Wanted Brevex Mauser - any caliber

[grand veneur]

One occasionally reads that the Brevex actions were manufactured by FN in Belgium. That's not true. After the WWII, FN built rifles caliber 416 Rigby with their classic FN Mauser actions.

 

[buckstix]

CAN'T READ FRENCH

 

[Tucketed]

An attentive reader points out to me, in view of the article of October 5, 2015 (98 K of the civilian military Mauser) that there has been quite little talk about the "French" Mauser that were manufactured in Suresnes, in the Paris region, after the war. In the wake of the Brno and CZ we have just talked about, which made and still make "long" cases for "African" calibers, it is therefore not useless to return to the mythical Brevex boxes, rare and expensive, which are the honey of the carabinier forums today.

To understand, we must go back to a time, that of the immediate post-war period when the Mauser factory in Oberndorf was dismantled, its machines moved or recovered by the occupier (French in this case for Bavaria) for war damage. From 1946, the engineer Polonsky established at the Brevex workshops in Suresnes repaired and fabricated until 1965 substitute "regulatory" based on 98 K, but also all kinds of other models (Garand US, etc.) before our arsenals broadcast national production en masse (49-51, etc...). It was the time of our "colonial" wars that did not yet really say their name (Indochina, Algeria), and where it was really necessary for the "expisitionary forces" to make fire with all the wood. It was at this time that Brevex took over "long shares" or magnum boxes for African calibers that initially existed for the civil at Mauser (and which the famous firm has recently taken over).

But at that time, let's say the period 1945-1955 were the only actions of this type Magnum (1) available on the market at the time when African hunting resumed. About 5000 copies were produced, to the USA, but also drop by drop in France to gunsmiths, especially Parisians, for expensive weapons because they required a lot of work behind. At present, these boxes have kept a certain aura that places them at the level of what German artisans do Pretch, Ritterbach (with boxes made in Italy), Johannssen (cases from Eastern countries) or the Belgian FN and Dumoulin on some of these remarkable, but expensive artisanal rifles. Some of our national gunsmiths (Dorléac in the Midi), Jeannot in Paris, are still working on it, in the manner of what Eric Briano does, for example, on CZ Czech boxes. In the early 2000s, Armes Bastille in Paris, which had even taken over the patent, offered mostly African calibers, and even for the 12.7X57 Anthis (2) weapons at 7500 euros, without the optics of course.

Paradoxes of the Internet, walking on second-hand US sites where Brevex boxes have kept a mythical aura, we find magnificent original weapons between 10 and 14,000 euros when, very close to us in Paris, a large auctioneer recently offered six boxes at 1200 euros... which started at 600! If you have one under your nose, given the powers developed (3), don't worry too much about tinkering, and leave it to the pros!

1/ The Mauser's case-locking assembly is one of the most solid for a repeating weapon, but it was unsuitable to accommodate, above the 458 WM, the large African calibers: 416 Nitro, 416 Rigby, 500 Jeffery, 505 Gibbs.

2/ On a 460 Weatherby socket, which was shortened, enlarged to house the standard 50-caliber ball, yes, that of the famous 12.7 that equipped the American machine guns of the flying fortresses! The ball is 650 grains or more than 40 grams, flies at 700 m/sec, hits at 8000 joules or six times more than what is required for a good deer, and is worth 6 euros each!

3/ Popularized by the great American writer and immense hunter Hemingway, the 505 Gibbs was invented in 1903 for Africa by a Bristol gunsmith precisely for the long cases of the Mauser rifles. It is not a very fast ball (around 600 m/s) but heavy (525 grains or 34 grams), with a large energy around 6-8000 joules at 100 m. So likely to stop everything, especially the big dangerous animals that charge.

 

[buckstix]

" ... But at that time, let's say the period 1945-1955 were the only actions of this type Magnum (1) available on the market at the time when African hunting resumed. About 5000 copies were produced, to the USA, but also drop by drop in France to gunsmiths, especially Parisians, for expensive weapons because they required a lot of work behind. .... "

Only approx 450 Brevex actions total were produced from 1945 - 1955. Sales in the U.S. were thru Tradewinds in Tacoma Washington.