Late 19th to mid 20th century production methods

[mrerick]

Gerben and Mauro's book on Mauser includes a number of photos of production including a very famous photo, reproduced in a number of places, of the batch final assembly of the C-96 pistol in the workshop at the top of the Schwedenbau in Oberndorf.

The high precision metal work involved with gun making was really one of the high water marks of the second industrial revolution that took place in the 1880's and into the early 20th century. Guns, sewing machines, motor vehicles, and other mechanical "wonders" required precision, new metal alloys and (in the case of firearms) some degree of hand fitting.

Some operations, like barrel straightening, were so precision and required such a skilled "touch" that they were always done by hand.

In addition to the "tooling" (both manual, pully belt system powered and later, electric powered), the "gauges" were equally important to production. These were precision test and measurement fixtures that were used to verify that the "finished" part was ready for the next process. Often, parts were reinspected by both factory and contract acceptance workers. You'll find production marks all over many firearms in unobtrusive places indicating who produced and inspected a given part. Contract acceptance is, of course, where the WaffenAmt stamps come from.

Gerben and Mauro also have examples of gauges and a complete set of government Waffenamt stamps is known.Those gauges could give us an idea of the precision required.

The Blueprints for Lugers show the rough precision that was needed for this product. But just like "spec" engines, high precision was always possible. I believe that in Lugers, this is shown by the work done by the Swiss in Bern. While the DWM and Mauser products were excellent, the Waffenfabrik Bern and SIG components that they used were like precision on steroids, particularly the M1929 design revision.

Ironically, the precision required to manufacture a Luger was part of it's undoing as a military contract firearm. This increased the unit cost, and even with labor and time saving changes like salt bluing (and any number of production step revisions) Mauser could not get the cost down below Fritz Walther's P.38.