A fellow gun enthusiast and close friend gave me a Mauser Shotgun in 12 g. Based on an early Mauser action the two round shotgun has a fine looking stock. It has what looks like a German coin on the side of the butt stock. I�ve never seen or heard of one of these. He mentioned the gun was made during the Versaillles Treaty which forbade Germany from making large bore rifles. Any information on this shotgun would be appreciated. It looks like it could be a fine slug gun.

Thanks,

After the war, there were a couple of German outfits that went into the business of converting rifles to 2 shot shotguns. I was just reading about this not long ago, but memory escapes me where... Considering it's relative rarity, it might be worth more as a collector item these days than a shooter... BTW; I do remember the article I read said that most of these conversions were of excellent quality...

About six months ago an area gun shop had a military 98 Mauser that had a shotgun barrel on it. I did not look at it very closely to determine if it was a single shot or a two shot. Seems to me the story was that it was a "forager gun", intended for a field unit cook to obtain game items. It wasn't a post-war conversion, but rather something the German military contracted for.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the above.

I just saw one of these on an auction site. This one was built on a Geha action, as most were I believe. I would rather have the untouched action for a custom rifle! But I think it is true, that there is some small collector value.

The ban wasn't against large bore rifles though, it was against military rifles.

Todd

I see one at the WAC all the time and will have to take a closer look at it.

The fellow who gave (actually he gave it to my 14 year old son) is a life long gun collector. He actually had two of these shotguns. I haven�t checked, but he mentioned the action matched the barrel, indicating this was not a re-work. Now, he could be wrong. As far as a forager, it has a bead sight, then an interesting notch on the action creating a crude but functional V sighting system. This is very understated so as not to interfere with bird shooting. I only noticed it after cleaning. Looks like a perfect camp/cook gun in short.

My knowledge of Mausers is minimal, and don�t understand how one could do this, but he mentioned these could be modified to rifle again, getting around the Versailles Treaty. He told me the action is from WW1.

We fired the shotgun several times using Federal Target loads, then cleaned and checked. It is choked down from a modified, but not a full. The rifle stock took some time to get used to, but it busted clays well out to where our trap guns shoot.

On a sad note, the fellow is having major troubles with his vision now as he ages. So in visiting him, he took great enjoyment of picking out a dozen or so classic rifles, shotguns, and pistols to take us to the range with. My son shares my enthusiasm for hunting and shooting too. Well, the next morning the skies opened up with a day long downpour, and didn�t get to go.

When I was a kid a friend brought a mauser 98 war trophy to school. He shot .410 shotgun shells in it all the time.

I'm not sure about modifying back to a rifle -- they probably milled the feed rails open about a foot to feed shotshells, and from what I've read (and tried to visualize), they milled the rim completely off the bolt face. I guess you could replace the bolt; as for the receiver rails, maybe you could try feeding a 585 Nyati?

I would love to see one of these in person; I can't tell you how much more sense was made of some of the things I've read, after inspecting a few H & H and Francotte rifles at Cabela's.

Post pics if you can.

Todd

I took some shots of the shotgun, and will try to post a few pics of it.