Hello from Arizona

Hi. I figured I had better stop lurking and introduce myself. My name is Brian and I am an owner of a controversial firearm. It is a 1938 S/147 K98K. Why is it controversial? It is a Mitchel's Mauser. I purchased it, sight unseen, for $400 from a friend that needed money. At the time I did not know anything about K98K's or Mitchell's. I am more of a Mosin Nagant guy, having owned around 22 or 23 of then in my life. I was told that the rifle was purchased quite a few years ago and sat in a safe for the entire time, never having been fired (or even removed from the box) by the original owner. When I unboxed it I was amazed at how good it looked but really did not pay close attention to it other than to think to myself that the stock was obviously heavily sanded. Fast forward a couple of months and I decided to finally take it out of my safe and clean all of the cosmoline off of it. Once I started taking it apart I noticed that the rifle is actually very well built. So I started looking into the K98K online and educating myself about this rifle. It is obviously not what the importer (Mitchell's Mausers) says it is but it is a really nice shooting rifle and has sparked an interest in me with the K98.




I am currently looking at a bnz 41 that is in pretty rough shape. The bolt does not match the receiver and neither of those match the stock. The rifle looks like it was thrown in a mud hole and left there for a while. The stock is in rough shape but all of the stampings are visible (unlike the Mitchell's) and the rifling is very good. I ordinalirly would not think twice about a gun in that shape but when the owner offered it to me for $130, I began to wonder if it might be worth my time to see if I could rescue it. What do you guys think? Is it worth the time and effort?

Here are a couple of pictures of the bnz.

Welcome to the forum Brian. Continually getting an education on k98s from the members on this forum. Wife and I have decided that we have had enough of the Great White North and Arizona is where we'll be headed hopefully in the not to distant future. It can't happen soon enough!

Welcome Brian, for $130 I would buy that rifle in a heartbeat. As the parts alone are worth more than double, maybe triple. I noticed the bolt in the bnz41 is E/6 marked. That might actually be a Karab.98b bolt. If all the parts match on the bolt, the bolt itself can be worth over $200+!!

THunter said:

Welcome Brian, for $130 I would buy that rifle in a heartbeat. As the parts alone are worth more than double, maybe triple. I noticed the bolt in the bnz41 is E/6 marked. That might actually be a Karab.98b bolt. If all the parts match on the bolt, the bolt itself can be worth over $200+!!

Click to expand...

Wow! I did not expect that. I told the owner that I would take it. She is going to let me make payments on it. I just bought a 1956 Tula SKS and was looking at buying a 1911 so did not have the money ready to buy it. I should have it after next payday. I guess that K98's are just like Mosins...........buy one and you will contract Mosinitis. Or as in this case Mauseritis.

There's nothing wrong with owning a Mitchell's Mauser as a first 98k, as long as you learn that it isn't as they advertise. You are on the road to being a good 98k collector, save your pennies!

mrfarb said:

There's nothing wrong with owning a Mitchell's Mauser as a first 98k, as long as you learn that it isn't as they advertise. You are on the road to being a good 98k collector, save your pennies!

Click to expand...

Oh I agree. The MM is not a bad rifle. It is a really nice shooter. No collector value at all (and I suspect that the bolt came from an M48 not a K98 but I am new at this so I am not really sure) which is too bad. I would like to say that I would have never bought it from Mitchell's but without knowing all of the fine details about K98's, I would have been duped. I am just glad that I bought it to help out a friend. He got my money instead of Mitchell's.