Third Party Press

BCD BNZ 4 Dual Stamped Receiver

WreckTangle

Mad Dog 20/20 Connoisseur (RIP Brother 06-05-203)
So cruising the net looking and stumbled upon this and it caught my attention.

What's the deal with this BCD 4 rifle? Seems to have a lightly stamped BNZ on the receiver, but on the 2nd photo its showing an astrawerk "1" making it a gustloff. Out of town so I don't have my books, can anyone shed some light on it? Excuse my lack of knowledge I'm still learning.

Rifle is missing rear band, handguard and someone removed the entire rear sight. Pictures are crap but it's what I found.
 

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One of the many "dual code" rifles made during the war. it's a BCD supplied receiver completed as a rifle by Steyr BNZ.
 
Like Dave said and our picture reference really has some great stuff in it, here are three such handstamped examples. When Radom was lost, the supply of receivers dried up until the tooling could be relocated. These receivers are marked from Astrawerke only and do not have anything to do with Gustloff, other than having been slated for them, ie. the roll mark. In this timeframe, many oddball receivers show up as can be seen below.



http://www.k98kforum.com/showthread.php?7873-hand-stamp-bnz4-E-359-receiver&highlight=bnz

http://www.k98kforum.com/showthread.php?24489-BCD-BNZ-4-fully-matching-factory-new

http://www.k98kforum.com/showthread.php?1408-Neat-bnz4-handstamp-S-42-G&highlight=bnz
 
Yep. Totally forgot about the picture references.

With both of your responses I've done some further research. I've found other dual code examples that have generally the same "weak" BNZ rollmark. Even though its a Gustloff receiver why would Steyr apply, what appears to be, a weak rollmark?
 
Again this receiver has nothing to do with Gustloff other than originally being intended for them, they were roll marked at Astrawerke and then sold to SDP instead. Always look at the RR inspections to know who had a hand in working on one, of which there is zero from Gustloff. Most but not all of the diverted receivers to SDP were hand stamped when received, our reference also has an example of one of these that wasn’t. Whether these were “good” receivers sold to SDP or ones taken off a scrap pile is a different story. The answer is probably both, the army largely got the good ones, with the scrap being purchased and diverted directly to the SS contract, as stated in THE contract.
 

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