#8x57

Photo Of The Day and today we go full auto in a rare rare caliber and firearm. Rare is of course a relative term, as over 43,000 units of this light machine gun were produced. For practical reasons, I think I’d prefer my BREN in 7.62×51mm NATO, how about you?

A trend towards ever more powerful and longer-ranged ammunition was cut short by the realities of the First World War: Technologies not previously invented or accounted for, such as the man-reaping machine gun and the portable infantry mortar, made the existing infantry tactics of long-range volley fire not just obsolete, but quaint. Further, new essential small arms projectile designs like tracers, armor piercing bullets, and exploding observation rounds demanded more space in the projectile envelope, putting the previously cutting-edge small-caliber 6.5mm rounds at a disadvantage. The advantages of these small-caliber rounds were virtually negated, too, by the advent in 1905 of the German S-Patrone, a flat-based, pointed projectile that was vastly more efficient in supersonic flight than previous round-nosed designs. Although French engineers preceded this design with the superior (and top secret) Balle D round, it was the German bullet that became the pattern for military rifle projectiles worldwide.

The world of early semiautomatic rifles is a wild, untamed one. The conventions that are virtually set in stone today as best practices didn’t exist, and a seemingly endless combination of requirements and ideas came together to produce some truly weird and wonderful firearms.

Paul Mauser, the person who with his brother was chiefly responsible for the excellent line of Mauser bolt-action rifles that even today are the pattern for almost all modern bolt-action designs, lost an eye in 1901 during testing of a self-loading rifle which had an inadequate locking mechanism. Mauser had been working on perfecting a military self-loading rifle for about three years at that point, going through many different variations and prototypes in his race to create the first viable military self-loading infantry rifle. The rifle Ian of Forgotten Weapons takes a look at in the video embedded below is not that rifle that cost Mauser his eye, but the rifle that Mauser designed in 1902 upon his recuperation and return to the problem. The prototype in the video is No. 4, and Mauser – undeterred by the loss of a mere eye – kept at the problem until he died in 1914, producing nearly 20 prototypes:

TFB’s IWA coverage comes courtesy of Troubleshooter Berlin, who made it out to Nürnberg for the show. Many thanks to him for providing the pictures and information.

Finnish ammunition maker Lapua is introducing three new cases to its ammunition components line: The .300 AAC Blackout, the 7mm-08 Remington, and the 8×57 JS (8mm Mauser). From the press release: