plate and stock, threads into the receiver—hold the action in the stock. These two screws, the rear end of the receiver tang and an upright projection on the front end of the trigger guard plate all tend to prevent setback of the action in the stock from the recoil of firing the rifle. The trigger guard bow is screwed to the plate to protect the trigger. Barrel bands around the barrel and forend hold the forend against the barrel.
The M71 has a simple yet reliable action, well made and convenient to operate.
Takedown and Assembly
To remove the bolt, raise the bolt handle and pull the bolt back as far as it will go. Turn out the bolt-stop washer screw and remove the washer. While pulling back on the trigger, pull the bolt assembly from the receiver.
Left side of the M71/84 Mauser action, opened.
To disassemble the bolt, first turn the cocking piece one-quarter turn counterclockwise so that the cocking piece is forward. Pull the bolt head from the bolt, then pull the extractor from the bolt head. Rest the firing pin tip on a hard surface and press down on the cocking piece so the firing pin nut can be unscrewed from the firing pin. The firing pin and mainspring can then be pulled from the bolt and the parts separated. Drive out the safety pin to remove the safety. Reassemble in reverse order.
To remove the barrel and action from the stock, first unscrew the ramrod and pull it from the forend, then remove the barrel bands. Turn out the tang screw and the front trigger guard plate screw, then lift the barrel and action from the stock. The trigger assembly can then be removed by turning out the trigger/sear spring screw. Reassemble in reverse order. The barrel is threaded tightly into the receiver (right-hand threads) and is not easily removed.
M 71/84 Mauser Rifles
Wilhelm Mauser died in 1882, but even before this Paul Mauser was working alone on further development of the M71 action. By this time most military nations began to see the wisdom of adopting a repeating rifle for their armed forces. Paul Mauser began working on a repeating mechanism for the M71 in the late 1870s, and it was pretty well perfected by 1881, when he demonstrated it before German officials. The conversion, on which he obtained a patent, was effected by installing a magazine tube in the forend under the barrel and providing a carrier in the bottom of the receiver to lift the cartridge from the magazine to the receiver opening. The demonstration was successful and Mauser soon obtained contracts to make these repeating rifles—designated the M71/84. The M71/84 rifles were not converted M71s, but were entirely a new manufacture.
The M71/84 Mauser rifle has a 30.5 ” barrel, is 51” overall and weighs about 10.2 pounds. It is chambered for the 11mm Mauser cartridge, and the tubular magazine has a capacity of nine rounds. It was the official German shoulder arm from 1884 to 1888, at which time Germany adopted the Model 88 Commission rifle chambered for the 8mm cartridge. Although a great many of the M71/84s were made during these four years, probably not enough were made to entirely replace the M71 rifles then in use in Germany.
The M71/84 Action
To say that the M71/84 Mauser action is a M71 with a cartridge carrier added is an oversimplification. Adding a carrier and making the action a repeater required considerable changing of the receiver, plus adding parts such as the carrier, cartridge stop, ejector, cutoff and some means to cause the carrier to tip up and down when the bolt is operated. Adding these parts also necessitated changing other parts such as the trigger mechanism. I will enumerate and briefly describe all of these changes.
1. Receiver: The receiver of the M71/84 is similar in profile to the M71 receiver but, instead of being round with a solid bottom, it is made with a heavy rectangular box underneath it, which is in turn milled and machined to accept the various parts of the repeating mechanism, leaving an opening in the boltway through which the cartridges may pass. The rear part of this box acts as a recoil-lug surface transmitting the recoil to the stock.
2. Carrier: The heavy cartridge carrier (often called the “lifter”) with its U-shaped trough is fitted into the box below the receiver; it is held in place by, and pivots on, a heavy pin through the rear of the box. A large-headed lock screw holds this pin in place. The carrier is tipped up and down by a cam fitted into recesses cut into the left side of the carrier and receiver-box wall. This cam pivots on a stud which is part of the magazine cutoff lever, which in turn pivots on a stud set into a hole on the left, outside of the receiver.
The cutoff is held in place and is provided two-position tension by a spring screwed to the receiver. A checkered thumb-piece on top of the cutoff lever projects above the stock line and allows the cutoff to be moved. When the cutoff is tipped back the cam is raised so its upper, rounded end projects into the ejector raceway. When moved or tipped forward, the cutoff lowers the carrier cam within the carrier box so it is out of contact with the ejector.
The M71/84 Mauser action.
3. Ejector: To actuate the carrier, that is, to tip it up and down, an ejector rib is incorporated with the bolt assembly. It is as long as the entire bolt and is attached to it by a spring clamp on its front end, engaging a groove in the bolt head. There is a small lug under the ejector which fits into a hole in the bolt head and another lug on the cocking piece which fits in a groove in the rear part of the ejector—this helps align these parts and holds the ejector in place. A raceway is milled into the inside left receiver wall for the ejector and, besides its other functions, helps guide the bolt and prevents it from binding. The main function of this long ejector, however, is to activate the carrier and to eject the fired cases from the action. There is a recess groove milled in the outside bottom edge of this rib and, when the cutoff is tipped back to bring the carrier cam up, the end of a cam is brought up into this groove. Thus, when the bolt is opened and the end of the groove contacts the cam, the carrier is tipped up. It is tipped down again when the bolt is fully closed and the rear end of the groove pushes the cam, tipping the carrier down once more, to pick up a new cartridge from the tubular magazine.
Functioning as the ejector, the front end of this rib projects through a groove cut into the recessed bolt face. It is made to have some longitudinal movement on the bolt. As the bolt is opened and the rib strikes the carrier cam, the bolt moves slightly farther back than the ejector to tip the cartridge case to the right and out of the action. When the cutoff is tipped back to disengage the carrier cam from the ejector, a stud on the front inside of the cutoff spring, projecting through a hole in the ejector raceway, contacts the end of the ejector groove instead of the cam, halting the ejector as before to eject the case.
4. Cartridge stop: Part of the repeating system is the cartridge stop built into the left side of the carrier box. It is a lever, pivoted on a pin set in a groove in the side of the box and given tension by a spring which also places the carrier under tension. There is a projection on the front end of the cartridge stop which extends inside the box just ahead of the carrier, and is activated to release a cartridge from the magazine when the carrier is tipped down, and holding back the cartridges when the carrier is up.
5. Magazine: To complete the repeating system a magazine tube is fitted into the forend, with its rear end extending into a hole in the front of the carrier box. The front end of the magazine tube has a thread-on cap, while a long thin magazine spring and plug follower completes the magazine. A cross-key between the front end of the magazine tube and the barrel prevents the tube from sliding forward from the recoil of the rifle.
6. Trigger: Because of the carrier box on the M71/84 receiver, a different trigger arrangement had to be designed. This kept the firing pin from turning.
7. Safety: The safety was improved in
