Restoring a 1920’s Mauser C96 A.K.A. (The Broomhandle) (With test Firing!)  

Great work guys. It’s a shame that you couldn’t get the spent cartridges to eject, but that’s the beauty of this channel - your honesty. Not every old firearm will be able to be returned to full working condition, but the journey to restoration is just as entertaining as the result.

The Mauser C96 was built from 1896 to 1936. Use in World War 1.!!! Greetings from Germany.!😊

Great job you did restoring the Mauser firearm. Even though the markings are gone, at least you got the gun to fire. It also looks much better than before. Excellent work.

What a shame to see the condition of this classic. No markings, no rifling, and no hope until it fell into your hands. Mighty fine restoration, guys. Even after remote test firing, you've got balls to shoot it by hand!

My 16 year old son studies the history of WW2 weapons. Of course, schools don't allow it so he does this on his own time. This is one of his all time favorite guns. He saved enough money to buy himself a replica. Can't wait to show him this video. Thank you.

An amazing restoration of the Mauser. Being almost 100 years old, I believe that you did all you could in the restoration process. Congratulations on the restoration. I always enjoy you being these items back to life. Enjoy the week ahead, and say hello to your brother for me. 😊

Boy , seeing that gun all rusted up got me right in the feels ! It's always been one that ranks high on my want list ! Great cleanup and refinish work as always . My guess is that the gun won't cycle because of the rough condition of the chamber . The round fires , but with the extra space and the pressure the brass is basically pushed into every nook and cranny created by the rust , basically forming the case to the rough chamber . Not much you can do there , as the rust has already oversized the chamber . Glad to at least see it somewhat functional again ! .

The temptation to turn it into a DL44 replica from a real non functioning Mauser is big but since it was a complete gun which could be saved I’m glad you restored it to its former glory and preserved a piece of history.

Great job guys! Anyone can sandblast rust away - you are one of the few channels who actually shoot the weapons after restoration. Keep it up!

Wow what a great job on the gun! The before and after results blew my mind! Great job on the restoration project.

Another fine weapon restoration , great marksmanship too ! Keep up the great vlogs guys .

Impressive work in restoring a classic and revolutionary firearm.

*A fine restoration of a legendary pistol.*

Considering what you had to work with, another fantastic job by Gebrüder Kinzler! I have the same exact model C96, the serial dates it for 1922.

The fact you found one in that great condition is amazing

Belíssimo exemplar! Trabalho excelente de restauração! ☺️👍⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

That gun is a work of art.

Love the bead blasting,very satisfying

Even after all that rust and restoration process it still aims with precision.

I’ve tried fixing one of these that has a hammer that wouldn’t stay cocked. Parts were from different c96 judging by the serial numbers not matching but a good cleaning really helped.

Great job,,can't believe the amount of parts it has.

Iconic.

Man....very beautiful work= BRAVO !!!

I didn't have much hope for this one, but even though it doesn't cycle, the resto came out amazing. PS, I've seen discoloring like that, when I worked in a small gun shop. Nice one.

Love the videos! One of the many jobs I had was cleaning engine aircraft parts for rebuild and over haul. Some thought washing parts but a little more technical than that. Chemical tanks and grit blasting with glass beads/walnut pieces. Not sure if you list where the guns were found but this one looks like it came off the Bismark. Some the chemical companies should assist with your channel as their products are being promoted, even if inadvertently. 👍👍

Особо нравится зарядка, со скобы. Красиво, не спеша.

I absolutely love watching these videos!!!

I always find it amazing that despite so much rust you're not dissolving the entire piece.. It goes to show that rust is really a natural protection layer.

These videos are so satisfying. Thank you for restoring this beauty.

One thing I learned from an older gentleman at my local firing range was denture cleaning tablets!! They ONLY work on regular firearm steel, yet they eat the rust off like crazy without damaging the firearm! Although, they'll take any remaining bluing off as well!!

I own a Red 9. Pity to see the condition this was in, thanks for doing your best. The matte finish gives it an interesting modern special ops look 😀

A wonderful job! It must be so satisfying to take things that need help & make them new again...😊 I imagine you are very busy, but may I suggest a follow-up video where you have made the final tweaks & repairs & test fire it again? Perhaps giving us a bit more history of the pistol? You managed to give the old girl a real make-over & allowed her to "sing" again😊, perhaps with the adjustments, we can see her both "sing" & "dance"....😅 Subbed!

Nice restoration thanks for another great video 📹

Roughening of the chamber combined with roughening of the action surfaces is likely why the cases won't extract. Rough chamber wall holds the case in place (similar effect to chamber ring delayed blowback) and rough action surfaces won't allow the slide to move back far enough under recoil to unlock the bolt. Still a nice mantle piece though.

Уникальный способ умиротворения, красота осязаемая.

Sure is a big difference between the before and after appearance. Nice work.

Nice restore. Did you try replacing the extractor? They are still available online. I picked up an old C-96 "frankengun" (mixed parts, mismatched serial numbers) about 10 years ago at Cabella's that needed a new extractor. The extractors are spring steel and can get fatigued and no longer grip the cartridge extraction groove properly. Can't be fixed/tuned like on 1911. Mine is a genuine Mauser, not chinese copy, with long barrel, but bad pitting on receiver, almost no blueing left. Cost me only $ 300 due to mismatched serial numbers. Need to get it reblued/refinished, only the outside is damaged, internals are pristine, barrel has been relined. Nice gun but health problems have kept me from doing the project.

Great video thanks. I'm a huge fan of the Bernie Gunther books by Philip Kerr (RIP) and the Broomhandle is often referenced so it was great to see a real one.

There were Spanish made C96 guns named Astra Model 900 to 904 and they were very similar to the German pistols

You did your best, maximum respect. That particular model is usually referred to as the "Bolo" broomhandle. It was an attempt to reduce the overall size of the original model, note the squared off grips. For some reason thousands were bought by the bolshevics in the early 20's hence the name bolo!

My grandfather found one of these on the battlefield and brought it back to Berkeley. I spotted it and some mausers in the garage and he gave me all of the souveniers. Bit by bit they all got stolen by the neighbors. I have only a german helmet left. Nobody locked doors in those days. The pistol had the original handle on it, but was missing the slide.

Quedo excelente muy buen trabajo

I rebuilt a C96 like that one, a 1916 .30, 30 years ago, so working off old memory. It was in rougher shape than that one, some deep pitting. That one looks like a WW1 gun, or maybe an export to China, as I think the German WW2 versions (1930) were generally 9MM. It was an tough accomplshment to rebuild. Fun but touchy one to shoot, I never used a full stripper clip of ammo - guaranteed jam - always 2 or 3 rounds less. It was a pain to deep clean. I had to do a full spring change on the rebuild, if I remember right, and there was a inner linkage that liked to slip; I got good at field stripping it. If I remember correctly, the Chinese / Russian ammo was just a bit small for it, otherwise you were looking for very expensive ammo. I parted with it, went to a collector as a wall hanger, so I guess I did a reasonable rebuild job visually.

Cool video, thanks for sharing this ! have you ever considered using chemicals instead of a sandblaster ? would be interesting to see if it makes a difference on the treatet surface 🤔

Honestly you did the best you could given the condition of that piece of history but id be proud of yourself for giving it a new lease on life

I once had a Chinese contract version of one of these that was chamberd for 9mm. It was in crap condition - similar to this. But I worked at restoring it to almost factory condition using only simple tools and varying grades of sandpaper w/ oil to bring it back to its former glory, if only for reenacting. I appalud your restoration!!!

"Ah! A choice of an avid gun collector. It`s a nice gun, stranger!"

Wow that sucks balls ! You did such a find job on the restoration love the video !

Another awesome restoration.

Grease on sliding parts an try polishing the chamber. Also the return spring might need replacing. M1's do same thing when fired dry without grease. Another nice job!😊

My uncle (no longer with us) had a Broom Handle Mauser that he brought back from WW2, he had taken it off a German Officer (who ummm couldnt use it anymore) I had been on at him since I was a child to give it to me when he decided to get rid of it, he gave it to his business partner :(

Super jest ten cały starodawny pistolet pozdrawiam serdecznie 👍👍👍👍

I trained as an armourer in the British Army during the 80s. Part of my job was working on many of the IRA weapons that were recoverd from hidden weapons dumps found by Army patrols around XM and South Armargh. We had to sort, record and put forward weapons that may have been used in terrorist activities. Worked on everything from pre WW1 Metfords, US Thompsons SMGs, AK47s and 74s right up to current army weapons that had been lost or stolen as well as many home made weapons. Really interesting work!

I think Hicock45 tried a Luger C96 and also ran into cycling issues... I guess there's a reason why Germany went for the Luger.

Definitely one of my favorite guns. Great restoration 👍

A hint, next time save the rust! You can boil the frame and parts and use the accumulated rust to blue the firearm! Otherwise, excellent job.

I don't get why they would stop making this gun. Sure, its outdated by modern standards. But it is still a good gun, by all means. It's so cool looking. I wish i had one.

huge fan of your show. love the no talking

That was a great restoration. You did it well. 😊😊

Ah yes! The gun of Han Solo!

Are these guns being rusted just to make a youtube video? They all look the SAME!

You sir are a true craftsman. Cheers from England.

You should look into rust bluing like they did early on especially when they are already rusted

Why are do all restauration objects always look the same, uniformly covered in a coat of rust. I never saw object like these in real, not even in junkyards.

Looks like you faked that and rusted it yourself. The fact that its all uniform thin layred rust is not natural. Not to mention that level of rust would have cause the handles to rot off id it had been subject to those conditions naturally. Shameful. Not to mention your first move was to sand vlast it and not even attempt to boil and save the original bluing you destroyed

Awesome work 👏

Funny how a lot of these “restorations” have the same amount of low level degradation?? 😂😂

Really the first model came out just before the end of the 19th century up til the WW1

Try using a patch of 3m red metal fininshing pad to polish the chamber walls to remove pitting..

really iconic gun from ww 1 or 2? love it

I guess this is what all modern guns have down to them, with the bluing as most guns are black. You do absolutely wonderful work.

Obejrzę ten film z 500 razy i biorę się za odnawianie broni 😊

excellent bravo champions ....👍

Greetings Sir. Excellent for the class. From Brazil. Military Veteran. Special Forces. And Police. Lawyer with 9 Postgraduate degrees.

Still Looks great. Save it from the trash. Well done

I like restoration videos in general but yours are real good and ive subscribed because you actually fire them at the end whitch is something i wish more would do. Keep up the good work 💪🏼

That was a great job you did saving that old war horse!!! I have one that is quite old and worn but I really like it. It occasionally hangs up and I have to pull the hammer back to shoot it. Whenever I take it to the range it gets a lot of attention. I have a stock that makes it a short barrel rifle. (It’s legal) I enjoy shooting it and hope to pass it on to my son. It’s quite a piece of engineering held together by fit and tension. You did a great job on it… I was wondering if the parts were polished somewhat if that would make it cycle better… again a great job!!!

Sandblasting gun parts would be my ideal job, l love seeing all the crud removed so efficiently, and bright underneath. Very satisfying.

Great special restoration video again 👍👍👍and test 👍👍Well done Great video 👍👍🎯🎯🎯

My granddad brought one of these home from the war complete with wooden holster and all. Hope to have it passed down one day. Great job. Just found your chanel in my feed looking forward to more of your videos.

At least it kinda shoots again. Thanks for bringing her back to life. I wonder if there's a way to drill out and sleeve the breech. Sort of like putting a steel liner in a damascus 12ga. Only with the 12ga, it's a relatively straight line from the breech through the bore. The Muaser has a shouldered and rimless cartridge, that could make it 'interesting'

Man you did your best. It worked but not how it was supposed to. I absolutely love this channel.

You sir have for sure earned a sub.

Again a great piece of fine gunsmith work! This pistol was more used by the Russians 1918 1930 in the citizen war than by the Germans. Many german officer, espcecially from Prussia disliked this Mauser because her design . Red and white russians always loved it,,not at least to have wooden holsters to use as a gun butt. A famous poem from Mayakovsky (Majakowski) quoted : Speak out , comrade Mauser ! Thank you for your nice work .

Magnífico trabajo

Thats the same model I have, its the shorter barrel version with slightly different grips, it's nicknamed the " bolo" as it was a favourite of bolshavics , mine was produced between 1923 /30 , I replaced the grips as the originals where starting too crumble, but it still has its holster stock, but sadly no leather fixtures.

Well done. You did a great job. What surprises me next to the talent required to do something like this is that the result often looks good after such an effort. The money spent on this solution is quite expensive. It's a good old gun. Is gun rust damaged after cleaning the barrel? Can it still shoot?🤪😝😜🤩😍

Very fresh rust 😊

It’s sad to see these old pieces of firearm history in that condition…

Могу заявить, моя бабуля Александра имела именной, очень по размеру похож, подобный уникум. Как я был счастлив держать его, 60 лет тому.

Приємно дивитись як лагідно та обережно іде процес відродження Дякую 👍

I like this gun so much!!!

Great restoration!

Can't blame the Germans for stopping manufacture on the model, it has more parts that a Swiss Pocket watch. Make a nice wall hanger. I think your company did a great job with what you had to work with.

Only thing left to do is turn it into a modified version of the standard BlasTech Industries DL-44 model. (Han Solo's blaster)

Favorite pistol 2nd would 45acp luger from 1911 trials keep up the content .

Oh MY this is awesome!!!! Great Episode!!!

Will be a nice prop gun. Looks neat anyway 👌

Great job. Now some Star Wars fan can turn it into Han Solos blaster.

Nice job! This is the model they used to make Han Solo's blaster prop