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My new/old Mauser Rifle in 11,2x60 Schüler comes back from the gunmaker and last oktober sun give light for some pictures. Was looking for a rifle in 11,2 x60 since 1992 and buy now such a thing in france. Only good knows the history of this special gun. I think its one of the rarest big bores on this planet, know only 3 – 1 in south africa, 1 in south america and my rifle now. Most of you will remeber this cartridge only from CotW and it have a bad reputation from this source. Something is true and something is not true, true is that the cartridge is in power between the 405 Win and the 375 H&H. This makes allways a good plainsgame cartridge, good for leopard, good for lion and buffalo if a PH stand behind you with his 458 Lott. Some gentleman have shot ele with the cartridge and this was to much. Bullet design was the critical point like allmost everytime.
August Schueler, gunmaker from Suhl develop this cartridge in 1904 as a inexpensive farmer gun for the german colonys in africa. He take the, in germany very popular, 11,2x60 R Mauser case, replace the .445 lead with a .440 softpoint/ full metall and give it a rebated rim like the 8x57 I. Velocity goes to 665 M/ sec with a 21 gramm bullet, so you can call it 11mm Mauser full nitro. This was the very first rebated rim case, something strange like the british belted cases starting in the same time. This rifle here was made from Ernst Steigleder Berlin/Suhl, another old gunmaker family.
In Berlin was the shop for selling the guns making in Suhl. Give you a page
from 1926/27 Ernst Steigleder catalog, you will see that the rifle in the middle is similar in some points with my rifle. Maybe the more powerfull 11,2x72 Schueler was more popular after WW 1., but the 11,2x60 Schueler is still in the cartridge list and we believe that my gun was build in this years. One of my great grandfather’s was born some streets from Steigleder’s shop in Berlin.
Whats with ammo? No problem if you are a reloader.have had a original Mauser in 10,75x68 before but give it away because I realy dont need 2 guns in the same class. The 10,75mm is more complicated, you need allways expensive special brass. The 11,2x60 can be made from any brass from 300 win Mag to 458 win mag. You have to cut the belt from the case and trim the rebated rim to 8mm Mauser dim.. Best is the 458 Win Mag, annealing, full length resizing and trimming to 60mm – ready. Have found some 300 Win Mag cases, will also anneal this brass and blow it out with a fire form load in the chamber.Horneber makes you 11,2x60 brass. I have one in my collection, without a headstamp, you dont need this. Harald Wolf tells me that he have 200 south african made brass cases with correct head stamp. Seems to be that there are more guns in South Africa around.
I get a box with 270 grain flat soft point cartridges, you see it with a 230grain .45ACP and a 300 grain .445 lead bullet. The lead bullet comes from an old german mould for the 11m Mauser. Make a bullet resizing die for the rock chocker and press such oversized bullets down to .440. I wasnt on the range with the rifle but 7 grain Kemira N330 give a fine target load with the full metal and the lead bullet. I believe the ligther full metal give a higher pressure than the lead bullet and so both works with this load. The full metall penetrated 6 inch of soft pine. Reloading is doing with a RCBS die set for the 11,2x60R. The barrel shows a .4385 diameter but I stand with .440 dia. bullet. The gun is proof for this and you can get only problems with a more undersized bullet in the 11mm Mauser seting die. We have a custom bullet maker in gemany,Delsing, who makes 330 grain softpoints. This is the original bullet weigth and the future for hunting loads. Woodleigh make a 400 grain soft point for the 11,2x72, I am in doubt hat this bullet realy works in the short case.