7,92 x 57 mm Mauser

7,92 x 57 mm Mauser – this cartridge was created by modernization of military cartridge Patrone 88 (8 x 57 mm I, where I (or J) means Infanterie - infantry). Another designation is also 8 x 57 mm IS (JS) - Infanterie Spitzgeschoß (pointed). It was the main German military cartridge in both World Wars (adopted in Germany from 1905). It was also used by many other countries, such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania or Yugoslavia, etc. The cartridge is designed for rifles (e.g. German K98k or Czechoslovakian rifle vz. 24) and heavy machine guns (e.g. German MG38 or MG42). Since the end of World War II it has also been a very popular hunting cartridge. German stampings predominate on cartridges found during Silesian Museum excavations. Either in the form of P-codes (from 1927) or one to three letter code (from 1940) on the 12th hour. Further clockwise (3 o'clock) is the marking of the material from which the cartridge case is made. "S*" is the marking for brass with a copper to zinc ratio of 72/28. At 6 o'clock is the batch number. Each batch had 1 million pieces. The number at 9 o'clock is the year of manufacture. Furthermore, we quite often see Czechoslovak (and also Protectorate) stamping divided by lines and a capital letter "Z" at 12 o'clock. The other quarters then show the month (Roman numeral) and the year of production (19 at 9 o'clock and the second part of the year at 3 o'clock).

"P-151" – Rheinisch-Westfälische Sprengstoff AG (RWS), plant in Stadeln near Nuremberg. The plant was formed after the ammunition plant Heinrich Utendoerffer and Rheinisch-Westfälische Sprengstoff AG merged in 1889. During the war, 500 forced prisoners of war from France and Russia worked here. At the end of the 1960s, the RWS, Rottweil and GECO brands were merged under the name Dynamit Nobel, and to this day it is one of Germany's major ammunition manufacturers.

"P-154" – Polte Armaturen und Maschinenfabrik AG (further PAM), Werk Grüneberg-Nordbahn – it is a daughter plant of PAM, the largest ammunition manufacturer in Europe before the Second World War. The plant was founded in 1931 in the small village of Grüneberg (today part of the municipality of Löwenberger Land) near the Northern Railway station. On 6 March 1943, a subsidiary women's labour camp of the Ravensbrück concentration camp was established here, originally intended for 350 people. By 1944, there were already around 1,700 women, mostly from the Soviet Union and Poland, as well as from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, France, the Netherlands and a few Germans. They were deployed to produce infantry ammunition. They worked 12-hour shifts, 7 days a week. The camp was evacuated to the main camp Ravensbrück between 22 and 26 April 1945. The Red Army arrived at the camp on April 30. The plant was never reopened.

"P-163" ("hlb" from 1940) – Metallwarenfabrik Treuenbrietzen GmbH, Werk S (plant S) Selterhof, Treuenbrietzen. The plant was built in 1933, production started in 1934. In 1936, a subsidiary camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was opened in the town. Prisoners from this camp were deployed in forced labour in this and other factories throughout Treuenbrietzen. In 1945 the plant was occupied by the Red Army and in 1947 all the equipment was dismantled. Today, a solar park is located on the site.

"Z" – Zbrojovka Brno, plant II. Povážské strojárne, Povážská Bystrica, Czechoslovakia. The history of the munitions plant in Povážská Bystrica is connected with the political situation after the First World War. At that time an established munitions factory of the Viennese company Georg Roth was operating in Bratislava. In 1928, the company was asked (under threat of losing the state contract for bullets) to move its production inland (due to the strained relations with Hungary and Austria). However, the company could not financially support the move and at that moment Zbrojovka Brno (Brno Armaments Factory), which did not have its own ammunition plant at that time, entered the scene. It bought most of the shares and built two new ammunition plants on a favourable location by the Váh River, which were eventually merged in 1935 under the name Československá zbrojovka Brno - Závod II, Považská Bystrica. Plant II was the second largest producer of ammunition for the Wehrmacht during World War II. After the war, in 1946, the whole Zbrojovka Brno was nationalized and Plant II became independent as Považské strojárne n.p., Považská Bystrica. Ammunition was produced here until about 1953 (export of ammunition to North Korea during the Korean War). From 1954 onwards, Jawa motorcycles and mopeds were produced here until 1972, followed by the production of aircraft engines for the Aero company, the resumption of moped production in 1989 and finally the gradual demise of the company in 2006, caused by poorly executed privatisation.