The Prussian Commission came up with the requirement for the 7.9x57, but Paul Mauser seized on the basic casing and developed a whole family of rounds based on the 57mm case length. These include the 6.5x57, 7x57, 6.8x57, 9x57 and, believe it or not, others. The 7 and the 6.8 became military standards.
He also developed an entire family based on a 51-54mm case length, including the 8x51 Mauser, 7.65x53 (Belgian, Turkish, Argentine and so forth), 7x54 (which was used to some extent by the Boers, but existing rounds are headstamped in Spanish), a 6.5x54 also existed, and so forth.
Nationalism was a big thing in the 19th Century and it was a big thing to have your own rifle. Problem was that many countries couldn't build their own rifles, so they had rifles built for them, often in their own "national" calibres. Thus we get a German company building Portuguese rifles, and the ammunition for them, and refusing the sell the Portuguese any more ammo just because they had declared war on Germany. No sense of ha-ha, those guys!
But if a country couldn't even field a design for their own rifle, they could come up with specs for their own ammunition. This gives rise to different specs by every country that adopted, for example, the Mauser 7.65x53 cartridge.
The smartest ones listened to Paul Mauser, who DID have a pretty good idea what he was talking about....... and adopted his 7.65mm, his 7mm and his 6.8mm, which is one of the least-known (and most interesting) military cartridges.
He also developed an entire family based on a 51-54mm case length, including the 8x51 Mauser, 7.65x53 (Belgian, Turkish, Argentine and so forth), 7x54 (which was used to some extent by the Boers, but existing rounds are headstamped in Spanish), a 6.5x54 also existed, and so forth.
Nationalism was a big thing in the 19th Century and it was a big thing to have your own rifle. Problem was that many countries couldn't build their own rifles, so they had rifles built for them, often in their own "national" calibres. Thus we get a German company building Portuguese rifles, and the ammunition for them, and refusing the sell the Portuguese any more ammo just because they had declared war on Germany. No sense of ha-ha, those guys!
But if a country couldn't even field a design for their own rifle, they could come up with specs for their own ammunition. This gives rise to different specs by every country that adopted, for example, the Mauser 7.65x53 cartridge.
The smartest ones listened to Paul Mauser, who DID have a pretty good idea what he was talking about....... and adopted his 7.65mm, his 7mm and his 6.8mm, which is one of the least-known (and most interesting) military cartridges.
