Bought two pistols
 

Acquired two C&R pistols recently.

I am a Luger lover, but it's simply impossible to build up a Luger collection without doubling or tripling the hobby budget,,, that I cannot afford. Fortunately, Interarms contracted Mauser made a postwar reproduction, it's counted as C&R by ATF, and I am a Mauser fan anyway,,, buying a postwar Mauser belongs to "one stone hit two birds" kind of behavior... so this one came.

Mauser did excellent on this. I test fired 20 rounds from it, it worked perfectly and it's very accurate.

Another one is my regular. A Large Ring Hammer C96. Got its stock. It's one of the relatively rare ones. Also test fired 20 rounds from it, and it worked perfectly.

Nice looking C96. One of these day's I'll add a bolo to my collection! Congrats on the new acquisitions!

While I looked at this Parabellum, I was thinking, why didn't Mauser reproduce some C96s. C96 production cost was similar to that of Luger. If they could reproduce Luger and sell at reasonable price, they should be able to make C96 too. Probably the market is too small for them to do that... people on internet expect Norinco could do that. Norinco definitely can make that... most likely won't be in German quality, but should be better than American small business refurbished/reworked C96.., no problem at all, not hard for for them, and probably cheaper.

I don't know if it's the camera angle, but the Interarms Luger barrel looks...short...Is it 7.65??? :confused:

I compared, it's the same barrel length as DWM 1923. Caliber is 9mm.

I'd buy a newly made C96 in a heartbeat! I love when old guns get reproduced, makes me feel less guilty when an old one breaks or wears out. (Of course it might take me a long time to save up for such a pistol!)

Some C96s are simply stone mint. I saw recent edition of Blue Book presenting a mint Bolo, for example. But there are other stone mint ones. Those should NOT be fired. Keep it in that shape. If it's not stone mint, say, it's a 97% or 98% very high condition gun, firing 10 or 20 rounds won't wear it down to a different gun. And, it confirms an important thing -- it works. That's important. Not firing a high condition gun is a "business decision", but it better works. Really cannot tell without test firing. When a nice gun works, I love it.

I test fired a few dozens of C96s, most were nice ones. Almost all of them works fine without any problem. But I don't fire Tokarev ammo, no need to test those on nice C96s.

Alvin

First of all congratulations on your two new acquisitions, I share your views, it's allright to test them once just for the sake of saying that they work, but then I put them in the safe and would leave them there as "safe queens".

Sergio

Thanks for the understanding!!

That's right. Back some years ago, people met various kinds of problems on shooter C96s. Wondered what's going on. I suspected at that time the major issue being those guns being too poor to shoot. So, I decided to try some relatively nicer samples in range. After these years, I can positively say that almost all (not exactly all - a couple of exceptions exist) nicer ones work perfectly without any issue. Being functional as its appearance suggests, that's important to me.

The Chinese did make some new 9mm & .45 brooms some 30 years ago, but they did not hold up to regular firing and parts were not interchangable with the Mauser C96. TH

How exciting, Alvin!

Thanks for sharing and shooting !

Congrats on getting your new "toys". Glad to hear that your Mauser Parabellem is 100% reliable. When that happens to me, it always makes me happy about the purchase!! Enjoy!!

I enjoy mine much more since Hugh reformed the grips to feel normal.

Reading the parabellum back book these days. The book was bought a couple of years ago, but did not read the postwar chapter until now. A lot of information. Some fun.

Since I had both Swiss style and German style postwar Mauser working so well, I am seriously thinking to buy one more German style Interarms in future. I mean, unfired and with everything in great shape. And keep it in that state forever to love, and pass to next generation.

Chinese had tons of vintage Schnellfeuers that they wanted to dump in 1980s, but US wholesalers could not import them. So some guns were converted to semi-auto, rebored to 9mm, with some new parts installed to replace broken parts, etc (unfortunately, used soft steel) -- "714", it's interesting to look at, but the quality is low. .45 was created for US market. Low quality too.

But, if they could start from scratch, make brand new C96s as a gun like they making those SIG 226 copy, AR15 copy, 1911 copy, Tokarev copy, SKS copy, etc, then, should work. Won't be as well finished as German guns, but should be functional, no problem.

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Great thing about Interarms Mauser was this -- it was made as a gun, not a collectible (although they also made a few commemorative ones). One thing that I am not comfortable at postwar Krieghoff being this -- a new plain pistol with price tag over $10K !! That's not a pistol. Mauser had cost/price pressure, so they had to update the way to make Parabellum. Old gun being made in newer ways, that's fancy. Gun collectors collect guns.

Sorry, I have to take it back.

Both the frame and the barrel are slightly longer than DWM 1923.

Mauser's Barrel is 4". DWM 1923 is slightly shorter.

Why frame being longer,,,, I have not looked up the reference yet. Probably due to this frame was based on Swiss, and Swiss was based on early DWM. DWM made changes later, but Swiss did not follow.