Large caliber military Mauser?

[Jubjub]

I seem to recall reading about a military bolt action rifle that was chambered for a cartridge substantially larger than the normal 6.5mm to 8mm range. If I'm remembering this correctly, there was a heavy machine gun chambered for this cartridge, something like a 9.3mm, and the rifle was made so that the machine gun crews would have a personal weapon firing the same ammunition. Maybe one of the Scandinavian countries?

Does this ring a bell with anyone?

 

[Pappy John]

Chinese, or was that Siamese, Mausers in .45-70? Or was that a pipe dream I once had?

 

[schromf]

Are you thinking about the 11 x 59 Vickers? Fired in the Vickers machine gun, very similar to the French Gras cartridge, although I think it was unsafe to fire in the Vickers in a Graf rifle.

I checked cartridges of the world and there aren't any suitable cartridges above 8mm for machine guns, they all have rims.

Do you have any idea of the year of use? It would help ferreting it out a little. Most of the rimmed cartridge machine guns disappeared after WWII. And there were only a few that held on to the rimmed designs after WWI, IE: the British with the .303

 

[jefnvk]

There is a 9.3x62 and a 9.3x74R, either of those the one you are thinking about? Can't help you with the history, though.

 

[McCall911]

Maybe it was an 11mm military Mauser like this:

http://www.gibbsrifle.com/military.html

 

[0007]

13mm Mauser anti-tank rifle WWI. Roughly a .50cal Browning in a scaled up Mauser action.

 

[Jubjub]

I'm thinking that it was a WW1 era, or maybe even between the wars. Definitely not a black powder era gun. It was a very limited production rifle issued by one of the smaller European nations. I'm sure it was referenced in some book that I was leafing through in a store, and I don't remember much about it other than the comments about it being notably big and heavy, and heavy recoiling, chambered for a larger than 8mm cartridge, something like 9mm or 9.3, and that it was issued exclusively to machine gun troops. Latvia? Not an antitank rifle, this was a regular box magazine infantry rifle.

 

[Jubjub]

There just don't seem to be any military high velocity cartridges between 8mm and .50 caliber. I'm stumped.

 

[Dave Markowitz]

Jubjub,

You are thinking of the 8x63mm Swedish Mauser.

Between the two World Wars, Sweden adopted a Browning MG in this caliber. I guess they wanted something with a bit more poop than their standard 6.5x55mm rifle round. To arm other members of the MG crews they adopted what was basically a Kar 98k chambered for the same round. The rifle had a big muzzle brake on it to tame the substantial recoil. Not many of these rifles were made and I've never seen one except in Small Arms of the World.

 

[Jubjub]

Thanks, Dave. I guess everything gets bigger when you only vaguely remember it.