Gewehr 41

The Gewehr 41 (German for: rifle 41), commonly known as the G41(W) or G41(M), denoting the manufacturer (Walther or Mauser), are two distinct and different battle rifles manufactured and used by Nazi Germany during World War II. They were largely superseded by the Gewehr 43, which was derived from the G41(W), but with an improved gas system and other detail changes. By 1940, it became apparent that some form of a semi-automatic rifle with a higher rate of fire than existing bolt-action rifle models were necessary to improve the infantry's combat efficiency. The Army issued a specification to various manufacturers, and Mauser and Walther submitted prototypes that were very similar. However, some restrictions were placed upon the design: no holes were to be bored into the barrel for tapping gas for the loading mechanism; the rifles were not to have any moving parts on the surface; and in case the auto-loading mechanism failed, a bolt action was to be included. Both designs used a mechanism known as the "Bang" system (after its Danish designer Søren H. Bang). In this system, propellant gases were captured by a cone-shaped gas trap at the muzzle, which in turn deflected them to operate a small piston which in turn pushed on a long piston rod that opened the breech and re-loaded the gun. This is as opposed to the more common type of gas-actuated system, in which gases are tapped off from the barrel, and pushed back on a piston to open the breech to the rear. Both also included fixed 10-round magazines that were loaded using two of the stripper clips from the Karabiner 98k, utilizing the same German-standard 7.92×57mm Mauser rounds. This in turn made reloading relatively slow (as compared to rifles that had magazines that could be reloaded from a single unit, such as the M1 Garand, although it was typical for its time, being identical to the reloading procedure of the 10-round Lee–Enfield). The Mauser design, the G41(M), was the only one of the two that respected the criteria imposed.