Boxes of 7.92x57mm s.S Patrone lacquered steel cased ammunition produced in 1941.
Source: Arielnyc2006 -
© CC BY-SA 3.0
The 7.92x57mm Mauser is a pre-World War 1 rifle cartridge of German origin. It is a further development of the Patrone 88 introducing a spitzer type bullet. Formal adoption was in 1905 and it became one of the predominant cartridges in Europe and many nations in Asia and South America. For many decades rifles and machine guns were produced in this cartridge until superseded after World War 2 by the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge.
The 7.92x57mm Mauser is a full power rifle cartridge that uses a rimless bottlenecked case and a spitzer type bullet. Standard ball ammunition was most common. Steel core and tracer ammunition was commonly used in machine guns. Many cartridge designs have been produced in the 120 years this cartridge was actively used in various military around the globe. In addition this cartridge proved popular for hunting medium-sized game.
Most cartridge designs use a bullet weight of around 12 grams, resulting in a 820 m/s muzzle velocity and about 4.000 J of energy. Out to ranges where point targets can be engaged with iron sights the 7.92x57mm Mauser is a relatively flat shooting cartridge. Terminal effect remain good out to all ranges a medium machine gun is useful in engaging area targets. This cartridge can be considered too powerful for automatic fire from a light weapon, such as the FG-42. The Czechoslovak ZB-26 light machine gun, weighing around 9 kg unloaded, can be considered the lightest weapon for effective automatic fire in this cartridge.
As a full power cartridge the 7.92x57mm Mauser worked well in both bolt-action rifles, light machine guns and universal machine guns. The extensive Mauser family of bolt-action rifles has many variants chambered for this round. In self-loading rifles the power often caused durability and reliability issues. In both gas operated and recoil operated machine guns performance proved excellent. The marginal taper and rimless cartridge work well in both magazines and cartridge belts. Various light machine guns, universal machine guns and water-cooled machine guns were chambered in 7.92x57mm Mauser.
The 7.92x57mm Mauser was used as the standard cartridge by Germany during both World Wars. Various other nations standardized on it as well, such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, Spain, Romania, Iran, Turkey and Yugoslavia. China was a major user of this cartridge in the Sino-Japanese war and requested various foreign firearms to be produced in 7.92x57mm Mauser. After World War 2 the cartridge remained in use in Yugoslavia for decades, even developing a new marksman rifle in this cartridge. During World War 2 the British used this cartridge in their Besa vehicle machine guns. Interestingly, Israel heavily used this cartridge in the early years before transitioning to 7.62x51mm NATO. As NATO standardized on their new cartridge some designs were converted to 7.62x51mm, most notably the iconic MG42 machine gun.
World War 2 era Nazi German bolt-action rifle.
Nazi German universal machine gun used with infantry and as vehicle armament.
Nazi German universal machine gun mainly used in the infantry role and on pintle mounts.
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