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BYF 43 Weird Bolt Situation?

Ndean9142

Member
Good Morning everyone Happy Thanksgiving. So I recently viewed (didn’t purchase) a Byf 43 “All Matching” k98. However there’s the high chance that the Bolt Handle/ Body was forced matched post war. So the serial number on the bolt handle “matches” the rifle and all other components but the font and size is clearly different and appears to be grinded down and renumbered for there isn’t fresh wear marks where it contacts the receiver but it also has the WAF Eagle stamps on the side and underneath of the bolt handle as well, however all other parts of the bolt are original and match the rest of the rifle, fonts match up and everything. So what would be a logical reason for having a mismatched forced bolt body, but also having the original firing pin, extractor, shroud, safety and cocking mechanism with the original font and what not? I did read on forums many possibilities but one that stuck out was some guy talked to an old German soldier from ww2 and he said that when they cleaned their weapons in the field they would throw all their bolts into a bucket of diesel but I’m not sure if the bolts were stripped or fully assembled. If they were assembled wouldn’t it make more sense to have a completely mismatching bolt That matched itself but not the rest of the rifle and not a partial? Any insight would be greatly appreciated gents thank you. I can post pics if needed I took some screen shots. Just trying to further educate myself on what to look for and what to stay away from.
 
Yes, bolt obviously renumbered.
 

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As far as knowing if bolts would have been renumbered by armorers, experts who have done the research such as MrFarb might be able to elaborate more. As I mentioned in your post on Gunboards, in my opinion, I don’t see that being done to a bolt body. The time is taken to renumbered bolts like this for monetary reasons, to make it “matching” and make it look as close as possible to original, therefore boosting the value. But if you know what you’re looking at, you can tell an original from a restamp a mile away. The price tag of $1625 is too much for a forced bolt. The guy selling it even mentions it may have been force matched... If the internal parts look original, just the bolt body is off, for some reason that was done post-war. The German military wouldn’t have done that. I couldn’t say what happened to the original body.
 
byf43

Back end appears good, but bolt body is a real "gomer".

Nuff said.
 
Just speculating here, but could this rifle been a Norwegian used rifle? I have seen that their bolt roots been renumbered to their numbering system. So could someone re-grounded off the Norwegian applied number and tried to put the matching numbers back on? :)
 
98k bolt question

Just speculating here, but could this rifle been a Norwegian used rifle? I have seen that their bolt roots been renumbered to their numbering system. So could someone re-grounded off the Norwegian applied number and tried to put the matching numbers back on? :)

I doubt it. I've seen Norwegian restamped bolts and they are much more professional looking than this one. Looks like an 8th grader with
a set of hardware store stamps worked on this one.
Tks,
Bob32268
 
I doubt it. I've seen Norwegian restamped bolts and they are much more professional looking than this one. Looks like an 8th grader with
a set of hardware store stamps worked on this one.
Tks,
Bob32268

I stated that maybe someone else ground off the Norwegian number off the root and tried to restamp the German numbers back on which I agree looks like an 8th grader did it.
 

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