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Rebirth of the Mauser Parabellum

25K views 39 replies 11 participants last post by  Jeffsjca 
#1 · (Edited)
Welcome,

This forum part, titled "Mauser Pistols and Holsters, 1969-1999' is dedicated to the efforts of Interarms and Mauser that led to the reintroduction of the luger pistol on the world market.

Why did Mauser decide to reintroduce to the world a gun that was, on a technical and commercial level, seriously outdated and expensive? There is no simple anwser to the question. The most important reason was timing. Facing a large surplus gun import market, several large US gun manufacturers feared that their market was under threat and extensive lobbying by US gun makers representatives led to a change in gun importing laws, the 1968 gun control act. This law made it almost impossible to keep importing cheap surplus military firearms, the core business of companies like Interarms, founded by the late Sam Cummings in the 1950s.

Cummings brought the guns to the masses at prices they could afford. Many a relic luger found in American homes today did not find it's way there as a wartime souvenir. Most of them were imported by Cummings and sold through chain stores and mail order companies. In the 1960s, the European sources were drying out. Most countries had already cleared their warehouses and sold German military surplus guns by the thousands to companies like Interarms. The end of that source of supply, combined with massive amounts of guns in storage in Interarms arsenals in Manchester, UK and Alexandria, Virginia and the 1968 gun control act meant that Interarms sought ways to reinvent itself.

Since there were no import restrictions on newly made guns, Cummings contacted the two companies capable of recreating the luger pistol, Mauser and Waffenfabrik Bern in Switzerland. Cummings also contacted Walther.

The result was an interesting one. Mauser agreed to tool up for production of the luger pistol and the HsC, Walther agreed to deliver the famous PP and PPK pistols once again.

So in 1972, the Mauser Parabellum was back! It managed to survive, albeit with quite a struggle, and in the end it even proved to be profitable for Mauser. Production of the Mauser Parabellum was finally terminated in 1999, following a series of takeovers and mergers. Mauser in Oberndorf am Neckar was split up. The tooling business survived to this day and merged in 2007. The weapons department is also still very much alive, specialised in large caliber and aircraft guns, as part of the Rheinmetall group.
 

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#2 ·
Congratulations on this new discussion board!
According to Mauser factory records, a total of 63,118 HSc pistols were produced from October 1968 to December 1977, This included 18,868 in 7.65mm (.32 ACP) using the new serial number range 00.1001 to 00.19868; 39,250 in 9mm Kurz (.380 ACP) in the range 01.1001 to 01.40250; with a final limited edition of 5,000 American Eagle HSc pistols in both calibers.
I've heard said that many of the components for these postwar HSc pistols were actually contracted to other arms factories, such as Manurhin in France, then shipped to Mauser for assembly and distribution.
Is there any validity to this?
 
#3 ·
Your information is correct, for the HSc at least. Manurhin had provided the same service to Walther, when they were not allowed to resume production themselves.

But the Quandt Group strived to make the Mauser effort a group effort and they tried to use companies from within the group as suppliers as much as possible. Parabellum barrel steel was made at NWM in the Netherlands, Magazine parts at Metaalwarenfabriek Tilburg, certain small parts at IWK in Karlsruhe (former DWM!), etc...
 
#5 ·
Tom,

Yes, Günther Quandt (1881-1954) was elected president of the DWM board of directors on a Saturday in July 1928. He took soon full control over the DWM conglomerate; one of his decisions was to concentrate small arms production at the Mauser Werke in Oberndorf. The full production unit was move during the months of March and April 1930.
Günther Quandt lost his first wife due to the influenza epidemic in 1918. He remarried Magda Friedländer; a 20 years younger daughter of a restaurant owner; they had one son; Herbert. Magda divorced Gunther to marry Joseph Goebbels in 1931. They got five children; Magda took their lives during the last days in the Führer Bunker May 1945. Quandt's son Herbert was mostly raised by the Goebbels; later he would get involved with the BMW Automobile Company.
His father Günther remained in charge of the BKIW / DWM concern from 1928 to 1954.
 
#6 ·
The Quandt operations and family information is quite interesting!
Vlim, you indicated that HSc components were produced at Manurhin, but why wouldn't these components bear similar St. Etienne proofmarks as found on Walther PPKs from Manurhin in France?
 
#7 · (Edited)
Hi,

Manurhin strictly produced the rough parts, so no proofing was needed. Proofing was done after assembly in Oberndorf (well, Schramberg-Sulgen and Ulm, actually).

The Manurhin Walthers were completely made and testfired in France, so they were also proofed there.

About the Quandt/Goebbels link:
Magda Quandt indeed divorced Gunther Quandt and married Joseph Goebbels later. The marriage ceremony was actually performed on a Quandt-owned estate. Harald Quandt, the son of Gunther and stepson of Goebbels appeared in a lot of early Nazi-related film footage. He's usually the small boy presenting flowers to the Fuhrer in films made in the early 1930s.

Harald fought in WW2, mainly in and around Greece, was wounded and captured by the British and spent most of the war in a POW-camp in Africa. After his return and the death of Gunther (his father) in the 1950s, he gained control of the arms branch, including IWK (former DWM) and Mauser. Harald died in a plane crash (he was the pilot) in the late 1960s.
 
#9 ·
Hi Lewis,

No, it wasn't. Interarms was changing from suprlus military firearms to newly created firearms in order to comply with the 1968 changes in gun laws and to counter the fact that surplus sources were drying up in Europe.

Mauser did do a commemorative navy version in the 1980s, though.
 
#12 ·
I never realized that the Mauser Parabellums were made up to 1999. Amazing.
My impression of the 70's Mauser/Interarms lugers is that they were very good looking and pretty well made. The biggest flaw was the grip safety design, this changed the grip contour, fat edges and no palm swell, not a good feel in the hand compared to an actual P08.
I still have a 9mm NIB Mauser/Interarms Parabellum, 4" barrel, 73 Ulm and E/n proofed. High polish black finish looks great but also highlights some waves in the machining of the diagonal cut on the left side of the receiver. Still, a great looking piece overall.
Any other information, experiences with these guns?

Hal
 
#14 ·
Vlim,

Not sure what AE is. Markings are Interarms w/starburst logo on right side of receiver; E/n on barrel, frame, recever, and rear toggle link; 'made in Germany' on back of frame; Mauser-Werke on front grip strap; and 73 Ulm antler next to the E/n on the left side of frame in front of the side plate.
Come to think of it, was AE the in-house proof Mauser used for guns exported to the USA? There are no proof laws in America so they could skip that step for USA guns.

Hal

Hal
 
#17 ·
Hal,

The presence of German commercial proof marks is what makes your gun a bit of a rarity.

This can mean one of two things, the first scenario:
A small number of Germany to US export guns got proofed in Ulm by mistake. Since the USA requires no proof laws Mauser would test fire them internally and apply an FBM proof mark. This is what happened normally, but as said, a number of US export guns got the Ulm treatment instead.

The second scenario:
After terminating their formal delivery contract, Interarms did manage to sell and order additional pistols from Mauser. Since Mauser no longer had AE/Interarms marked guns in storage, they simply took non-US market guns and converted them, adding the AE and the Interarms text.
 
#18 ·
Vlim,

I have a copy of the Dec '79 issue of the America Rifleman which has a detailed feature article about these Lugers. If you don't have it I could scan it and try to post it, or send it to your personal email.
According to the article the FBM proof was used until 1973 when the Ulm proof went into general use. i think my example is rare because there was a huge backlog of unsold guns, expecially ones with the Swiss pattern frame. The result was that not many guns were actually manufactured after 1973. General production ended in 1975 with the exception of some special models and commemoratives.

Hal
 
#19 ·
Hal,

The article is seriously outdated. It is a fact that most MP's were produced before 1975. The FBM story is not correct, as stated, it was used on guns that were exported to countries that required no proofing. The truth will be somewhere in the middle: Since Interarms terminated their main contract there were quite a number of unsold pistols still in storage. They did order smaller quantities of guns during later years, however.

I have the factory documentation available that discusses scenario 1 (accidental proofing of AE guns in Ulm).

In 1979, the year the article was written, it was thought that Parabellum production would be ceased following a takeover by the Diehl group and a change in management. Documentation shows that in 1979 several people tried to order 'the last production Parabellum'. When it turned out that the MP remained in production, most of these order attempts were cancelled.

The commemorative market was mildly successfull, so the MP continued to be on the price lists until the very end in 1999. New production in the 1980s was mostly limited to 9mm versions. They had enough unsold .30 luger stock to last until the end and it is generally accepted that the production of the .30 luger version was indeed halted in 1975. Of course, it was relatively straightforward to convert a gun on stock from one calibre to another and renumber it in the process.

It would be interesting to know the serial number of your pistol.
 
#20 ·
Well, the article is only 30 years old.
S/N is 11.011930, MP s/n's started a .001001.
Ulm started using an alphabetical date code at some point, probably after '73. The latest date for a MP I am aware of is coded 'HI' for '78, a Kriegsmarine commerative. It would be interesting to know if anyone has seen a later date coded Ulm proof. Samuel Cummings died is 1999 and Interarms was liquidated. I'm sure he was trying to sell MP's until then but I wonder if any were actually manufactured after 1978. Further, the BATF C&R list states that MPs were manufactured 1970-1978. these guns were a tough sell, base price was around $300 which is $1500 in today's money.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Hi,

Your 9mm is indeed a mid-1973 version. The serial numbers of the 9mm production versions actually started at .001051. Your assumption on letter codes is also correct.

The BATF C&R list is wrong :) and Sam Cummings direct involvement with Mauser regarding the Parabellum serial production ended much earlier. That didn't stop him from selling the guns he still had in stock and to purchase commemoratives from Mauser in the 1980s. The combination of production costs and the design choice worked against the pistol. Mauser lost money on the production versions, but made a relatively good profit on the commemoratives, so overall they managed to make the adventure profitable, but only just.

The 'accidental proofing' of AE/Interarms lugers happened in 1971 and only occurred on 7 pistols.
(accidental between parenthesis as it seems to have been done on purpose).
 
#22 ·
Good discussion, thanks for all the information. The story of Samuel Cummings and Interarms is fascinating and I believe will become part of firearms folklore as the years go by, making all the Interarms guns more and more collectible. This is a repeat of my post on the new Krieghoff - Google the story of his socialite daughter, Susan, who shot dead her Argentine polo player boyfriend (with a Walther PP) and walked, great reading, there's a book written on the incident

Hal
 
#24 ·
Hal,

I've been studying Interarms and Sam Cummings for quite a while now. He was indeed an interesting character and loved a joke or two. Famous are his many references to the CIA (in company names, the Interarms logo, letter heads, etc...).

A very good biography on Cummings was written by Brogan and Zarca, called 'Deadly Business'. A good read and not as negative as the title suggests.

@hswee: Thanks for the number! 9mm I expect?
 
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