The Boers' greatest asset (apart from their own skill and bravery).
The 1893/95 'Large ring' Mauser rifle in 7x57mm.
There is no denying the overwhelming superiority of Paul Mauser's rifles to anything else available in their day. Even to this day, the Mauser action (particularly the '98 model) has no equal. More than a century after it's release, no turn-bolt rifle is equal to the Mauser.
The superbly designed & built Mauser had a 5 rd magazine and was reloaded quickly via 5rd charging clips. It was sighted to some 2000+ yards.
The 7x57mm Mauser round is one of the finest infantry rounds ever fielded. It had all the power, lethality and long range accuracy any soldier could want, yet it didn't have the fearsome recoil of the (later) 8x57 IS, 30-06 US or even .303 British round.
In the hands of the tough, skilled and determined Boers, (most of whom had spent their lives shooting, hunting & tracking ) this rifle & cartridge combination was to prove devastating to the British.
The poor, silly Brits had only just changed from bright red tunics to kahki uniforms. Unfortunately they had white webbing that formed a large, white 'X' on their torsos that gave the highly able marksmen of the Boer 'kommandos' a nice target. The Mauser round was one of the first smokeless cartridges, so the Boers could devastate the British collumns (who still marched in blocks in the field) from well over 1,000 yards away without the tell-tale plume of grey smoke giving away their position.
The Boer leaders had limited funds, so they would buy a sizable number of 1895 Mausers at a discounted price and sell them to each Boer militiaman at £3.00. 1,000 rounds of 174gr, 7x57 mm ball ammo was £6.00. (Don't you wish OUR leaders would do that?
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