6 Rifles Used by the Afrikaners During the Second Boer War

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<div data-cycle-hash="mauser-model-9395" data-cycle-desc="Mauser Model 93/95: Imperial Germany, always anxious to cause problems with the British, arranged for the South African republics to purchase tens of thousands of modern Mauser rifles. The most common of these was the Mauser Model 93/95 chambered for the 7x57mm cartridge.

Paul Mauser's first smokeless-powder, bolt-action, charger-loaded, magazine-fed rifle featured a tubular receiver that held a one-piece bolt with dual front-locking lugs. The bolt was drilled out from the rear to allow insertion of the firing mechanism.

The cock-on-closing bolt, with its non-rotating extractor, prevented double-feeds and made bolt manipulations smoother. It also featured a staggered-row-style box magazine that could be reloaded and fed cartridges more smoothly, and because it was completely enclosed by the stock, it was hard to damage.

The 7x57mm cartridge consisted of a rimless, bottlenecked case, 57mm in length, that was loaded with a 173-grain, round-nose, full-metal-jacket (FMJ) bullet traveling at 2,300 fps.

From 1896 to 1899, the OVS bought about 7,900 and the ZAR purchased 30,000 infantry rifles and 7,000 carbines, all Mausers, from Ludwig Loewe & Company and Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM). While called …Read the Rest

Source:: Tactical Life