It truly was one of the nost significant rifles of its time.

My granddad paid $1.50 for his just after WWI, courtesy of the U.S. Government's Department of Civilian Marksmanship.

The erstwhile machinist thought it worthy. I lent him granddad's [Eddystone] and my own pre-war Russian Tula, plus some parts like spare barrels from other projects for dimensions. And now I can say I've seen, and had a part in building, a stainless steel M91 Mosin-Nagant/ U.S. M1916 rifle.