Peter Paul von Mauser (born Peter Paul Mauser) (27 June 1838 – 29 May 1914) was a German weapon designer, manufacturer,

industrialist A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through per ...

and politician.

Early life

Mauser was born in

Oberndorf am Neckar Oberndorf am Neckar (; Swabian: ''Oberndorf am Näggô'') is a town in the district of Rottweil, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the river Neckar, north of Rottweil. It historically was and currently is a major center of ...

, in what was then the

Kingdom of Württemberg The Kingdom of Württemberg (german: Königreich Württemberg ) was a German state that existed from 1805 to 1918, located within the area that is now Baden-Württemberg. The kingdom was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which existe ...

. His father was originally a shoemaker and then made leather scabbards for the Royal Rifle Factory in Oberndorf.

Career

Paul Mauser and his brother Wilhelm, who had become

gunsmiths A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very h ...

, first lived in modest conditions. Paul Mauser developed various firearms with his brother, and later he founded the company ''Gebr Mauser'' with him, which finally took over from the royal manufacture. Together with his brother Wilhelm Mauser, Peter Paul Mauser designed the

Mauser Model 1871 The Mauser Model 1871 adopted as the ''Gewehr'' 71 or ''Infanterie-Gewehr'' 71, or "Infantry Rifle 71" ("I.G.Mod.71" was stamped on the rifles themselves) was the first rifle model in a distinguished line designed and manufactured by Paul Mauser ...

rifle, the first of a successful line of

Mauser Mauser, originally Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik ("Royal Württemberg Rifle Factory"), was a German arms manufacturer. Their line of bolt-action rifles and semi-automatic pistols has been produced since the 1870s for the German arm ...

rifles and pistols. The rifle was adopted as the Gewehr 71 or Infanterie-Gewehr 71 and was the first metal cartridge weapon of the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

. While Wilhelm handled the business side of the factory, Paul proved to be the more technically capable engineer. Peter Paul von Mauser made significant contributions to

bolt action rifle Bolt-action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by ''directly'' manipulating the bolt via a bolt handle, which is most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the weapon (as most users are right-handed). Most bolt-action ...

design and successfully combined and improved various bolt action engineering concepts. The

company bolt action development resulted in the Gewehr 98 and

Karabiner 98k The Karabiner 98 kurz (; " carbine 98 short"), often abbreviated Karabiner 98k, Kar98k or K98k and also sometimes incorrectly referred to as a K98 (a K98 is a Polish carbine and copy of the Kar98a), is a bolt-action rifle chambered for the 7.92× ...

rifle series that were the latest in a line of Mauser bolt-action rifles that started with the

Mauser Model 1889 The Mauser Model 1889 is a bolt-action rifle of Belgian origin. It became known as the 1889 Belgian Mauser, 1891 Argentine Mauser, and 1890 Turkish Mauser. History After the Mauser brothers finished work on the Model 71/84 in 1880, the design t ...

and were adapted in 1889 and the 1890s as service rifles by several countries. The bolt-action design used for the Gewehr 98 was patented by Paul Mauser on 9 September 1895. Besides rifles, Paul Mauser also developed handguns, with the first Mauser designed handgun being the Mauser C78

revolver A revolver (also called a wheel gun) is a repeating firearm, repeating handgun that has at least one gun barrel, barrel and uses a revolving cylinder (firearms), cylinder containing multiple chamber (firearms), chambers (each holding a single ...

. In 1896, Paul Mauser would develop the C96 pistol, which was one of the first semi-automatic pistols in history. Initially, Mauser's designs were more successful abroad than in Prussia, but the Prussian Rifle Review Board in Spandau opted for the domestically developed 1888 rifle. Mauser designed an improved model of this rifle for the Imperial Order . The name of Mauser is inseparable from the construction of the 1893 infantry rifle for Spain, 1894 carbine and 1896 infantry rifle for Sweden, with model rifles for Peru, Belgium, Argentina, the Brazil (1894), Chile (1895), then Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Mexico (1902), and Turkey. Deliveries to these countries make the Mauser name a world-renowned guarantee of quality for precise weapons. The construction of the Gewehr 98 rifle was personally praised by Kaiser Wilhelm II on April 5, 1898. Mauser lost his left eye in 1901 as a result of a cartridge explosion during a test firing of the self-loading C98. Mauser also designed the 7.65×53mm Mauser (1889) and

7×57mm Mauser The 7×57mm Mauser (designated as the 7 mm Mauser or 7×57mm by the SAAMI and 7 × 57 by the C.I.P.) is a first-generation smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was developed by Paul Mauser of the Mauser company in ...

(1892) rifle cartridges. These cartridges were high-performance service cartridge designs compared to other contemporary

smokeless powder Finnish smokeless powderSmokeless powder is a type of propellant used in firearms and artillery that produces less smoke and less fouling when fired compared to gunpowder ("black powder"). The combustion products are mainly gaseous, compared t ...

service cartridges such as the 8mm Lebel (1886), 8×50mmR Mannlicher (1890) and

.303 British The .303 British (designated as the 303 British by the C.I.P. and SAAMI) or 7.7×56mmR, is a calibre rimmed rifle cartridge. The .303 inch bore diameter is measured between rifling lands as is the common practice in Europe which follows th ...

(1891).

Entry into politics

Mauser was a member of the

German Reichstag The Reichstag (, ; officially: – ; en, Parliament) is a historic government building in Berlin which houses the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's parliament. It was constructed to house the Imperial Diet (german: Reichstag) of th ...

for the National Liberal Party from 1898 to 1903, a party that appeared in the Kingdom of Württemberg as a German party. In the Reichstag, he represents the 8th district of Württemberg (Freudenstadt, Horb, Oberndorf, and Sulz). He was nominated as a candidate thanks to an alliance of the Conservatives, the Farmers' Federation, and the National Liberals and after his election to the Reichstag he joined the Group of National Liberals as a guest.Carl-Wilhelm Reibel: Handbuch der Reichstagswahlen 1890–1918. Bündnisse, Ergebnisse, Kandidaten. (= Handbücher zur Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien, Band 15.) Halbband 2, Droste, Düsseldorf 2007, (), S. 1228–1232.

Death

Peter Paul von Mauser died on 29 May 1914.

Awards

* from the Association of German Engineers (1912)

Designs

Rifles

* Mauser Model 1893 * Swedish Mauser * Gewehr 98

Handguns

Mauser C78 "Zig-Zag" The Mauser C78 - also known as M78 Oberndorf - is a single-action revolver manufactured by the Mauser company in Oberndorf am Neckar during the late 19th century. It was the first German revolver to be mass-produced for modern center-fire cartridg ...

(1878) *

Mauser C96 The Mauser C96 (''Construktion 96'') is a semi-automatic pistol that was originally produced by German arms manufacturer Mauser from 1896 to 1937. Unlicensed copies of the gun were also manufactured in Spain and China in the first half of the 2 ...

(1896)

Cartridges

* 7.65×53mm Mauser (1889) *

(1892)

Literature

* Paul Gehring (1941), Wilhelm (1834–1882) und Paul Mauser (1838–1914): Erfinder und Fabrikanten von Gewehren und sonstigen Handfeuerwaffen. In: Hermann Haering und Otto Hohenstatt (Hrsg.), ''Schwäbische Lebensbilder'', Bd. 2. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, P. 314–339. * Wolfgang Seel: Mauser, Paul von. In: ''Neue Deutsche Biographie'' (NDB). Band 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, , P. 448 f.

References

External links

Paul-mauser-archive.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mauser, Paul 1838 births 1914 deaths People from Oberndorf am Neckar People from the Kingdom of Württemberg German Roman Catholics National Liberal Party (Germany) politicians Members of the 10th Reichstag of the German Empire Firearm designers Ballistics experts 19th-century German inventors 19th-century German businesspeople 20th-century German businesspeople