In the year 1898 Winston Churchill, future Prime Minister of England, was a young lieutenant in the British Army. With funds provided by his mother, he had just purchased a strange-looking new pistol from the firm of Westley Richards & Co. in Birmingham, England. Attached to the 21st Lancers in Sudan, Churchill effectively used that pistol to save his life. In the battle of Omdurman, which was one of the very last British cavalry charges, on September 2, 1898 Churchill killed or wounded at least three of his fierce spear-toting dervish opponents. The pistol he used was a Mauser C96 “Broomhandle.” Writing his mother, Churchill called the pistol “…the best thing in the world.” He later carried the same handgun as a war correspondent in the second Boer War. Today, the Mauser has one of the most recognizable profiles of any firearm ever made. It is a hot and very classic collector item.

The pistol’s development began in 1893 or 1894, when three brothers working for Waffenfabrik Mauser in Oberndorf on the Neckar River in Germany undertook a new project. Fidel Feederle was the Superintendent of the Mauser experimental workshop. Together with his brothers Friedrich and Joseph, he crafted the first successful prototype on March 15, 1895. Peter Paul von Mauser, the head of the firm, didn’t even know about the new handgun, but when it was demonstrated to him, he quickly recognized its potential. A German patent was issued for it on December 11, 1895. During the following year, about 110 pre-production pistols were built, and full production started in April of 1897. The cartridge chosen was dubbed the 7.63x25mm Mauser, a near-twin of the bottlenecked 7.65mm round used in the 1893 Borchardt pistol, forerunner to the Luger. It differed mainly in its 300 feet per second higher velocity, launching an 86-grain bullet at a sizzling 1400 fps. This cartridge, which spawned the almost-identical 7.62x25mm Tokarev round in 1930, was the highest-velocity commercially manufactured handgun cartridge until the S&W .357 Magnum came along in 1935. The pistol itself was first known as the P-7.63 or Feederle Pistole. Paul Mauser chose to rename it the Mauser Military Pistol. Most know it today as the C96, which stands for "Construktion 96," the short-form year of its first manufacture. Germans seeing it for the first time nicknamed it the "kuhfusspistole" because they thought it was as ugly as a cow’s foot. The Chinese, who used it widely, called it the “box cannon” for its box-like forward magazine and the fact that it was usually housed in a wooden holster that doubled as a shoulder stock. The English-speaking world, taking notice of its distinctive rounded grip, universally called it the “Broomhandle.” By whatever name, it was the first commercially successful semiautomatic pistol. While it was never adopted as a first-line firearm in Germany, it saw wide usage in both World War I and II as a substitute standard.

The C96 is recoil operated, and utilizes a breech locked by a tilting block which joins the upper receiver to the bolt for the first moments of travel. The block is then cammed down. The unlocked bolt then continues rearward to eject the spent shell, cock the large hammer, and return under spring pressure to chamber a new round. The upper receiver and barrel are machined as one piece, making barrel replacement a real challenge today. The safety is on the left side of the hammer and locks the hammer on engagement. It uses a fixed integral magazine in front of the trigger which is loaded either with single rounds or more quickly with a stripper clip. Early versions contained 6, 10 or 20 rounds, but since about 1905, mostly 10-round versions were made. The only way to unload the magazine is to operate the bolt back and forth on the remaining rounds. The magazine follower has a projection which retains the bolt in the rear position when empty. A tangent rear sight optimistically graduated from 50 to 1000 meters is provided. The pistol was slotted for and was often combined with a detachable hollowed-out wooden shoulder stock. This stock also served as a protective holster and was retained on the body by a shoulder strap. The pistol itself has no screws other than the one used to retain the wooden grips. Inside, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle with many interlocking parts. The lock assembly detaches from the upper frame as a complete unit. It can be disassembled with only the point of a cartridge or a cleaning rod. Because so much precision hand labor was involved in its manufacture, it would be virtually impossible to duplicate it today for less than thousands of dollars.

There are many sub variations of the basic pistol, involving subtle changes to the shape of the hammer, the operation of the safety, and the milling, or lack of it, on the lower frame. The basic configuration used until about 1915 was called the pre-war commercial type. The pistol illustrated is one of these, which I estimate was manufactured in 1914. Due to the senseless deliberate destruction of the Mauser plant’s records by American forces following WWII, more exact dating is now virtually impossible. In 1915, the German Army contracted with Mauser for 150,000 Broomhandles chambered for the standard 9x19mm Luger or Parabellum round. Roughly 137,000 were delivered. These were distinguished from the 7.63mm pistols by a large “9” routed out in the grips, with the number painted most often in red, but sometimes in black. The P.08 Luger was standard, but the Mausers were also extensively used. A cartridge called the 9x25mm Export Mauser was chambered in a small number of pistols, but these are quite rare. They were intended for export to China and South America. Some pistols were made as carbines with long barrels, fore ends and integral pistol-grip shoulder stocks. These are also very scarce today.

The C96 was distributed worldwide and found popularity on the civilian market. Many officers in armies around the world purchased them with their own funds. Winston Churchill was but one of these. People as diverse as Lawrence of Arabia and Chiang Kai-shek of China used them. Shorter-barreled versions with stubby and less-rounded grips were distributed in Russia prolifically, finding favor with the Bolsheviks. These became known as “Bolo” pistols because of this connection. A C96 was used in the July 16, 1918 execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in Ekaterinburg during the Russian revolution. It carries serial number 167177 and is now displayed in the city museum.

Unlicensed copies of the C96 were made in Spain and in China. These were either direct copies or had different internals. A Chinese variation was made in .45 ACP caliber. Some of these imitations were of surprisingly good quality, and some were really crude. The Spaniards made some full-automatic versions in the late 1920s, and Mauser quickly made a selective-fire model of its own, called the Schnellfeuer Pistole (rapid-fire pistol). It was designed in 1930, with production starting in 1932 and ending in 1936. Some went to China and to both sides in the Spanish Civil War. The “Model 1932” full-autos were also provided to the German Wehrmacht, where the pistol was designated officially as the M712. Large numbers of the standard C96 were used by Hitler’s elite Waffen SS forces in World War II.

Although the pistol was powerful, reliable and accurate, it did suffer from being relatively bulky, slow to reload, and expensive to manufacture. Production of Broomhandle Mausers ended in 1937, giving them a production run of about 40 years. In that interval, the pistol became iconic and has remained one of the most visually striking pistols ever made. It’s estimated that about one million were manufactured by the Mauser factory. Today, collectors eagerly seek out good or better condition specimens. It’s estimated that only about 200 legal Schnellfeuer selective-fire guns exist in the U.S. due to governmental restrictions here. The standard semiautomatic pistols are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive, with even rusted junkers commanding prices unheard of even 10 years ago. Look up the word “classic,” and you just might find a picture of a C96 Mauser Broomhandle!

(c) 2012 JLM

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

John ... Thank you again for another history lesson. Always great reading, and always appreciated.

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I'm with the banned ...

Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews commented on seeing many of these Mausers on his famed Asiatic expeditions.

If anyone wants to read Churchill's account of the cavalry charge at Omdurman, it's in his bio, "My Early Life." He tells there in detail how many of the enemy he shot and of his own participation in the event in general. An excellent, witty book.

My father was billeted on a ship in Tokyo harbor during the occupation.
He came back to the ship one day to find a line of soldiers & sailors. He
asked the last guy what the line was for & was told someone was
handing out pistols. My father got in line & was subsequently handed
a Broomhandle. Apparently Germany gave or sold a number of them to
Japan after WW I & a fellow soldier had liberated a crate of them.
Dad brought it back & I have it, along with the release document.
My wife's grandfather brought back a battlefield pickup from France
after WW I, we have it as well. I shoot that one now & then as her father
had it reblued. I remember pestering my father to get his Mauser
down from the closet shelf so I could examine it; that pistol helped foster my lifelong interest in firearms.
Great history- thanks for taking the time & trouble to post it.
Regards,
turnerriver

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turnerriver

Churchill asked for and received permission to carry the pistol because he had dislocated his sholder boarding a ship (I believe). Otherwise he would have been required to carry a sword. His pistol was purchased by David Attenborough who made a movie Young Winston about his life. I don't know where it is today.

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Luke 22:36

Jay-

Officers carried both pistols and swords, as will be evident if you see many photos and illustrations from that time. They used whichever the situation seemed to call for, sometimes with one in each hand.

Churchill injured his shoulder while playing polo, not in boarding a ship. I think he began the charge with drawn sword, and commented on how dificult it was to sheath the sword and draw the Mauser at a gallop. This was depicted in the movie, "Young Winston". Clips are on YouTube.

BTW, Simon Ward, who played Churchill in that film, died recently.

In India, prior to the charge in the Sudan, Churchill wore a Webley-Wilkinson .455, Model of 1892. He fired it from on foot while engaging Afghan and other Pathan rebels, but didn't hit anyone, as I recall. He found his long cavalry sword awkward on foot and drew his revolver in that case.
He was "mentioned in despatches" for gallantry in that encounter.

By the time he went to France in WWI, he was using a Colt Govt. Model .45, not the .455 version. "Man at Arms" had a really good account of his handguns some years ago, the present Lord Churchill having allowed photos to be taken for it. Alas, the Mauser wasn't present.

If Attenborough actually bought it, can you cite a source for that info? It did come home after he was captured by the Boers, having been left on the train that he was riding.
I read somewhere an account by him saying that he had recovered it after his escape and that was beside him as he wrote. That infers that it was shipped to his mother after the train escaped the ambush. His name was on the gun, as was then fairly common with British officers' pistols. And some on that train surely knew to whom it belonged.

BTW, he noted that he had sewn on his uniform jacket a couple of pockets for stripper clips of the Mauser ammo. He evidently liked the gun a lot. I have a book by him that shows the uniform jacket with those pouches on it.

What happened to Winston Churchill's Mauser Broomhandle pistol that his mother bought for him to use in the Second Boer War? | Answerbag

I also read this at about the time the movie "Young Winston" came out.

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Luke 22:36

Thanks, Paladin, for a superb and authoratative distillation of the history of the Broomhandle.

Shooters should be aware that the sights are regulated for use with the shoulder stock (less upwards flip). Therefore they shoot 'way high when used without the stock.

Excellent article. And you are right about attention at the range, only a Luger or Thompson draw as much.

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Always bet on stupidity.

Jay-

Thanks! I enjoyed it. Always wondered about that. Wish they'd said who put the gun up for auction.

Thanks, John. Great article on classic firearms.

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

My favorite collectible pistol. The bad news is most you find have some kind of mal-function problems due to overworked springs. The good news is all of the springs are readily available. I had to replace all the springs in what looked like a pristine gun before it would function properly. But now she runs the 10 rd. magazine like a clock.

There is a scene in "Lawrence of Arabia" where a wounded Turkish soldier fires at Lawrence after the attack on the Hejaz Railroad.
On some other boards I visit some members have found Broomhandles that were fired with 7.62 Tokarev ammo-not a wise practice.
I fired one years ago, not very ergonomic but you feel the history.

Always enjoyed the look of the Broomhandle.

I remember it best as a prop gun in Star Wars.

Hans Solo's blaster appears to be a modified Mauser.

The laser pulse generator must be in the magazine.

Bruce

Airborne Combat Engineer: What would you pay for Hans Solo's Blaster?

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I bought one about 45 years ago at an auction in Ohio. The lock frame mech had been broken and brazed back together. Not only that, it was crooked. I bought a replacement lock frame mech and fitted it to the pistol The latch in the rear was also cracked. This I had welded, but I wasn't happy with it because the gun was just a bit "loose" I replaced the latch (non numbered part). Later, I melted the bronze filler rod off the original lock frame mech. I then had it etched off and made a fixture to weld it properly. I had a toolmaker MIG weld it with tool steel filler rod. Then I had the welded area re machined. finally, I had it re-heat treated. In those days you could still buy the ammo at a gun store. I got some stripper clips and fired the gun. Later, I sold it to raise money for my 1950 Chevy restoration.

I still have a keen interest in this pistol, but I am not currently buying guns that are not shooters.

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Luke 22:36

John, great article!

These are very cool looking pistols!

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Linda
SWCA #1965, SWHF #245

like to add one thing to this nice writing on brooms. they can be assembled with the locking block backwards. they will still operate by hand but if you shoot it the locking block comes back at you at great speed out of the gun.

Perazzi: Please explain this some more. I'm puzzled. I don't think the locking block can be assembled to the barrel extension (upper receiver or whatever) backwards and still go into the gun.

It is possible to assemble the gun without the locking block, but there's nothing holding the barrel extension forwards and it's flopping around loosly.

The little rocker at the front of the mainspring can be put in backwards. I've never done it but I'm told that if you put the gun together that way; (1), it won't fire and (2), you can't get it back apart again.

Great history write-up, I really like the old broomhandles. I'd like to find a commercial version to go along with my "red 9"...

They fun to shoot and it's quite an attention getter at the range.

cyrano- don't currently have one to show how to do it. i think i first learned about this in the book "system mauser" don't remember the author. if you can't find anything on it,lmk and i will dig mine out and find what page it is on. i think i know where that book is. an old gunsmith showed me how to do it back when i was in my teens,now in 60's so it has been a while.