Story of the Broomhandle Mauser Part 1 By Orin Hatch

My Father, Orin B. Hatch, Jr. wanted to share a firearms story that he felt was valuable. His story is as follows :

PART I

This is my experience with the 1896 Mauser, better known as the Broomhandle Mauser. My love affair with the BH Mauser goes back more than 45 years.

My first contact with this gun was in California at a war surplus store. I was In the Marine Corp at the time and while on liberty, liked to poke around in pawn shops and other odd places. In looking at the gun the first time, I thought they were quite ugly and ungainly. I paid no further attention to them. Several years later I had a pair of Luger pistols and was getting into long range shooting with hand guns. One of the Lugers was a 1917 artillery Luger. These were issued to the German army during the lst world war. The Lugers are fine looking automatic pistols, but because of their design and close tolerances, they are prone to jam. The artillery Luger has tangent sights like a rifle and can be fitted with a shoulder stock. I liked to shoot them but I didn't like the problems with feeding and function so I decided to find another gun that had the same capabilities without the problems. I spent over a year doing research and the only gun that met my requirements was the 1896 Mauser. At that time I knew very little about the guns. This was about 1974. I looked around and discovered that these hand guns were quite rare. Not being able to afford one, I put my ideas on the shelf.

A few years later on going through an issue of the Shotgun news, I found an article saying these guns were available. The article stated they were in poor condition with some parts missing and the cost was $150.00. I decided to sell my artillery Luger and sent for the Mauser. Upon receipt of the Mauser, I began gathering information and learning all I could about these guns. I purchased books and literature and read every article I could find. The gun needed to be rebarreled and it was several years before I could afford the equipment (primarily a lathe) to fit the barrel to the gun. The Broomhandle Mauser has several small, intricate parts and everything in the gun was manufactured from forgings. The Mauser Works spared no expense in the manufacture of these guns. All of the parts are hand fit and many hours of bench work are involved. The barrel and barrel extension, or slide, is manufactured from one forging. The barrel of my gun was completely shot out which required either reboring and rifling, or fitting a barrel to the slide. I decided that with my limited funds and equipment it would be easier to fit a new barrel. I studied the problem and made drawings and made the necessary tooling to do the work I intended to do. I obtained a barrel blank and machined it to the new configuration. I cut the barrel off and machined the end of the slide to receive the new barrel. I fit the barrel to the slide and was doing the final machine work. I was in a hurry because of other obligations that evening. In making the final tapering cut on the barrell, I made a bad mistake: I ran the carriage on the lathe with the cutting tool towards the head stock which I normally did not do. The cutting tool caught the slide and both slide and barrell were totally destroyed.

Please stay tuned for Part II to find out what happened next.. Make sure you check back with us !