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Parts that fall off Gew 88's

Mauser4me

Senior Member
Hey guys so I'm putting together my first Gew 88 so it's got me learning about this new type of rifle.

I noticed that bolt heads and rear sight sliders seem to be an item that alot of rifles are missing. Why is it that these pieces go missing? Design flaw or?

Thanks for the info guys! Really curious where these parts go. Can't find any info out on the web.
 
No flaw . A lot of the rifles from SA had the boltheads removed before importation . Also there has been a lot of parts "stealing ' to "Restore" another rifle . That mainly ends up with the wrong parts on a rifle model . Because of all the incorrect info now being posted about Gew-88's , people will take a part off of a semi rare rifle to "restore" a very common one , with an incorrect part on top of it .
 
I suspect the missing bolt heads are due to being demilled back in the day, possibly as being "war bond" rifles. Many 88's are seen missing the bolt head and having the firing pin clipped, which is fairly easy to do.

Gew98 rifles of similar ilk have the bolt face ground, and drill rod punched into the muzzle and chamber--quite more elaborate work than demilitarizing an 88.

Strangely, I've never heard of a 'war bond' Kar98a. They were becoming the predominant long arm in the late war period, yet none show up with any demill features.
 
Most of the 88's floating around with missing parts came out of Ecuador.Some were missing the complete bolt assembly.Others missing just the bolt head.The bores on most of were in excellent condition.I picked up several of them and managed to get all of the missing parts before the supply of such parts dried up.
 
I suspect the missing bolt heads are due to being demilled back in the day, possibly as being "war bond" rifles. Many 88's are seen missing the bolt head and having the firing pin clipped, which is fairly easy to do.

Gew98 rifles of similar ilk have the bolt face ground, and drill rod punched into the muzzle and chamber--quite more elaborate work than demilitarizing an 88.

Strangely, I've never heard of a 'war bond' Kar98a. They were becoming the predominant long arm in the late war period, yet none show up with any demill features.

My 1915 kar98a had some demill features when I bought it a few years ago. The matching firing pin was clipped and I had it fixed so it could be shootable again.
 
I see. Glad I picked up an all-matching 88 bolt a few months ago then. Sounds like they're too common.

Demilling sucks.
 

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