The Mauser 98 rifle was invented in Germany by the Mauser brothers. Peter Paul Mauser was born in Oberndorff, Germany in 1838. He and his older brother, Wilhelm, became gun makers, and designed primarily military weapons for the German government. Their finest design, the 1898 Mauser was adopted by the German army and have since been regarded as the best bolt-action design ever. Their ideas can be seen in many sporting (hunting) rifles even today.



The Mauser 1898, with an overall length of 1250 mm, was issued under the name G98 (for Gewehr 98, meaning rifle model 1898) for the German army.



At almost the same time that Mauser firearms were introduced, they found their way into Iran. Looking at pictures of Iran's Constitutional Revolution era, one can spot Mauser rifles and handguns in the hands of freedom fighters of Sattar khan and Bagher khan, as well as other Constitutionalists in different regions of Iran.




Officially, the Mauser rifle was selected for the Iranian army during Reza shah's time. But Iran didn't go for the original German and ordered the identical Czechoslovakian version, the so-called Brno. The Czech firm provided Iran rifles made of many German parts. It was similar to the long version German known as G98. Some official test results are available from antique arms dealers today, featuring signatures of the Brno factory representative, the Iranian in charge, and of course, satisfactory 'grouping' or bullet marks:



At that time two other rifles were in use and very well known in Iran: the British Lee-Enfield and the Russian Mosin-Nagant (Noghaan, or Naaghaan, ( نوغان- ناغان) in popular parlance in those days). The exact reason for preferring Brno over its rivals is not known, but one can speculate that those in charge of the Iranian army, or maybe Reza shah himself, tried to avoid dependence of Iran to either of the two neighboring powers. Besides, Brno was considered to be the best military rifle of its day.



A Pahlavi crown, lion and sun crest appears near the feeding ring, as an inscription in Persian (in Nasta'liq script) on the side of its magazine giving the model and the factory name, which was in Brno. From then on the name Brno was used by Iranians to refer to this rifle.



For many years Brno was the standard personal weapon of the Iranian armed forces, until it was replaced by the more modern, semi-automatic, American Garand M1, and later by the German Heckler & Koch G3:




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