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Recent find: GEW 98 SS conversion to K98 Stock mismatch...

rockisle1903

Senior Member
Picked this one up over the weekend at a non collector show..A type I rarely attend....I'm glad I was bored Sunday, and decided to go...I literally walked in and seen a guy carrying a Mauser with a pimp shined stock that would make Mitchells proud and a fake sling...I asked to see it and to my surprise....This is what I found...I know it doesn't fit with the typical..The sight assembly is completely unnumbered, the bolt body has no number that is visible, but is the correct conversion style, crown N proofing mushed in with the eagle...Safety and cocking piece electropencilled to match...No markings on the shroud and firing pin is Imperial mismatched...The front band of the pinned type..What was weird was the Late Dot stock it was in, the previous owner drilled it for the pin so apparently he was familiar with the old stock? Replaced the stock due to the pin not staying in place anymore? Who knows...Here are the pics...Comments welcome..Except from you Rob...Lol....You know where it's at and it isn't going anywhere for now...Thanks for looking...I don't know why they keep loading mixed up...Sorry about that...I did forget to mention there is NO barrel serial number....Never had one...
 

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Last edited:
pics of the bands....
 

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Stock pics...

Cover your eyes...they really worked this one over..Interesting that it also had an imperial bandspring at one time..Currently has a normal one..Butt plate blued which may be significant...Basic not drilled for cleaning rod Brunn stock and, unnumbered and unnumbered dot handguard....It looks like it was stained DARK brown as you can see internally and it looks like bubba corrected his work externally....
 

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I'd bet if you took higher-res pics of the bolt flat and ran them through some digital imaging software, using the various toning/contrast/color wash options therein, you would likely find the EP'd serial. I would experiment with the cocking piece first to try and figure out which values work best.

Great rifle!
 
What the heck, I'll throw my 2 cents in. Neat rifle (whats left). The skull/cross is pretty typical for the barrel conversion date of 1937. No serial on barrel? Odd, but something I've learned about these is sometimes there are things that don't make sense. It's because they are reworks, and reworks don't have to follow rules to get accepted like factory guns, so you get some stupid stuff. Stock has nothing to do with the original assembly, its' a really late stock, much too late to find it's way on a rework anything.

This rifle never went to the depot at Dachau for upgrading (has no "SS2" skull), which included bending the bolt, welding the pin hole up on the front band (both sides), and converting the stock to band spring front end with bolt cutout added. I have a theory on why the SS did all this work to them, it's a theory that makes sense but I digress. As originally reworked by the SS (skull+), this rifle would have had a straight bolt in it that matched by serial.

So, at some point the bolt was bent (looks ground too) - by who? No way to tell honestly, but it escaped the upgrade to true 98k configuration by Dachau (SS2) so it was somewhere issued and being used. Maybe it went to the local repair shop and the bolt was replaced/bent/modified. EP'd numbers are not unheard of, but the way/location of the safety number actually causes me some pause, as it's the typical SSZZA4 numbering and this rifle has no association with them that I can tell. When I see typical features from different SS rifles combined I get concerned that somewhere along the way people have been messing with it, people that don't know what they are doing. Could be a found part too. Anyway, I suspect the bolt is period to the rifle to some degree, It just feels like it. An improperly bent bolt could easily lose the serial number on the flat from heating/bending but I suspect this isn't the bolt from the original rework by the SS. Had the rifle retained the original stock we would know a lot more about it.
 
Is it possible the bolt was later replaced by sszza4 and would have had only a wrist/keel skull inspection? How early do the EP/etched serials show up? Just so used to seeing them on 1943 and later rifles, I can’t recall if they turn up earlier.
 
The balance of the bolt numbering/work doesn't look like SSZZA4 depot. One thing, practices could be carried from workshop to workshop as Waffenmeister moved around, so it's possible this practice was carried to the SSZZA4 depot from somewhere else, such as this guy. The guy that did this may be the actual guy that moved, lol. You just never know.
 
What the heck, I'll throw my 2 cents in. Neat rifle (whats left). The skull/cross is pretty typical for the barrel conversion date of 1937. No serial on barrel? Odd, but something I've learned about these is sometimes there are things that don't make sense. It's because they are reworks, and reworks don't have to follow rules to get accepted like factory guns, so you get some stupid stuff. Stock has nothing to do with the original assembly, its' a really late stock, much too late to find it's way on a rework anything.

This rifle never went to the depot at Dachau for upgrading (has no "SS2" skull), which included bending the bolt, welding the pin hole up on the front band (both sides), and converting the stock to band spring front end with bolt cutout added. I have a theory on why the SS did all this work to them, it's a theory that makes sense but I digress. As originally reworked by the SS (skull+), this rifle would have had a straight bolt in it that matched by serial.

So, at some point the bolt was bent (looks ground too) - by who? No way to tell honestly, but it escaped the upgrade to true 98k configuration by Dachau (SS2) so it was somewhere issued and being used. Maybe it went to the local repair shop and the bolt was replaced/bent/modified. EP'd numbers are not unheard of, but the way/location of the safety number actually causes me some pause, as it's the typical SSZZA4 numbering and this rifle has no association with them that I can tell. When I see typical features from different SS rifles combined I get concerned that somewhere along the way people have been messing with it, people that don't know what they are doing. Could be a found part too. Anyway, I suspect the bolt is period to the rifle to some degree, It just feels like it. An improperly bent bolt could easily lose the serial number on the flat from heating/bending but I suspect this isn't the bolt from the original rework by the SS. Had the rifle retained the original stock we would know a lot more about it.
Slightly off topic, but speaking of Dachau, I went there yesterday. Weird experience. There were all sorts of shops that the SS forces the prisoners to work in. I looked for small arms on the list of workshops but couldn't find it. The list was not very specific. But there were also loads of Small factories and workshops outtside of the immediate vicinity of the camp.
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