(Paul Mauser left, Wilhelm Mauser right)
Wilhelm Mauser (born 1834) and Paul Mauser (born 1838) were two of thirteen children born to Franz and Agathe Mauser. The two brothers joined their two other brothers and father working in the Royal Wurttemberg Rifle Factory. Early on Paul showed aptitude for designing firearms. The family would work at the factory from 5:00AM until late in the evening (7:00-10:00PM). Afterwards Paul would find some time to work on his firearm ideas. One idea that started to take shape was the design of a bolt action. In 1869 the brothers travelled to Prussia to demonstrate their new bolt action rifle. The Prussians were impressed. Unfortunately they also designated the design as a “state secret” which prevented the brothers from finding business elsewhere. To add insult to injury, Prussia only paid the brothers 8,000 Talers. In contrast the middleman who introduced the Mausers to Prussia received 40,000 Talers!
When the Mausers returned home they decided not to return to the Royal Rifle Factory. Instead they decided to make a go of it and established Waffenfabrik Mauser in their home of Oberndorf. At their newly established company the Mausers worked on both rifles and pistols. Since Mauser rifles are widely known, for the rest of this article I will primarily focus on the lesser known Mauser pistols. Please also note that I will not cover all of the Mauser pistol designs – just the main ones.
保羅.毛瑟（Peter Paul Mauser 1838-1914），德國著名槍支發明家，他是世界第一支發射金屬彈殼的直動式軍用步槍的發明者。1893年，他開始組織手槍的研製，在他以前手槍還是單發長管式，1894年制出了樣槍，1895年成功進行了試驗。該槍採用短槍管、後退式原理，口徑為7.63毫米的半自動手槍，並定名為“M1896式7.63毫米手槍”，後成為各國紛紛仿製的著名軍用手槍。
Paul Mauser, (June 27, 1838 – May 29, 1914) was a German weapon designer and manufacturer/industrialist.
Mauser was born in Oberndorf am Neckar, in what was then the Kingdom of Württemberg. His father and his four older brothers were gunsmiths.
Together with his brother Wilhelm Mauser, Paul Mauser designed the Mauser Model 1871 rifle, the first of a successful line of Mauser rifles and pistols. The rifle was adopted as the Gewehr 71 or Infanterie-Gewehr 71 and was the first metal cartridge weapon of the German Empire. While Wilhelm handled this business side of the factory, Paul proved to be the more technically capable engineer.[]
The Broomhandle Mauser
Generally considered the second oldest successful semi auto pistol it came out in 1896. The Borchardt that came out in 1893 was the first successful auto loader though it didn’t stick around very long and was the forunner of the Luger. The Borchardt pistol came out with a 30 caliber bottle neck cartridge which was also adopted by the Mauser C 96 pistol in essentially the same loading though the C 96 was loaded a little hotter by some accounts. While the Broomhandle wasn’t designed by Paul Mauser three brothers who worked at his factory developed the design over a period of a couple of years starting in 1893. By March of 1895 they had a prototype made and fired it. The brothers Fidel, Friedrich and Josef Feederle had designed the Mauser pistol and by 1896 Paul Mauser applied for patients in several countries as he felt the he had a commercial winner.
