any of a family of bolt-action rifles designed by Peter Paul Mauser (1838–1914), a German who had worked in an arms plant before entering the German army in 1859. Mauser's first successful design was a single-shot, 11-millimetre, bolt-action rifle that became the forerunner of many important designs. In 1880 Mauser applied a tubular magazine to his rifle, and the result was selected (1884) by the Prussian government as a basic infantry weapon.

The tubular magazine, which held eight rounds, proved not entirely successful, and Mauser adjusted the design until he devised a five-round box-style magazine located within the forearm. This became the basic infantry weapon of the German army in 1898, and its bolt action was widely—virtually universally—copied around the world. It has been chambered in a wide variety of calibres, but original German Mausers were all made in 7.92 mm.