As luck would have it, this was an exceptionally inconvenient time to adopt a new black powder rifle France had recently begun production of its first smokeless powder composition, with the rest of Europe close behind.
It fed eight rounds of 9.5×60mmR, a black powder cartridge, from an under-barrel tubular magazine.
The Ottoman Empire’s first pattern was the Model 1887, similar to the Gewehr 71/84 in service with the German Empire at the time. As I mentioned on the show, the Ottomans used a variety of different patterns of Mauser when collectors refer to the “Turkish Mauser,” they’re talking about all of them collectively. On a recent episode of Gun Owners Radio, we briefly discussed the standard long arm of the Ottoman Empire in World War I: the Mauser bolt-action rifle.
