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mauro · 01-02-2008, 08:23 AM

Hello Friends,
Let me provide some more evidences to corroborate my previous statement.

Around one and half years ago I was so lucky to buy several internal Mauser documents related to the â??newâ? Mauser Parabellum, among them also pictures of the Mauser tooling, Jigs and some Blue prints dated 1969.
In this set of documents I bought, one is the original draft copy of the â??Parabellum Historyâ? written by Jan Stevenson in cooperation with Mauser. Jan Stevenson spent a couple of months in Mauser, writing this booklet in close collaboration with Mauser engineers in German Language. When finished, this draft copy in German language was double-checked by the Mauser engineers and management and then translated into English.
My original draft-copy still has the correction made by Mauser in some chapters. In any case, the Mauser engineers and Mr. Stevenson spent several pages to describe the problems with the Bern tools and the related decision to stop trying using the Bern tools and start the production of the tools from scratch.
Hereafter only a few statements that can help to understand the technical issue s with the Bern tooling.

â??Mauserâ??s engineering and production facilities are set up in accordance with German Industry Standards (DIN). For Mauser engineers, the Swiss blue prints seemed all backwards. Where the Swiss read a plus-only tolerance the Germans read a minus â??only and so forth. The blue prints would have head to be redone for this reason aloneâ?.

I have in my collection some blue prints dated 1969 and they are visible in my web site as well.

Another interesting statement:

â??A more serious problem was the jigs worksheet, etc. were geared to the 1930â??s production methods â?¦ For instance profilers, reading off a control die, were not used in Switzerland nor in Germany either until the P38 went into production at Mauser during the WWII. With the P08 the work always moved around a static tool, rather than the toolâ??s moving around the work.â? Then there is a detailed description about why the jigs and the tooling do not work anymore with the new Mauser standards.

This was a real disaster and it introduces a big delay in the Mauser schedule. It is so funny the way Mauser solved the problem related to the presentation of the news Parabellum to the 1969 NSGA and NRA. They simply reused the original 1929 Swiss model, bought from Bern, modified to be similar to the final Mauser Parabellum configuration.

I have in my collection the prototype #19 (10.001019 to follow the Mauser numbering), the lower Mauser Parabellum today reported made in October/November 1970 and the configuration is still quite far to the final one available in December. This to highlight that, Mauser was still finalizing the configuration of the gun few weeks before the contractual deadline with Interarms (December 1970).

This is only an appetizer of all the issues describing the adventure of Mauser in the production of the new Parabellum.

The final price was not so high, if you take into consideration all the money spent to solve all the problems and delay.

I hope this helps the discussion but for sure I can provide more detailed explanation if necessary.

Gerben, I will be more than happy to show to you all this material during our next meeting.

Have fun.

Mauro

01-02-2008, 08:23 AM	#11
mauro FIREARM HISTORIAN AND AUT Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Belgium Posts: 1,535 Thanks: 106 Thanked 350 Times in 129 Posts	Hello Friends, Let me provide some more evidences to corroborate my previous statement. Around one and half years ago I was so lucky to buy several internal Mauser documents related to the â??newâ? Mauser Parabellum, among them also pictures of the Mauser tooling, Jigs and some Blue prints dated 1969. In this set of documents I bought, one is the original draft copy of the â??Parabellum Historyâ? written by Jan Stevenson in cooperation with Mauser. Jan Stevenson spent a couple of months in Mauser, writing this booklet in close collaboration with Mauser engineers in German Language. When finished, this draft copy in German language was double-checked by the Mauser engineers and management and then translated into English. My original draft-copy still has the correction made by Mauser in some chapters. In any case, the Mauser engineers and Mr. Stevenson spent several pages to describe the problems with the Bern tools and the related decision to stop trying using the Bern tools and start the production of the tools from scratch. Hereafter only a few statements that can help to understand the technical issue s with the Bern tooling. â??Mauserâ??s engineering and production facilities are set up in accordance with German Industry Standards (DIN). For Mauser engineers, the Swiss blue prints seemed all backwards. Where the Swiss read a plus-only tolerance the Germans read a minus â??only and so forth. The blue prints would have head to be redone for this reason aloneâ?. I have in my collection some blue prints dated 1969 and they are visible in my web site as well. Another interesting statement: â??A more serious problem was the jigs worksheet, etc. were geared to the 1930â??s production methods â?¦ For instance profilers, reading off a control die, were not used in Switzerland nor in Germany either until the P38 went into production at Mauser during the WWII. With the P08 the work always moved around a static tool, rather than the toolâ??s moving around the work.â? Then there is a detailed description about why the jigs and the tooling do not work anymore with the new Mauser standards. This was a real disaster and it introduces a big delay in the Mauser schedule. It is so funny the way Mauser solved the problem related to the presentation of the news Parabellum to the 1969 NSGA and NRA. They simply reused the original 1929 Swiss model, bought from Bern, modified to be similar to the final Mauser Parabellum configuration. I have in my collection the prototype #19 (10.001019 to follow the Mauser numbering), the lower Mauser Parabellum today reported made in October/November 1970 and the configuration is still quite far to the final one available in December. This to highlight that, Mauser was still finalizing the configuration of the gun few weeks before the contractual deadline with Interarms (December 1970). This is only an appetizer of all the issues describing the adventure of Mauser in the production of the new Parabellum. The final price was not so high, if you take into consideration all the money spent to solve all the problems and delay. I hope this helps the discussion but for sure I can provide more detailed explanation if necessary. Gerben, I will be more than happy to show to you all this material during our next meeting. Have fun. Mauro __________________ Mauro Baudino - www.lugerlp08.com www.paul-mauser-archive.com Mauser Company and Firearm Historian - Mauser Parabellum Certification Service.