World War II Database

Country of Origin	Germany
Type	Handgun
Caliber	7.630 mm
Capacity	10 rounds
Length	271.000 mm
Barrel Length	99.000 mm
Weight	1.130 kg
Muzzle Velocity	425 m/s

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe Mauser C96 semi-automatic pistols began production in 1896. They had very good range and stopping power when compared to their contemporaries, thus they were very popular from the start. The first customer of these pistols was Turkey, with the order being 1,000 units. Shortly after, they were made available commercially as well. In 1899, the Italian Navy placed an order for 5,000. By the 1930s, they were widely available; Mauser produced about 1 million of them between 1896 and 1937, while firms in Spain (designated Beistegui Hermanos and Astra M712 Schnellfeuer and Astra Model 900; both primarily produced for export to China) and China (designated Shansi Type 17, made the Taiyuan Arsenal in Shansi Province) made more without license. Beyond WW1, they were used during conflicts such as the Estonian War Of Independence, the Spanish Civil War, the Chinese Civil War, and the various wars that made up WW2. Despite the design's popularity, (Nationalist) China was the only country to have named the Mauser C96 pistols as the standard service pistols of the army and the police. After the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, the communist government confiscated many C96 pistols and destroyed most them, while allowing some to be sold overseas commercially. The ammunition feed systems differed across the many variants and license-built designs throughout the production life of the C96, ranging from as small as 6-round integral magazines to as large as 40-round detachable magazines.

Source: Wikipedia

ww2dbase

Last Major Revision: Sep 2009

Photographs

See all 10 photographs of Mauser C96 Handgun

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