Lets talk broomhandle

[Son of Liberty]

Any one own the broomhandle mauser? I'm thinking they are awesome. A bit of history..almost like a piece of antique furniture if you can find one with matching serial numbers..matching wood stock etc..

Regards,

Son of Liberty!

 

[Wakal]

I have a few of them...some in 30 Mauser and one in 9mm. Great fun to shoot, and an amazing design. The only bolt holds the grips on...everything else is a bizarre cam/spring/lever/magic fit.

Two...which I must state right up front...have horrible sewer-pipe bores and were rusted beyond belief...turned into these replicas of the most famous Broomhandles of the silver screen:

 

[Son of Liberty]

Sweet!

Wow that's sweet. Taking 19th century design into the 20th!

 

[Son of Liberty]

I mean 21st Century

Sorry...that was a fast 100 yrs. Incredible piece.!

 

[Wakal]

From the 19th century to a time long ago and a galaxy far, far away

Here is the other version I've built up on real Broomhandles:

Movie guns can be fun.



Alex

 

[Rival]

You can actually buy this movie prop replica for $449.00

My personal choice is 1911-A1. I believe they are absolutely awesome, have plenty of history, and are very functional guns in a common caliber

http://home.earthlink.net/~bogdan01/myguns.jpg

 

[Wakal]

Ah, the "Master Replicas" blaster. That was a limited edition built up on Denix (cast pot-metal) replica Broomhandles, now sold out. You can still find them on eBay.

I used to make resin replicas of my Broomhandle conversions...nice for wall hangers and a whole lot less than $449...

solid resin:

 

[Rival]

wow, how many you got there? Looks like you got a full garage of movie guns. Do you have an MG34 or MG42 replica by any chance?

 

[Wakal]

No, sorry, but I've built 'em. You can find dummy guns (real parts on a fake receiver) at IAR. Stormtroopers like Sterlings, MG34's, Lewis guns, MG15's...they have good taste.

Here are most of the major varient Solo blasters (big picture, so I'll link instead...this thread is getting cruel to the poor dialup folks):

http://www.dreadnaught-industries.com/metalp1.jpg

I've got some Sterlings out in the shop in various stages of rebuild (to dummy spec's, naturally). Should have those done soon.


Alex

 

[guy sajer]

I have a WWI Red Nine that was reissued as a Nazi police pistol . Police markings on the front grip strap .

 

[4v50 Gary]

I've only one, a slabside with all matching serial #. Don't have one of those fancy blaster versions though. How much for the resin one?

 

[Baba Louie]

Whenever I take my 96 to shoot with friends, I find it's the one 9mm they ALL want to shoot (go figure).

Love the prop guns.

I just want a stock holster some day (darn those federal regs) to see if I can actually hit a target at 900 yds. (LOL)

I wonder how much drop at 900 yds. for a 115/124 gr fmj? Never mind.

Adios

 

[BHP9]

The C96 Mauser Broomhandle is one of the most fantastic and historical pistols you can collect. In terms of workmanship and accuracy one in excellent condition will rate right up there with the German Luger.

Just be aware that parts for them are very difficult to find. Some parts are not available at all. You can still get firing pin repo parts and you can get coil springs from Wolf but to my knowledge the leaf springs found in them are about impossible to find.

Many Brooms shoot rather high at 25 and even 50 yards and I often wondered with the super workmanship they put into these guns why all of the examples I have fired shot so high until I discovered the secret of why this is so. I happened one day to be browsing thru the Broomhandle bible called "System Mauser" when I noticed in an actual factory picture an employee of Mauser sighting in one of these weapons. Do you know how he was doing this? He was sighting it in with the shoulder stock attached. Many, Many of these weapons were sold with the shoulder stock and when you attach it the trajectory changes. I put a shoulder stock on mine and guess what? It changed the point of impact from shooting very high to shooting dead on.

I once owned a Red Nine but found that the short cartridge did not feed very well though it with complete reliablity like my 7.62x25 guns. The red 9's were a conversion as the gun was originally designed to shoot the longer 7.62x25 round. There were a few made up in 9mm export caliber and their chambers were strengthened to take the pressure of this very powerful cartridge. So you see grandpa had his 9mm magnums years ahead of the 9x21 or the 9x23 or the 9mm Win. magnum.

Beware: Never fire tokeroff ammo out of these pistols. Some bands of Tokeroff ammo are so hot they will damage this very fine and rare pistol.

Did you know that the very , very early models actually had a detachable magazine. Everyone has wondered why they decided to market the Broom in a fixed magazine all those years instead of the excellent detachable mag version. The detachable mag version did not show up again until late in the production life of the gun which was in the 1930's.

Be careful if your hammer does not have an N/S stamped on it. Translated it means New Safety. The original hammer sear combination could fire when you pushed off on the safety with your finger off the trigger. Here is how this happens. If you are firing the gun and your hand brushes upwards and just nuges the safety upward slightly , not even enough maybe for you to notice what you did the gun will stop firing and be on a false safety. When you thumb off on the safety the gun will fire without touching the trigger.

When you dissassemble this weapon look out. Never attempt to take the rocker arm coupling out of the weapon unless you know what you are doing. It has a C shape and must point forward toward the muzzle of the gun. If you put in it backwards the gun will go back together and will not work and you will never get it back apart. A hole will have to be drilled into the side of the solid frame and the coupling lifted to get the gun back apart and then the frame will have to be welded back up again.

Also be careful when snapping the sub-assembley back into the gun. Keep your hands away from the lower part of the safety lever. The lower part of the safety lever is also a milled out spring and compressing it could snap it in two and this part is unavailable and when or if you could find one there were about 5 different variations of it and not all interchange.

Original Mausers in mint condition are becoming very scarce and very, very expensive but there are a lot of rebuilt guns out there varying in quality from excellent to not so good. So if you buy a rebuild look it over very carfully. The rebuild guns can be very, very accurate, just as super accurate as the originals.

Trigger pulls on good conditons guns break just like glass. No need for any trigger job on a quality super gun like this.

The fire blue on the small parts of the C96 are just absolutely breathtaking in original mint guns and older worn guns can have the fire blue put back on if you send it to an outfit that specializes in restoring these historic weapons.

Lyman still makes a cast bullet mold for this gun (7.62 caliber) and cast bullets shoot very accurately with bullseye powder in this caliber.

This gun was a great favorite with the Chinese war lords and was also a favorite with the Russians in its smaller Bolo version.

The C96 was the first really successfull self-loading auto pistol. There was a lot of experimentation going on during these years with autoloaders and all most all had breathtaking workmanship and quality parts but many of the early auto pisols were never perfected like the C96 was. As a consequence many fell by the wayside but the C96 was sold all over the world to many, many countries. There are so many variations that one could spend a lifetime trying to collect them all. You never know what you will run into when looking for these guns. A friend of mine while leaving an auction in Pennsylvania just happen to ask an old German farmer if he had any pistols for sale and he ended up buying an unfired C96 that was brand new and stored in an old sock. So you never now when and where you might find one of these treasures.

These guns had so much hand workmanship and machining in them you wonder how in the world even back then they could have made them with all that hand labor and machining and still made a profit from the sale of them. They will certainly never be made again and it is the experience of a lifetime to own and shoot one of these accurate, well made and historical weapons.

There is nothing just quite like them anywhere else in the world.

Good luck hunting up one of these treasures. Once you own a mint condtion gun you will probably want to be buried with it.

 

[guy sajer]

Very good post BHP9 !

I can't stress enough . 7.63 Mauser is not loaded to the pressure of the 7.62x25 Tokarev ammo being imported . It will function your Mauser and at the same time it's ripping the insides up .
Fiocchi still offers the correct 7.63 Mauser ammo . Yes , it costs more . But , not as much as the cost of removing the bolt assembly from your forehead after the locking lugs shear off the bolt .

My original Red Nine functions fine with 9mm ammo . I have used Geco and USA .

I would also recommend Wolff replacement recoil springs .

 

[Son of Liberty]

Premium for wood holster/stalk?

Can anyone estimate the premium one should pay for a matching serial number holster/stalk...To me you have to have one.

 

[telewinz]

I still have one that I wheeled and dealed with 20 years ago before all the imports came in. It was one of the premier pistols to own much more so than the Luger or P-38's. Often times the collector at the gunshow would not let you touch them, just look at and drool, they were just too expensive to let people handle! A "shooter" in fair condition would easily go for $750 (1980 dollars) and collectable ones went for $1500 to start and up! AS far as desirability they were on a par with the Luger artillery carbine and then some. Read an article about one .30 Mauser that had a documented 100,000 rds put through it with no measureable wear! Thats how well made they are which is why no one will ever remanufacture the C96 although some companies (NAVY ARMS ?) took some imports and turned them into carbines, I had one of those too. One myth, its not that accurate a shooter, the sights just were not designed for it plus it is very muzzle light. The shoulder stock helps some but not that much, who knows maybe in another 20 years they will regain desirability again.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Here's my Broomhandle, and the Astra 900 clone, which is close.

 

[BHP9]

Here's my Broomhandle, and the Astra 900 clone, which is close

To gunrunnerjohn: Holy Moses I have not seen a short barrel red 9 in a long time. Most of the red 9's I have seen had the full length barrel.

 

[Nightcrawler]

Heard a rumor that Norinco, continuing their current trend of making repros of new guns, will be producing a replica of the Broomhandle Mauser soon.

I certainly hope so. ESPECIALLY if they made a replica of the Chinese .45ACP broomhandles....*drool*

Now, which models were stripper-only fed and which models had detachable box mags? What were their respective capacities?

 

[Wakal]

The 1896 and 1930 have ten-round capacity, stripper clip fed.

The 710 and 712 have a detachable magazines, made in both 10 and 20 round varients. The 712 also as the full-auto selector switch on the left side...mmm....braaaaaap... You can also load the 70x series with the regular 10-round stripper clips.

My 710 is chambered in 9mm, which makes for a much more affordable shooting experience



Alex

 

[Strings]

all I've got (so far)

Of the Broomies I want is my .30 Bolo. Paid something like $300 for it several years ago, and had it refinished. Still plan on getting a 9 Bolo, and both calibers Std Com.

Side note: there's a company in Florida (they refinished mine) that does AWESOME work: look for "the Broom Closet" (I THINK the shop's actual name is the Gun Rack). They also offer (on strictly shooters) the "Star Wars" conversion. imagine, fer just a sec: you enter a lane at the local range with an aluminum case, opening it to reveal what most people think of as a raygun. Load it with tracers, just to add to the fun...

 

[wine9er]

Broomhandles--Weird!!

Com'on! These things are a joke, right? For some time I've suspected they were part of some kind of Area 51 conspiracy. This is the first firearms site that had posts admitting they were the product of creative Hollywood types. Too complex actions and baroque holsters--really! One of the great TFL spoofs of all time!

 

[BHP9]

Heard a rumor that Norinco, continuing their current trend of making repros of new guns, will be producing a replica of the Broomhandle Mauser soon.

I was at an auction in October and I saw a brand new Chinese Broomhandle in 9mm. I cannot recall if norico made it. It looked like the old Mauser Broomhandle Slabe side model with no milled panels in the side of the frame. Workmanship was not bad but there was no fire blue on the small parts.

It was made in the detachable clip version.

 

[Hand_Rifle_Guy]

I have the Broomhandle of Broomhandles:

The Shansei Arsenal .45 ACP "Boxed Cannon", #19xx of about 8500 total produced.

It's uhh...new. So new the action's a little gritty, and the scuffmarks on the breechbolt aren'y really worn in yet. More use is really starting to get it to run well, finally.

This is not your typical, hand-filed chinese make-'em-outta-horseshoes gun. It is a tightly fitted, crisp-cornered well machined piece of artistic steel.

It's a bit reliability-challenged right now, as it's only digested three boxes of ammo, ever. Accuracy is a bit tricky, as the sights really stink. But they are regulated out to 1200 yds. Cranking the sight all the way up points the barrel up at something like twenty degrees.

It's a mushbucket to shoot, but the hammer will give you a smart rap if you let your hand ride up the grip.

This gun is HUGE. The barrel is six inches long, and the magazine floorplate is an inch across. Where the barrel meets the frame is a good 1 3/8 inches wide. It's heavy, too.

But most of all, it is the most interesting looking gun I've got. Getting it out has been known to stop conversations. It has a very commanding presence. People look at it and ask, "What is THAT?"

I love it. Everybody oughta own one. But I say that about most guns.

 

[SodaPop]

Well I've had the same signature for almost two years now. I guess I should finally get a blaster.