Mauser C96 Broomhandle Range Report

Saturday night after dinner I went along with my dad to his club's indoor range and had the place to ourselves. We put 100 rounds of PPU 7.63x25 through the Broomhandle and it ran perfectly.

My first 15 shots, fired at 7 yards:

My point of aim was 6 o'clock on the black. The flyer was my first shot, fired one handed. I switched to a two-hand hold for the remainder.

Shooting impressions:

• Loading a pistol with a stripper clip definitely isn't as handy as a detachable box magazine. In the case of the this pistol and these clips, you need to wiggle the clips down into the charging slot. They are a tight fit.
• At ~40 oz. empty, the recoil is pretty mild but after awhile the edges of the frame start to dig into the web of your hand. When shot as a carbine it recoils like a .22.
• The trigger is similar to that of a Mauser rifle. I.e., it is a two-stage trigger. It's a bit heavy but not at all unmanageable. There's little to no creep and not much overtravel.
• The barleycorn front sight is hard to see with 48 year old eyes. It's worse when you shoot it as a carbine, because it's closer.
• Muzzle blast and flash is definitely more noticeable when shot as a carbine, since the muzzle is closer to your face, but isn't too bad. I noticed the amount of flash varied. Some rounds had little visible flash but others had a nice fireball. However, the rounds without much flash had just as much recoil and blast as the flashier rounds.
• Cases ejected straight up towards the front and then bounced all over the place with most landing in front of the firing line.
• When I did my part it shot into about a 2" group at 7 yards when shot with two hands. Mean POI was about 1.5" to 2" high.

Dad took a short video of me shooting the Broom with the stock on*:

Having fired a stocked pistol now, I'm even more annoyed with the NFA. A modern stocked pistol with a micro dot sight would be the tits as a traveling gun, a real pocket carbine. Especially in a hot, flat shooting round like 7.63 Mauser or 7.62 Tokarev.

I have wanted a shootable Broomhandle for 40 years and now I finally have one.



* A reminder for those late to the show: According to the BATFE an original Mauser C96 with an original German stock is not considered a Short Barreled Rifle under the NFA.