Third Party Press

The last great K98k mystery - or are there more?

mrfarb

mrfarb

No War Eagles For You!
Staff member
We are lucky, we live in a time where many of the "mysteries" of K98k rifles have been solved, mostly by collectors doing research and collecting serial numbers for study. Small things, like what barrel coding and numbering inconsistencies, dual codes, Kriegsmodells, hand stamps. Some are not mysteries, but need more research, like SS rifles and late commercial rifles (which are believed to be Volkssturm, and the timeline adds up).

But, in my opinion, there is one great mystery that eludes me, and that is 1943 dated commercial made K98k rifles. Who were these commercial rifles made for in 1943? As stated we assume the large volume of commercials in late 44/45 are Volkssturm, and there is I believe at least 1 document floating around that eludes to that, but 1943?

Any other great unanswered mysteries that people can think of? Some you think are unsolved my in fact be solved already.

Edit: One other mystery i just remembered that I want to work on - who assembled the Steyr Single Claw snipers. I don't believe it was Steyr proper.
 
I’d like to know if there is any truth to the idea that captured rifles were separated into piles of rifles and piles of bolts. I don’t remember ever seeing a photo of this, nor have I ever heard a vet say he witnessed this being done. I could be wrong
 
I agree, the 1943 dated commercial made K98k rifles are a mystery. Beside that I think often about:

The BLM "Circle A" rifles in general
Where was the Kriegsmarine depot builds assembled?
The Kriegsmarine fleet number and the letter on the take down discs
Is IKE also related to Paul Mauser?
 
I’ve wondered if researching the commercial makers in Austria might be of use on the SC’s, even the serial fonts might be a clue. Perhaps one of them had a contract for their assembly. Might also explain the m/m barrel bands seen on these, disassembly by a third party not necessarily under the same scrutiny as the factory, and then perhaps sent somewhere else, maybe a depot for the final acceptance on the barrel??

To the 1943 commercials, just thinking out loud, is there any chance they were built for purely commercial sales?? I have a late 1943 proofed hunting rifle from Zella Mehlis if this might be of any use at cross referencing commercial proofing and parts procurement, largely Astrawerke parts on it. One other thought, perhaps for the forestry service??
 
NathanLM said:
I’d like to know if there is any truth to the idea that captured rifles were separated into piles of rifles and piles of bolts. I don’t remember ever seeing a photo of this, nor have I ever heard a vet say he witnessed this being done. I could be wrong
Click to expand...

I have yet to see a capture pile photo that shows separated bolts distinct from rifles.
 
NathanLM said:
I’d like to know if there is any truth to the idea that captured rifles were separated into piles of rifles and piles of bolts. I don’t remember ever seeing a photo of this, nor have I ever heard a vet say he witnessed this being done. I could be wrong
Click to expand...

My uncle, who was with the US 66th Infantry Division in the ETO during WWII, confirmed this one. After the surrender of the French port of St. Nazaire, he picked a really nice dou 42 98K off of a pile of captured rifles, and a bolt for it off of a separate pile. He mated the two together, removed the action from the stock, crated it all up, and shipped it home to my Grandfather. I have the bolt mismatched rifle today. It looks to be a dou bolt. My uncle is still kicking; I recently confirmed the story with him.
 
Mike, there is a discussion on Jan Still's forum about 43 and 44 dated "commercial" CZ27s. There are some useful links. Maybe the processes to divert a firearm to commercial sales was the same for rifles as handguns?
 
I still say this was a practice used at the front, during combat or shortly after, rifles were demilitarized by removal of bolts and the rifle discarded. This was the practice of the English in WWI (against Turkey at least) and one of my favorite movies with Steve McQueen shows McQueen doing this during a German attack. Back then they probably used recently experienced GI's for the movie as advisers... in "Hell is for Heroes", the writer/producer was a front line infantry officer, did the big battles on the western front, he later did "Combat" tv series... the movie seems very authentic as far as the combat scenes go, though I was lucky never to be in any combat during my "service" (my combat service was behind a buffer and mop or on mess duty... the USMC motto after VN was "the few, the proud, the cleaning crew..." I was mostly an elite janitor in camouflage...)

Later the rifles were gathered up and piled, the bolts collected separately, you can be sure GI's or whomever tasked with the job of salvage wouldn't bother matching them up. In big mass surrenders this probably wasn't necessary, by then the Germans wanted to surrender, the only thing holding them back was the fear of being shot (by their own comrades and the GI's, which is a pretty legitimate fear, - surrendering is a tricky thing, it is damn easy to get killed, regardless of who you are surrendering to... there isn't a lot of empathy around after a battle)

Pat said:
I have yet to see a capture pile photo that shows separated bolts distinct from rifles.
Click to expand...
 
What I was told on removed bolts

My neighbor was David Peck and his father was a veteran of Europe in WWII. He had an extensive gun collection, mostly WWII. This was a time when they were kept in several large glass front gun cabinets with his pistols hung on the wall with shadow boxes. I was pretty young and should have asked a lot more questions. He gave me my Gun Safety Class. I was maybe 8 or 9.
One of the things he did tell me was at the end of a battle they would take the K98ks and pull out the bolt and throw it as far as they could and if there was a tree or large rock, swing the rifle hard by the barrel and break it at the wrist. I asked how hard it was to break the rifle like this and he stated only if a large tree or rock with a hard swing. He did repeat the bolt was pulled and thrown as far as possible, on this he was clear. He stated this was done because the would move ahead and did not want to leave intact weapons behind.
He was a true fire arms expert. Not like Shooter Ike. His gun collection was the stuff of dreams, I have no idea if they were all active. I called him Mr. Peck. His whole family were great friends and neighbors. He would let me read his collection of reference books too. He had a book on just German Machine Guns that was really thick like 4-5 inches and 500 pages.
 
Last edited:
Loewe said:
I still say this was a practice used at the front, during combat or shortly after, rifles were demilitarized by removal of bolts and the rifle discarded.

Later the rifles were gathered up and piled, the bolts collected separately, you can be sure GI's or whomever tasked with the job of salvage wouldn't bother matching them up. In big mass surrenders this probably wasn't necessary, by then the Germans wanted to surrender...
Click to expand...

A large(r) surrender would certainly account for captures piles that still had their bolts. I have no reason to doubt the anecdotal accounts from service members in combat arms noting that bolts were discarded following a fight. Like photos, personal accounts are primary sources, but the stories definitely need vetting and contextualization, when possible.
 
mike radford said:
Mike, there is a discussion on Jan Still's forum about 43 and 44 dated "commercial" CZ27s. There are some useful links. Maybe the processes to divert a firearm to commercial sales was the same for rifles as handguns?
Click to expand...

I think there could be an answer to this in the pistol collecting realm. I mean there are commercial P38s from 1945. There are also commercial High Powers, FN1922s, CZs as you mention as well. I have no idea why, but there had to have been a reason if Walther was making them so late.
 
flynaked said:
I’ve wondered if researching the commercial makers in Austria might be of use on the SC’s, even the serial fonts might be a clue. Perhaps one of them had a contract for their assembly. Might also explain the m/m barrel bands seen on these, disassembly by a third party not necessarily under the same scrutiny as the factory, and then perhaps sent somewhere else, maybe a depot for the final acceptance on the barrel??

To the 1943 commercials, just thinking out loud, is there any chance they were built for purely commercial sales?? I have a late 1943 proofed hunting rifle from Zella Mehlis if this might be of any use at cross referencing commercial proofing and parts procurement, largely Astrawerke parts on it. One other thought, perhaps for the forestry service??
Click to expand...
The font on Single Claw rings is a good start. But a better thing to look at would be the inspection stamp found on top of the barrel. Once this stamp is identified then it should be easy to determine who assembled them.
 
ugafx4 said:
I think there could be an answer to this in the pistol collecting realm. I mean there are commercial P38s from 1945. There are also commercial High Powers, FN1922s, CZs as you mention as well. I have no idea why, but there had to have been a reason if Walther was making them so late.
Click to expand...

Both Oberndorf and Brünn at minimum were making commercial hunting rifles up till the end of the war as well, I have often wondered if Steyr did, but I have yet to see an example as I have with these other two.
 
Something that eludes me personally is depot reworks. I get that there's a huge spread on how things were conducted, but the actual reworking of said rifles intrigues me. Were the spare parts delivered raw, fitted, and then blued? Also, were the re-worked rifles stripped and refinished or did the salvaged parts keep their finish?
 
Many old collectors in Austria and Germany claim that Mahrholdt was the company who did the Single Claw sniper setup for Steyr. They most often even don't call it "Steyr SC mount", but is referred as "Mahrholdt Mount" in Europe.

Richard Mahrholdt was a gunsmith who learned and worked at Peterlongo in Innsbruck, Austria. He took over the shop from Johann Peterlongo around 1930. Mahrholdt died in 1949. If you research his name, you'll find out that he also published a book.
 
Very interesting, thank you for that information! I am familiar with Peterlongo’s rifles, but now I will have to research Mahrholdt!
 
Absolut said:
Many old collectors in Austria and Germany claim that Mahrholdt was the company who did the Single Claw sniper setup for Steyr. They most often even don't call it "Steyr SC mount", but is referred as "Mahrholdt Mount" in Europe.
Click to expand...

I was told the same by “Amberg” sometime back. Seems strange that nobody has asked the company or has any proof of this. However, long standing stories such as this usually have some truth to them.

On depot guns, parts were supplied to the depot system already blued in most cases. These parts didn’t need refinishing, but usually the host rifle did require refinishing. So there really isn’t a set way things were done, it was case by case. If the original finish was good a rebarreled Mauser rifle may have no refinishing, but if bad could be completely refinished.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Military Rifle Journal
Back
Top