Mondragón rifle

The Mondragón rifle refers to one of two rifle designs developed by Mexican artillery officer General Manuel Mondragón. These designs include the straight-pull bolt-action M1893 and M1894 rifles, and Mexico's first self-loading rifle, the M1908 - the first of the designs to see combat use. Mondragón began working on his initial rifle design in 1891. During his stay in Belgium, he filed a patent application for which he had received a grant on March 23, 1892 (No. 98,947). Mondragón was granted a further Patent on April 20, 1892 from the French Patent Office (No. 221,035). He also filed for a Patent for his design with the United States Patent Office on February 8, 1893, which was granted on March 24, 1896 (No. 557,079). The rifle, referred to as model M1893, was of a straight-pull, bolt-action design, chambered in the 6.5x48mm cartridge (also developed by Mondragón) or the 5.2x68mm cartridge (developed by Colonel Rubin), with a fixed magazine which held an 8-round en-bloc clip. The bolt was locked by two pairs of six small radially-arranged lugs (reminiscent of, e. g., AR-15) locking in helical grooves in the receiver. The rifle operated with three settings: "A" (safe), "L" (normal operation), and "R" (rapid). The "automatic" fire setting allowed the rifle to fire a cartridge each time the bolt was manually cycled to closed position, in similar fashion to Winchester M1897 pump-action shotgun. The rifle could be equipped with a knife bayonet, measuring and , or a blade-type bayonet of length. At the time of the rifle's design, Mexico did not have any manufacturers capable of producing them to the required tolerances. Mondragón, with the backing of Diaz, subsequently entrusted the Swiss Industrial Company (Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft) of Neuhausen, Switzerland with the production of the rifles. SIG received the first order for 50 rifles in 1893, and a second order for 200 rifles followed in 1894. The rifles from the second order were chambered in the 5.