8.15mm C96 Mauser cartridge???

[George Anderson]

Originally Posted by postino

Here's a partial quote from the thread I linked in the first post -

Following World War I, the â??Treaty of Versaillesâ?? placed various restrictions on the German arms industry regarding the manufacture of armaments including pistols (quantity, barrel length, caliber, etc)...After all of the above is considered, it is clear ...that the first testing of the C96 8.15mm pistol began after the end of World War I. This was an attempt to comply with the particular Treaty restriction that forbade the German arms industry from manufacturing pistols in any caliber that had been used during the War.

If this were the case, "...forbade the German arms industry from manufacturing pistols in any calibre that had been used during the war." there would have been a restriction on the manufacture of 7.65 (.32 auto) pistols which were the second most widely used military pistols by the military after the Parabellum. The Versailles restrictions are widely misunderstood and misinterpreted by modern day collectors.

Specifically the restrictions forbade the manufacture for export of military calibre weapons 7.92 mm and 9 mm Parabellum. This was most likely an effort to hinder the German arms industry's rebirth in the very competitive export arms business.

The treaty makes no mention of barrel length restrictions and permits production of military calibre small arms adequate to fullfil the needs of an army of 100,000.