Third Party Press

Where Did They All Come From?

20PZGR

Senior Member
I got a really nice, matching DOU 44 from Caesar1 and was showing a friend who is not in the hobby. He asked where did these WWII rifles come from. I explained as best I could about bring backs, RC's, and what else I knew. But I thought I would ask, all the matching pieces out there, were they primarily vet bring backs? What about bolt MM's? I know the whole take the bolt out and put any bolt back in theory - although does that mean matching pieces were all mailed home or stuffed in duffel bags? Were German weapons imported into the U.S. post war in bulk?
 
They imported them by the thousands in the 60's and 70's...

David Jackson of Jackson's Amory went to the warehouses of InterArms in the 60's and picked all he wanted from a warehouse full of pallets of 98k's, I've heard some amazing stories of the Golden Years of milsurps….


Pre-68 there was no requirement to import mark them.
 
..the warehouses of InterArms in the 60's and picked all he wanted from a warehouse full of pallets of 98k's, I've heard some amazing stories of the Golden Years of milsurps….

Pre-68 there was no requirement to import mark them.

I can't confirm this but stories from people who saw them said they racked and palletized better (more efficiently) without the bolts and that's how many of the bolt mismatches occurred.
 
I can't confirm this but stories from people who saw them said they racked and palletized better (more efficiently) without the bolts and that's how many of the bolt mismatches occurred.

That and the other story is that if imported with the bolts they were "guns", and if imported without the bolts, they were parts, and therefor the import tax was way lower...

Perhaps its a bit of both...
 
So, these former Wehrmacht weapons were warehoused by the Allies in Europe and then were sold in bulk tot he U.S. civilian market, some matching and some not?
 
Where did they all come from??

I've also heard/read that a lot of the Kar 98K's that Interarms had came out of Russia. We were not allowed to trade/deal with Russia
at the time so they were transited thru Yugoslavia with whom we were allowed to trade. Makes sense to me...…
Tks,
Bob32268
 
They imported them by the thousands in the 60's and 70's...

David Jackson of Jackson's Amory went to the warehouses of InterArms in the 60's and picked all he wanted from a warehouse full of pallets of 98k's, I've heard some amazing stories of the Golden Years of milsurps….


Pre-68 there was no requirement to import mark them.

Apart from those rifles with provenance I suspect many of our "vet bringbacks" are actually pre-68 imports...
 
Apart from those rifles with provenance I suspect many of our "vet bringbacks" are actually pre-68 imports...

I totally agree.... and my evidence is the percentage of duff cut guns. In my collection experience, far more .22 trainers are duff cut... (perhaps 40%)... when compared with K98s (5%) in round figures. Many pooh-pooh the duff, but it represents the real vbb.
 
I like my duffle cuts at least as much as the others for just that reason. It’s a provenance. And prefer ones unrepaired for sure. And besides at this point I know what shooting a k98 is like and have no burning need to shoot another! But to each his own as they say.
 
Very informative answers, Thanks to all. I had never thought about the duffel cut being the best COA, so to speak. I agree, I don't shoot my matching examples. My go to shooter is a BCD 43 Barrel / Receiver, and parts of at least 4 other rifles!
 
I've also heard/read that a lot of the Kar 98K's that Interarms had came out of Russia. We were not allowed to trade/deal with Russia
at the time so they were transited thru Yugoslavia with whom we were allowed to trade. Makes sense to me...…
Tks,
Bob32268

I don't know if I believe that particular story...I mean, 50's, 60's, 70's, the height of the cold war, I don't think the Soviet was sending much of their war booty West, and I don't think any of the old imports exhibited any typical RC features, unless they didn't molest them at the time, which I find hard to believe.

And I think we (the Western Allies) captured plenty...enough that I don't think we needed to import more from the east at the time...
 
From what I know, Bolt MM are from the GI's after the war. Coming back someone of high rank took the bolts out of all the guns and after the trip back to the US/Can the bolts were picked out not all original to the gun. Duffel cuts are guns that were brought back in duffel bags. The wood was to long even when taken apart so they usually cut the stock under the band. The as everyone knows there are RC's, Yugo reworks, Israeli marked and retrofitted. I had one that had a weird mark on the stock it was two digits then crossed swords then two digits Ex; 56X45 or something. Later found out after I sold it for another one it was a Polish capture. dou 44 # 8388 U. Some RC's were even found in Vietnam by US soldiers and brought back.
 
If they weren't sourced from Eastern Europe or Warsaw Pact countries, that leaves the either a whole lot of bring backs, unlikely, or then the Allies stockpiled and stored them? You always see photos of piled up surrendered weapons - what became of them? Scrapping seems a more Allied like act then wholesale storage, storage for what end? Obviously the milsurp market didn't much exist in 1946!
 
The book "Deadly Business" tells the story about Sam Cummings (Interarms) and the post WW2 arms trade. Sam reported seeing all manner of German equipment and small arms still laying about Western Europe in 1948. Also, he also reported a large cache of captured German weapons in England. Much of which he later obtained for the CIA to supply the Chinese Nationalist. It also mentions Interarms buying German Mausers and British Enfields by the boatload for the American market when those countries were upgrading to auto loading rifles. They were sold mostly through his Hunters Lodge outlet store. A lot of those early imports were nice, all matching examples, not like the RC's of the 1990's. No doubt a large number of today's non-import marked rifles can be credited to that time.
 
The book "Deadly Business" tells the story about Sam Cummings (Interarms) and the post WW2 arms trade. Sam reported seeing all manner of German equipment and small arms still laying about Western Europe in 1948. Also, he also reported a large cache of captured German weapons in England. Much of which he later obtained for the CIA to supply the Chinese Nationalist. It also mentions Interarms buying German Mausers and British Enfields by the boatload for the American market when those countries were upgrading to auto loading rifles. They were sold mostly through his Hunters Lodge outlet store. A lot of those early imports were nice, all matching examples, not like the RC's of the 1990's. No doubt a large number of today's non-import marked rifles can be credited to that time.

I agree Stan and I think this is the most plausible (and supportable) story. RCs certainly didn't show up until well after the fall of the iron curtain. Those who remember know we basically bankrupted the Warsaw Pact through an ever escalating arms race. After say 1991/92 those countries had a real need for western currency. There are period photos some of which were posted on this site of Allied soldiers pallet stacking K98k rifles in 1945. As for the scrap story there was lots of other things to scrap and rifles were probably not on their list. I believe it took several years to clean up most of the massive war metal left behind.
 
In the early 1960's Sear's in their sporting section actually sold surplus k98's right next to their Sears branded rifles and shotguns.
 
Too bad I wasn't around back then. I don't see anything like that at our Sears today...

And you probably wont ever again. Sears is nothing like it was when I was a kid in the 70's. They had it all except for groceries. You could even order a house from their catalog from what I hear.
 
Sears Rifles

I don't remember seeing any Mausers in Sears stores, but that was probably because we didn't have a Sears store until later. But I do remember when Sears sold all kinds of gun mail order. That was the first thing I looked at in the Sears Catalog was to see what they had in the firearm section of their catalog. Back then every firearm add you saw in any magazine had order blank at the bottom of the page that you could cut out and mail in to order a firearm. Now that was the good old days in buying guns and the way it should still be.
 

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