My First Gewehr 98, a 1916 Haenel

Hello All!

This is my first posting to the forum and I thought I would start it off by sharing photos of my first Gew 98 I bought last month at a show. It is a 1916 C.G. Haenel that was missing the cleaning rod, I have a repro on it. Otherwise this rifle is all matching, including the wood. I just finished cleaning it up last week and overall I am pleased with it. There was a lot of grease, carbon, and I think bits of mud in a lot of places along with a little rust. The bore has some minor pitting in the throat and the remainder is a little on the darker side and after running cleaning patches through there is some fuzz left in places, however the rifling is sharp. I was a little disappointed the bore did not clean up better, like I thought it would. This is the first one I have seen in years and I figured I had better grab it.

After disassembling it I noticed the tip of the firing pin was a little bent and shorter than I thought it should be. Ends up it is broken and it will not strike a primer. I know I can get a surplus one so that I can try this rifle out at the range just to see how it shoots with some light loads.

Here are some questions I have about this rifle:

Did these originally have the white paint on the Haenel receiver markings?

There is another number on the bottom of the stock near the buttplate that says M 435 also there is a larger 7 further up and additionally there is the serial number to the rest of the rifle. Is M 435 a rack number and does M stand for Marine for the Imperial Navy?

Should I get the firing pin tip repaired by a good gunsmith since the pin matches the rifle or leave as is? I want to shoot at least 20 rounds through it to see how it does, however I am a little hesitant about getting the pin fixed.

I am not new to Gew 98s or 98ks and grew up around these as a kid, however I am not as familiar with all the maker markings and things like that. I am hoping to further my knowledge about these classic rifles and look forward to future comments and information.

Thank you all in advance!

Welcome to the forum, I am glad you decided to join up!

CGH is a good maker-date, actually your question when we spoke about you rifle was the reason I selected the Suhl Consortium for the February topic on the Gewehr98 page:

http://www.militaryriflejournal.com/1/archives/02-2013/1.html

Because it is generally acknowledged that the Suhl makers are the scarcest wartime rifles, one of the main question I get about them is which is the rarest of the 3 firms (Simson is in Suhl but wasn't part of the consortium). Of the three firms it is impossible to say but by recorded examples, VC Schilling is the scarcest, this could easily change as it is only a 23 rifle difference between VCS & JPS, - your rifle extends CGH by additional recording and they already have a strong lead.

Also, note that your rifle has grips & take down, this is very uncommon to see this early on any firm outside of the consortium, for whatever reason, grips & take down show up earliest with the consortium, this is actually the earliest rifle so far encountered for CGH but only by a few hundred rifles, I have recorded several others from the Suhl consortium with both features, including another "q" block. It is great to see another to confirm the trend this early!

I would ask for you to take some pictures of your stock cypher and acceptance pattern, it should be serialed along the bottom of the buttstock and internally. I do not need to see the inside necessarily, but if you ever do take the stock off jot down or take a photo of the barrel code, it might be a JPS barrel, they made a lot of the barrels for the consortium, but it is impossible to know the extent of the collaboration (who made which parts) between the firms. Also a picture of the right receiver would be very helpful, these acceptance stamps are important to my research, it is the primary thing I use in trends sheets.

The last picture has me stumped.. I am not sure the purpose of this marking?

Loewe,

Thank you for the welcome and for the message! I was unaware of the Suhl G98 makers. Attached is a photo of the right side receiver markings. I will have to see about getting the barrel markings later, I don't remember paying much attention to them when I was cleaning it up. The photos of the stock markings would not upload due to file limitations and I will have to try later.

Hope this all helps with your research.

It does help, the more examples that I can record the more accurate the acceptance trends sheets will be. You might have 60 or more rifles recorded for a maker-date, but when you subtract those missing one feature or another the list of examples dwindles and the less reliable the data collected. It is one thing to get the right receiver acceptance or serial number of the rifle, but receiving complete data is rare and most rifles have one problem or another.. each original rifle thoroughly recorded is what I strive for, but the reality is there are 50 partial recordings, or more, for each one that can be thoroughly recorded.

Thanks for helping!

Sorry to have overlooked your questions, hopefully the barrel will clear up with a few rounds, I have had problems with seriously neglected barrels before, extraction can be a problem if seriously pitted. I once had a rather pitted Danzig/1909 98a that locked up and wouldn't extract the casing, after firing a few rounds and repetitive cleaning it got better...

No the markings would not have white paint in them, sometimes people put chalk (when blued) or something to highlight the receiver markings, but generally collectors discourage this. Nothing wrong with highlighting the markings, if you want to draw attention to them, but sometimes humpers use the practice to hide problems.

I do not know what that marking means, I doubt it is German military applied, I am sure it is some sort of identifier, but probably something applied more recently or postwar, possibly some inventory number? I once owned a bcd/43 with a number placed under the front band, seemed to me it had a purpose but whether a rack number or inventory number I can't say- that both your number and the front band on the bcd/43 would have faced out in a rifle rack might be a clue though.

There are people who fix firing pins, it is a good idea to do so if you can as the rifle is more valuable the more original-matching it is.

Landser said:

Here are some questions I have about this rifle:

Did these originally have the white paint on the Haenel receiver markings?

There is another number on the bottom of the stock near the buttplate that says M 435 also there is a larger 7 further up and additionally there is the serial number to the rest of the rifle. Is M 435 a rack number and does M stand for Marine for the Imperial Navy?

Should I get the firing pin tip repaired by a good gunsmith since the pin matches the rifle or leave as is? I want to shoot at least 20 rounds through it to see how it does, however I am a little hesitant about getting the pin fixed.

I am not new to Gew 98s or 98ks and grew up around these as a kid, however I am not as familiar with all the maker markings and things like that. I am hoping to further my knowledge about these classic rifles and look forward to future comments and information.

Thank you all in advance!

Click to expand...

Thank you for the information and for answering my questions, you are welcome for the help with my numbers and markings. I will have to see about trying to remove the white paint from the markings, I did not think this was done at the factory when they were made but was not 100% sure.

It sounds like I did OK with buying this rifle. Now if I can find an original cleaning rod! I figure an original sling will be hard to find too, but I will keep my eyes open.

Take care!

Landser said:

Thank you for the information and for answering my questions, you are welcome for the help with my numbers and markings. I will have to see about trying to remove the white paint from the markings, I did not think this was done at the factory when they were made but was not 100% sure.

It sounds like I did OK with buying this rifle. Now if I can find an original cleaning rod! I figure an original sling will be hard to find too, but I will keep my eyes open.

Take care!

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What are the last two digits of your rifle's serial ?.

My bad. I enlarged one of your pics. Seems I have a # 48 cleaning rod. But , here's the but..I only trade original rods for original rods.

gew98 said:

My bad. I enlarged one of your pics. Seems I have a # 48 cleaning rod. But , here's the but..I only trade original rods for original rods.

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You are correct about the last two digits being 48. I guess you are not willing to sell this rod?

Not sure if you have a firing pin with a #48, the tip on mine is broken. I may try to get it repaired in the future so it will function and still match the rest of the weapon.

Landser said:

You are correct about the last two digits being 48. I guess you are not willing to sell this rod?

Not sure if you have a firing pin with a #48, the tip on mine is broken. I may try to get it repaired in the future so it will function and still match the rest of the weapon.

Click to expand...

Oddly enough I have a # 48 FP too.

gew98 said:

Oddly enough I have a # 48 FP too.

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Do you want to sell it? If so please send me a PM with photos. Thanks for the reply!