The Curious Career Of The Greatest Mexican Automatic Weapon In History

Readers may smirk at the title, given that contemporary news from Mexico is dominated by narco-violence and the illegal immigration of her poor, but there was a moment when Mexico advanced the cutting edge of small-arms design. Credit for this lies not with the Mexican Army or government, but the genius of one man, the impressively mustachioed Major General Manuel Mondragón (1859–1922).

Between 1882 and 1887, Mondragón designed a remarkable rifle which could be fired either as a conventional bolt-action or as a fully automatic weapon in the vein of the later Browning Automatic Rifle or the Russian Simonov and Tokarev rifles.

Mexican industry proved unable to produce the rifle, and the American firms Mondragón contacted were skeptical there was any market for an automatic rifle, then considered an unreliable or fanciful concept. Finally, Switzerland’s Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft (better known today as SIG) took on the manufacture of what would become known as the Mondragón rifle.

In 1908, Mondragón's brilliant design and SIG's impeccable craftsmanship produced the world's first successful automatic rifleÑa weapon no one would buy, given contemporary militaries' skepticism towards the idea of an automatic rifle. Only 400 of the 4,000 weapons the Porfirio Díaz government had ordered from SIG were delivered between 1901 and 1911 when he was overthrown, and the revolutionary government repudiated its the order from SIG, casting the company into significant financial trouble. (Meanwhile, domestic manufacture of the weapon had begun in Mexico and would continue until 1921.)

The Swiss Mondragóns gathered dust in SIG's warehouses until the outbreak of World War I, when the German government bought the entire inventory. The Mondragón proved accurate when firing single shots, like most Swiss-made weapons, and robust in its ability to deliver automatic fire. It did not, however, prove able to withstand the mud and water of trench warfare, with its relatively complicated action being rendered kaputt with much exposure to the elements. (Incidentally confirming in many militaries' minds the undesirability of automatic weapons in the hands of infantrymen.) The Germans quickly withdrew them from front-line service and mounted them on their observer aircraft, where they served effectively in the infancy of aerial combat. They maintained their reputation for being tricky, high-maintenance weapons, but were an effective stop-gap for the Germans until sufficient machine guns could be produced.

When the Second World War broke out, the Mondragón showed up again in the hands of German second-line and militia troops. Meanwhile, Mexico had successfully marketed the weapon abroad, mostly around South America, but also to Chiang Kai-Shek's Republic of China, by which means they made their way into the hands of the PLA after 1949, and is said to have remained in service until the 1980s as a sniper or support weapon (with some still in the hands of reserves).

As fussy, complex, and difficult as the Mondragón rifle proved to be, it is an undeniable fact, however, that it was the sole self-loading rifle in service in the world for almost thirty years until the U.S. Army adopted the M1 Garand in 1936. This accomplishment is significant and yet little known outside Mexico.

After decades of using Belgian and German weapons, the Mexican Army has just introduced its second domestically-designed rifle, the “Xiuhcoatl” (“fire-serpent”) FX-05 assault rifle. Meanwhile, as they have for a century, her ceremonial and honor guards still proudly carry General Mondragón's innovative brainchild.