Hugh,
The loaded Mauser cartridge was a Hansen. The brass fired in my C96 was from the same box. When I get home tonight I'll check this out with a few other brands.
Off hand, your Mauser brass sounds wrong. If the shoulder has that small a diameter you must have a tapered case. The 30 Mauser (or Borcardt) is supposed to be a straight case. It's actually not perfectly straight but the taper is much less than on a 7.65 mm or 9 mm Parabellum. The Borchardt and C96 have vertical stacker magazines so the cartridge was designed with very nearly straight sides. The trick magazine in the Luger allows the use of tapered cartridges for easier extraction. Tapered cartridges are normally associated with bannana magazines or double stackers that are narrower in the front. Not that there aren't exceptions, but that was the original intention.
But you are right, there are a lot of different versions, variations, and stories floating around. Witness the debate over whether the 6.63 Mauser and 7.62 Tokarev are or are not identical. Are any observed differences intentional or just manufacturing tolerances?
I have a rifle chambered for 400-360. Everything you can find for diminsions on this cartridge in the Handbook of Cartridge Conversions is absolutely dead wrong. Turns out there are five different non-interchangable 400-360's. The book mixes the rim thickness from one, the base diameter from another, the bullet diameter from a third, etc.
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