Mauser pistol.

[A. F Medic]

While I don't own one, I am interested in why some pistols are marked with a "Red Nine" and are known as such.

[Dave]

They are chamberd for 9m/m Luger cartridge rather then the .30 Mauser, which is a bottle neck affair. I do not know if they were conversions or made in 9m/m. Used by German military.

[us019255]

Just saw an article in probably America Rifleman on this. They were military conversions done in various armories. That is the reason that there are many styles of the "9". If not American Rifleman, then Shotgun News.

[Jim K]

I know that story and it is not true no matter who wrote it or where it appeared. The "Red 9" pistols were all made at the Mauser factory in 9mm Parabellum and marked at the factory with the number 9 cut or burned into the grip, and painted red. I have seen a number of reports that the marking was done by units, depots, or even by individual soldiers, supposedly accounting for variations. But EVERY GENUINE "Red 9" I have ever seen (and I have seen well over a hundred) had an identical grip marking. I have no doubt whatever that those variations exist only in fakes.

Several years ago, thousands of Mauser C96 pistols were imported from China. Most were in sad shape, and all were either in 7.63 Mauser or in Chinese made .45 ACP. Many of the 7.63 pistols with bad bores were bored out and re-rifled/rechambered to 9mm Parabellum or had new 9mm Parabellum barrels sleeved into the barrel extension (the original gun has the barrel and barrel extension as one piece).

A lot of those converted guns in 9mm were given reproduction grips marked with the "Red 9", and were sold, either by the importer or by a later owner as orginal "Red 9" pistols. They were not; the ONLY user of the "Red 9" was the German army, not the Chinese.

If buying a pistol purported to be a "Red 9", first look at the sight; the "Red 9" sight only went to 500 meters. Then look at the stocks; the originals have 24 groove stocks. They also have the German military acceptance stamp and military proofs on the chamber. Since the "Red 9" was serial numbered in its own range (1-150000) it will duplicate commercial numbers up to that point, but no genuine "Red 9" will have a greater serial number.

The main point of identification is that those guns are crude! That's right, plain crude. None of the "fine Mauser workmanship" of the commercial guns, they look like they were made in a hurry (they were) and machined with a dull axe.

But why the marking in the first place? For the simple reason that many German soldiers in WWI were familiar with the Mauser pistol and it had been sold in Germany in only one caliber, 7.63 Mauser or 7.63x25. But that caliber was not in the German army supply system so the army wanted to be sure the troops knew that these pistols were chambered for the 9mm Parabellum. (Guns chambered for the 9mm Mauser export were not distributed in Germany.)

Jim