German Model 1871 Mauser Rifle

This is Paul Mauser’s first successful rifle, being that it was the first Mauser rifle to be adopted by an army anywhere. Mauser would go on to supply Germany and much of the world with his rifle designs through two world wars and beyond. There had been earlier bolt action rifles, but the Model 1871 introduced a bolt with most of the features still used in bolt actions made today: Self-cocking, self-extracting, flag-type safety, and of course firing a metallic cartridge. My ’71 Mauser is a single-shot. In 1884 the rifle would be produced with a tubular magazine inside the stock and be designated the Model 1871/84.

The Model 1871 was used in conflicts long after it was obsolete. Germany supplied them to the Boers fighting the British. The Chinese were armed with them during the Boxer rebellion of 1900. Colonial German native troops, the Askaris, continued to use them through WWI. Fifteen hundred of them reached the hands of Irish Nationalists, many seeing action in the Easter Rebellion of 1916.

My ’71 Mauser was produced in Amberg, Bavaria in 1878, and bears the crown and letter L cypher of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. (Although the Kaiser in Prussia was the German emperor, the various German states like Bavaria retained their royal families and equipped their own armies according to imperial standards). All serial numbers match. I think the unit markings on the butt plate read “B8R (or B8B?).8.114” which I think may be the Bavarian 8th Regiment, 8th company, rifle number 144. The bayonet, ammo and pouches will be separate posts. The sling is a reproduction of an original German 1871 sling.

This is my first posting of several rifles I purchased from a sergeant major I once knew. His collection was focused on Mauser model 98Ks. Another collector passed away and the widow offered him the whole huge collection and was not interested in selling him only part. The sergeant major took out a home equity loan without his wife’s knowledge to buy the whole collection and was furiously selling off the guns he didn’t need to pay down the loan before his wife found out. Last I heard they were getting divorced. Moral of the story: marry a collector as crazy as you are and you’ll have a happier marriage. Broke and maybe homeless, but happy.

Ammo: I’ll always put this at the end because I know it only interests a few. The 11mm Mauser (.43 Mauser) cartridges shown are original and not my reloads. I have an assortment of cases; Bertram, HDS, and even forty old Dominion cases (Dominion of Canada produced this ammo until, I think, the 50s or 60s). I also have some cases reformed from .348 Winchester. I don’t mix cases but I did re-drill all flash holes to .08” and trimmed them to 2.370” to provide more uniformity. I paper patch this round because the originals were, and it does seem to help reduce fouling. I used a 390 grain lead round nose bullet (originals were 385 gr) and I had satisfactory results with 77 grains of Goex fffg (an original I took apart had 77.6 grains black powder). I’ve also used 48.5 gains of Pyrodex RS to reasonable effect. From a rest I was getting 4” groups at 50 yards and 8” groups at 100 yards. In spite of being close to the original loads, by chronograph shows those reloads to be about 100fps slower than what my research says the original bullets fired (1443fps). After that I tried a “duplex” load, adding 7 grains of IMR 4227 smokeless powder at the bottom of the case next to the primer, with 70 grains of Goex on top. Now it’s about 50fps above the original round, velocity is more consistent, and groups are slightly tighter.

WARNING: Load data is provided for information only. Many vintage firearms are unsafe to shoot and I do not advise use of this load data for other firearms since I do not know the specific firearm that may be involved or its condition.