K98 single claw for review

The original documents dating End of October 43 mention that they cannot waive on the Ma(h)rhol(d)t produced sniper rifles due to lack of production with scope and therefore the production of this mount will be continued in the same amount as previously. For simplification of supply as soon as possible a useable uniform mount for the commercial scope or at least a mount superior to the Marhol(d)t mount should be manufactured and introduced for troop testing. This therefore is also the reason why I believe once the LSR mount was introduced the SC mount was discontinued in production.

The fact that Mahrholdt made up these sniper rifles is therefore proofed by original documents. The only direct connection with Steyr they have is the fact that all of the rifles are based on Steyr manufactured rifles. I always had wondered why some of these sniper rifles have shortened safeties and checkered buttplates while others don't. I might only speculate, but maybe once the above mentioned approval was given they also supplied Mahrholdt with checkered buttplates for replacement and order to shorten the safety? It doesn't really make sense to me they would supply Steyr with the buttplates and order to shorten the safety when they do not outcarry the sniper conversion. Are the shortened safeties only to be seen with checkered buttplates, or did someone ever see a mixture?

Georg, thanks for the document details and I like that train of thought for the components in question.

The row of windows adjacent to the wall of the building with “Tiroler Waffenfabrik” on it each had an individual station at it for each smith, with overhead pulley driven machines behind that. Just imagine a row of 98k’s being fitted for mounts on those benches! Maybe the occasional Bockbüchse as well

mdarnell19 said:

Yes I agree with some of what you are saying. Mauser clearly placed some importance on snipers. This seems obvious to me when looking at late turrets (L block and later). What do we see? Mauser finished the stocks nicer and numbered the stocks while not doing this on non snipers. Mauser installed a special butt plate and shortened the safety. Sauer may have cared more about sniper then any other factory. They produced them the longest and made 4/5 different mounting systems, always wanting to improve.

Yes, often times it is difficult to read the serial number on the receiver of a high turret. However, I believe that they numbered the barrel primarily because they understood it was a critical component of the rifle and they wanted to insure the rifle had it's factory barrel. If this makes sense.

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I have many non sniper type rifles as well and numerous sniper variants. So, yes I know about base rifles as well.

You have no problem putting a couple of my rifles on your website.

So, it’s just a theory and you don’t have to like it. It makes sense to me that the serial number could have moved for sniper mount placement. If not it certainly looks better to see serial on barrel rather than covering it with a single claw mount.

Dave Roberts said:

Better pics of safety would certainly help clarify what type safety it sports .

The other thing I would ask to see is the WaAD36 Proof on this barrel , I would want to know if this is the original barrel . I say this because I have seen a few SC over the years that had Spandau Depot Proof on the Stock and of these SC they all had MM Rear Sights , but at that time I and many other were unaware of the WaAD36 Proof Mark , my point being was it only the Rear Sight that was swapped or the complete barrel. If that was the case would the Spandau depot had put the Serial Number on the Barrel . If not You may think your looking at a 1943 when it in fact it could have been a 1944 ???

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I’ve been pouring over the stuff in Vol. IIb on Steyr to try and get my head around this…..not easy when you’re a FNG

Page 610 of Vol.IIb on serial numbering indicates ‘Serial number with suffix moved from receiver to barrel at the “c” block’

Now is that considered to be at start of the block, at the end of the block or at some indeterminate point within the block?

I say this as my assumption looking at the photographs of the stock markings might indicate this base rifle as being a 1944 “c” block if the mount markings have been forced match to the base rifle, as the date in the stock barrel channel looks like being “16 4 44” and the photo of the right side stock marking is matching the photo shown on page 596 of Vol. IIb saying marking is consistent with stock marking from early no letter block of 1944 onwards.

Can’t immediately see any tie in with bnz barrel markings in this period being evident in photos either so the above in conjunction with indeterminate other barrel marking shown in photo, along with missing WaAD36 proof indicated a barrel change, probably post war?

Which brings us then back to the non-milled safety if this is a 1944 “c” block?

That’s without the issue of the mounts and serial stampings.

I might be able to find out how long this was in the deceased owners collection, and if I can, will report back.

GeeRam said:

I’ve been pouring over the stuff in Vol. IIb on Steyr to try and get my head around this…..not easy when you’re a FNG

Page 610 of Vol.IIb on serial numbering indicates ‘Serial number with suffix moved from receiver to barrel at the “c” block’

Now is that considered to be at start of the block, at the end of the block or at some indeterminate point within the block?

I say this as my assumption looking at the photographs of the stock markings might indicate this base rifle as being a 1944 “c” block if the mount markings have been forced match to the base rifle, as the date in the stock barrel channel looks like being “16 4 44” and the photo of the right side stock marking is matching the photo shown on page 596 of Vol. IIb saying marking is consistent with stock marking from early no letter block of 1944 onwards.

Can’t immediately see any tie in with bnz barrel markings in this period being evident in photos either so the above in conjunction with indeterminate other barrel marking shown in photo, along with missing WaAD36 proof indicated a barrel change, probably post war?

Which brings us then back to the non-milled safety if this is a 1944 “c” block?

That’s without the issue of the mounts and serial stampings.

I might be able to find out how long this was in the deceased owners collection, and if I can, will report back.

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I hope my reply has what your looking for , because I was a bit confused by your post and what exactly you asking or implying .


I believe the Base Rifle is a 1944 Rifle at least going from the limited Pics . I know that there is a small gap were You see in B and possibly C suffix that the Barrels did not have a Serial Number , if I recall correctly it had to do with factory being bombed and subsiquant moving .

As I mentioned in earlier post I believe these Ring & Bases are original that have been scrubbed then force matched to said Rifle to make the Fake SC. I believe the Base Rifle is a factory original and unaltered example , well except for the added Bases , Rings & Scope .

Just think in less than 100 years it will be a real 3rd reich sniper rifle !!!!!!

I think Dave is correct. Initially I thought the bases and rings were fake but they do appear to be originals that where renumbered. Good catch Dave!

Also as Dave mentioned, the Steyr factory was bombed during the C block. Production resumed in the D block months later. By this time the serial numbering had been moved to the barrel. So C blocks can be found both ways as there is some overlap. Hope this makes sense.

Cheers chaps.........queries and questions all answered - appreciate the clarifications.

flynaked said:

It’s Mahrholdt with two H’s bruh. Here are a couple of pictures from 43 when they were bombed, one of the building itself and the other looking down Maria-Theresien-Straße from the other direction. I’m curious how early Georg might have in the documents. Probably purely coincidental but here’s a picture of military trucks out front in 1941.

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Just for your info, this photo you posted taken outside Mahrholdt, looking north towards the arch, was taken after the war, not in 1943, and certainly after 1947, but most likely taken around 1950-ish.

The car with the Vienna license plates, facing camera in the foreground is a Standard Vanguard Phase 1, which first went on sale during 1947, and even as late as 1950, when its was the third best selling imported car into West Germany, only some 400 odd were sold there, so it would have been a very rare and unusual sight in Austria.

You got me on that picture as I didn’t know the date of it, and wouldn’t pretend to know British cars. However the one with the Kübelwagon out front is dated 1941 on the back, and the other is from the December bombing or possibly later according to where I sourced it. They were operational early enough in 1944 to not have anything to do with the assembly of that horrendous pile presented here.

It wasn't the car that initially made me think post-war, it just confirmed it.
It was actually the fashions of the two ladies walking away from camera on the left, that I spotted first, given they are wearing post 'New Look' designs........(ex-wife was in fashion designer with a particular interest in that era, so a lot of her knowledge was accidentally imparted to me subconsciously over the years that we were together......)

As a result I did also spend about an hour on Google maps in the area around the ex-Mahrholdt premises at 10 Leopoldstrasse, trying to spot which building was the bomb damaged one, guessing it might have been repaired......but couldn't find it at all. May have been pulled down and rebuilt with something else, but I think looking at the mountains behind and the bit of the tower visible behind, it maybe on the other side of the arch to Mahrholdt, somewhere off Maria-Theresien-Strasse...??

Sorry for the off topic thread creep......

Ha! No problem sir, it is really fun to research such things, and as you have shown, there is no limit to the perspective with which you can approach them, nice detective work! I’ve got an Austrian book on the bombing of Innsbruck, I’ll dig it out later, it may have some additional details on this.

Sorry about the bad pics but they are what I can find for now. Getting over shingles, I hope, so digging for the rifles and getting better pics is not happening for a while.

Number 163 H with flat butt plate and normal early safety and 7757 G are kinda mixed. Stocks on both are matching but I forgot to get pics, 7757 has slight cleaning but great metal mismatched scope. 163 has a ?armorer? replaced bolt body with some remaining mixed parts, matching scope with some neglect and leather contact damage from the original covers. They should help on some questions.

More pics, if it will let me.

More coming.

A few more.

Mike, hope you get well soon. Thanks for posting pictures of your two rifles. Is your G block numbered on the barrel? I can't see a serial number in the pictures.

Edit: I see it now. Nice 1944 rifle. And the H block is a nice 1943 rifle. Thanks again.

Yeah, hope you get better soon, shingles can be nasty.

Interesting pics, and that WaAD36 stamp that appears to be missing on the rifle here in the UK is a big red flag, although I pressume it could have been re-barreled post war years ago, with a used barrel. I spent a bit of time reading through all the barrel code info in Vol 1 and Vol II knowing that this UK rifle could be right in the sub-contract barrel use by Steyr after the bombing raids destroyed their barrel making plant.....but even then the codes in the UK rifle barrel didn't tally with anything in the books that I could see..........but, again I'm still learning all this stuff.

I will confess that I had been seriously interested in buying this a few months ago when I first saw it, but that interest has obviously now passed, and I'll return to concentrate on having a repro sniper built which I can shoot, as we have to justify ownership by shooting them here in the UK.

As for the WaAD36 stamp which seems to be on the snipers only, could this be a Steyr stamp to indicate to the factory staff that this rifle passed the accuracy test, to show it needed to be set aside, for transporting to Mahrholdt at Innsbruck, and therefore a bit like the TR letters stamp applied to Lee-Enfield No.4 rifles that passed the accuracy test at the Maltby and BSA factories so they could be identified for setting aside for them to be dispatched down to London to Holland & Holland for sniper conversion into No.4(T) snipers. Just a thought?

GeeRam, the building is still there, it is the Palais Sarnthein at: Lat 47.2630 Long 11.3950. Finally dug that book out and remembered something I read before. The building was partly damaged in Dec 1943 as seen in another picture here. The interesting part, is that it mentions the building as having been completely burned out a year later, that explains the timeline of SC production IMO. As I mentioned in a previous thread, we now know that they were active in a yet unknown capacity with SDPAG in 1945. Presumably the building was pulled together in some form of functional capacity before the end of the war, unless they simply operated from a different location. It may very well have been from the same location though, seeing as 1948 pictures already show a completely renovated building.

mdarnell19 said:

Dave, this brings ups another interesting question. What is the earliest Single Claw we have seen? I am curious to know when Marholdt started converting them.

Maybe Absolute has read in some of the original documents when Marholdt was contracted or received the first batch for conversion. I would guess that it was mid to late 1943. If that is the case then the OP's rifle is too early anyways (assuming it is from 1943, which it appears to be from these few pictures). But that is just a guess.

Great discussion guys. Love talking about Single Claws. I know Dave has to be excited!

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It is a great discussion.

IIRC, when my SC 163 H was originally posted about late 2015 it was said or speculated? that it was the earliest known SC, definitely a 43 with standard safety and butt plate. Have posted more pics before but I will post a few. Scope is 66773. The barrel has the correct proofs. Pictures of it must be elsewhere in another better set.

Mahrholdt was in Innsbruck, correct?