Reddit reviews Mauser Military Rifles of the World

There are just too many individual variant Mausers to cover on a Reddit reply. Being the premier bolt action of the day, it's something like the C&R version of the AR platform. They were made in every shape, size, and caliber.

The short answer is that what most people think of Mausers can be described as the earlier M1893-style small rings and the later M1898-style large rings. (This is a radical over simplification and will turn the stomachs on most big milsurp collectors around here.)

Small Rings are good for slightly lower powered cartridges. They are generally lighter and more sleek looking. Most are stocked in straight wrists. They are also cock on close.

Large Rings are extremely rugged and can take very heavy ammo. They are slightly bulkier and usually look far less graceful. They cock on open. (There is an Intermediate Ring and a "What is with the Turks?" Ring, but they generally fall in the properties of the Large Ring category)


I recommend two books to get you started:

Mauser Military Rifles of the World. You can actually regularly find this at your local Barnes and Noble. This is the most complete Mauser book. It's like a shopping list.

Bolt Action Military Rifles of the World. This is an excellent beginning point for milsurps and the authors were very careful with their facts. Least number of ambiguous 'mistakes' of any collected book I've seen. It also has a two page layout on the evolution of the Mauser design that I find VERY helpful.

This book is an excellent resource if you are going down that road. There are over 50 countries listed in the TOC, god knows how many variants within that... Great book, can't recommend enough for Mauser reference.

> Which Mauser is best?

Long Mauser is best Mauser.

There's such a huge variety of Mauser models and calibers that you might want to buy one or two books on the subject.

Really though, if you want a Kar.98k that's what you should get; you won't really be happy otherwise. If you want a rifle that's visually identical to the Kar.98k without the price tag you might look at the Israeli-contract FN M1950 (many of which were converted to 7.62NATO), a Czech CZ-Brno Vz.98(N) (post-WW2 Czech copy of the 98k) or a Yugoslavian Mod.98/48 (German Kar.98k that were re-built and re-marked by Yugoslavia in the 1950s).

Buy a book before you buy the gun. https://www.amazon.com/Mauser-Military-Rifles-World-Robert/dp/1440215448

When you are going into printed literature, it is best to go for a specialized subject.

There are a lot of books that want to cover everything, but most of them are pretty bad.

One cover-everything book that I do like is How Weapons Work. But that it mostly because I grew up with this book, and it's probably part of what sparked my interest in firearms. Reading it now, it does cover most things, but it barely scratches the surface of each subject.

You need to know what you want to learn from the book.

If you want books for gun identification you have stuff like The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of XXXXX. These books are great as reference to a particular firearm, but doesn't offer much in terms of data or technical details.

If want to get more specific in a specific brand of firearm you have books like Mauser. Military Rifles of the World. Once you get into books about specific firearms the quality increases. You'll rarely go wrong with a book about a very specific subject.

ForgottenWeapons (which in itself is an extremely good reference for old and unusual stuff) has some book reviews every now and then.

If you want to get technical AGI has some nice video armorer's courses. I only have a couple of them, but I'm impressed with what I've seen.

https://smile.amazon.com/Mauser-Military-Rifles-World-Robert/dp/1440215448?sa-no-redirect=1

Ok then, military surplus rifles. That's a solid place to start. Here's a rundown:

I actually don't have a K31 book, but this one is written by Joe Poyer who is an author I trust. K31s are pretty straightforward for the most part, it's the earlier rifles that are a tad complicated to study.

There's so many damn Mausers that it's hard to recommend a book that covers enough of them. This one should be enough to get you started. This one just came back in print and is for the Swedish Mauser.

For Mosins, This one should provide enough knowledge, but there's actually a surprising amount of material online. Not many printed books on Mosins in English, sadly.

For Enfields, Ian Skennerton's book is the go-to.

And that should be enough to get you started. For any other guns, just type the gun name followed by "book" into Google and you should find what you need. And as always, the internet has plenty of it's own resources too.