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Chapter 2: Simson and the Karab98b

ugafx4

I buy capture paper guns
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Discussion on Chapter 2: Simson and the Karab98b pages 62-103 Approx 40 minutes of reading
 
One thing I found interesting is the IWG estimated the service life of ex-wartime rifles to be 8 years. Would have guessed less myself.
 
I didn’t realize how small the production numbers were on these rifles.... they are pretty neat rifles as well. I have never been to SOS, but how many examples of the Kar98b might be there in a given year... maybe 1 or 2?
 
This chapter is probably one of my most favorite from the volume one book. It really is a fascinating chapter.

And I believe I have only seen one 98b that came up for sale at the SOS show and I believe that was bought a couple years ago. I did see another one but it had major issues someone drilled and tapped for a scope about 2 years ago. These rarely do come up for sale and when they do they usually bring big money and a lot of attention I would know I've been on the hunt for one aggressively for 6 years!

Someday I will add one to my collection
 
I haven’t re-read the chapter yet, been too tied up. But I’ll offer some insights soon.

I really got into them when I wrote this, but finding a matching 98b is impossible now.


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On p 74, is there a linkage between the gothic Mod 98 marking adopted in 1930 and this particularity of Feima receivers ? They kept the 1930 rule ?
 
On p 74, is there a linkage between the gothic Mod 98 marking adopted in 1930 and this particularity of Feima receivers ? They kept the 1930 rule ?

I thought the same myself when I wrote the chapter, but don't think so. If you remember, the Gew.98 siderail markings (and Karab.98b) were also Gothic, I think it was the old school way of marking them. It was during the Nazi era that the Gothic style lettering was forbidden, along with the old Sütterling script, and replaced with the more modern Alte Din used even today (I think). Hitler wanted to make Germany a modern society, and changing fonts was one item on his plan. Erma was an old school maker and I think resisted the change for whatever reason, you could probably come up with a few ideas -- maybe they were cheap since they had the die, but maybe they liked the old world way.
 
At first I was surprised there isn't more discussion about this chapter, but then I realized something - due to lack of examples to collect, there just aren't any collectors that can care. Looking back, I'm pretty happy with how the chapter is. I have to admit that I had to learn everything in these chapters from scratch as I had never cared about the Weimar era or 98b's prior. I wished I could have located an example of a 98b (still never have) but I was surprised to find that I had accidentally purchased an early S28 type rifle on the forum trader here. I bought the DWM 1918 sn 5191 on the trader as a Gew,98m flat sight conversion, only after working on the research for the chapter did I realize I owned one of the very rifles I would need for the book. If someone was good, they could actually collect S28 rifles just based on the info in the book, and maybe sneak up on a few. The roll marked 1920 (mentioned many times, LOL again) is a dead giveaway. The early guns are straight bolt so you can find them. I wrote a lot on the S28 rifles - at the time it was suspected that S28 was either Mauser or DWM (not many researched them), I felt I had enough evidence to say it was DWM/BKIW Karlsruh - its not easy having to make a definitive call where none has been made before (publicly). We did that a few times with these books, lay a marker down where none had been.

The majority of collectors didn't know much about 98b's at the time this chapter was written (well Paul knew what they were along with other people interested in the Weimar era guns). Information had been collected for many years but nobody has ever put anything on paper about them. I compiled a lot of info, discovered some minor things, and was lucky to get a ton of information collected by Hans Lockhoven on 98b's. It's been so long since we did Vol.1 in the scheme of things I forgot a lot of what we did so it was nice to see it again. I have more documents and data on 98b's that didn't make it into the book, but nothing that would further what is written. I forwarded all of the observations to Paul and he said it doubled his data, so I felt good about that.

The Simson 98b is a fascinating rifle in the history of the 98k, too bad there aren't more around to study and collect. Also, the depot assembled 98b type rifles, wish there were more.
 
One cool thing I remembered after looking through the chapter - on the 1924 Simson 98b, P.82. Did you notice the rear sight ramp is marked "S 147 R" - this is the earliest use of the 147 code I have ever seen. The "R" date code corresponds to 1929. Yes, Sauer made rear sight ramp from 1929 marked S 147. That is exceptional IMO, and dates to the time the S.s. rear sight ramps were being retrofitted on previous production. What I didn't realize at the time or feel was important was it isn't S.s. marked like later ones. As can be seen in the beginning of Ch.3, the idea of a replaceable ramp to allow ammunition changes was a big selling point. A few other photos (attached) showing the skeleton type rear sight base, which was the earliest type. You see these on really early Gew.98 flat sight conversions.


Remember, if you see something in the book and maybe think another photo or angle would help you see something, I have many of the original photos I took for my chapters and will be happy to expand on what we can see.
 

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Super interesting info Mike and a great read. I have to wonder if that is Sauer’s first year of new production for military parts or if something earlier might pop up! It would be interesting to compile a list of known parts they produced in the Weimar era. Thanks for posting this, you jogged my memory of a part I completely forgot I had. Here’s a barrel band from the same era too.
 

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Any reason Simson would have discontinued the receiver roll mark and gone to all the different "S" marks on the right receiver? Odd.

Maybe answered my own question...in the book it says this coincided with adoption of secret mfg codes. That didn't make sense to me initially (why would Simson attempt to hide the origin of their rifles?) If other mfg simply used the "S" code (maybe with different fonts) they would all be attributed to Simson. Make sense?
 
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Any reason Simson would have discontinued the receiver roll mark and gone to all the different "S" marks on the right receiver? Odd.

That's actually a good question. The first theory that comes to mind is to muddy the waters as to who made it, and by using the S it suggest Simson who was the allowed maker. There was an effort to camouflage production, even though the IAMCC inspectors were gone. Perhaps the Germans knew they were going to exceed allowed production numbers and were setting up to do it. By removing the name of the company it does a good job of hiding the manufacturer.
 
Here are few images of my Karab98b (sorry I don't have better pictures of it at the moment). I came across this last year from a local gentleman and was astonished. It is a beauty. Everything matches except the bolt (but the bolt is a Simson Karab98b bolt). No import mark on it.
 

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Wanted to add two more questions to this thread.

1. How and when did the depot system in Germany get started? I am guessing it was originally for armor and artillery?
2. Was there a reason they updated the 2 digit serialized parts to 4 digits?
 
Wanted to add two more questions to this thread.

1. How and when did the depot system in Germany get started? I am guessing it was originally for armor and artillery?
2. Was there a reason they updated the 2 digit serialized parts to 4 digits?

Question 1 is easy :laugh:, same year as when Germany was created : 1871.
More seriously, I think the "Zeugamt" system depends on the military administrative regions : "Korpsbereiche" during the Kaiserreich and "Wehrkreise" thereafter.

Before 1871, I would guess that each significant kingdom/state had its own "Zeughaus" (arsenal) allowing manufacturing and storage.

Maybe German members can provide more details.
 
I don't know if this helps but these are some of the Simson 98b parts for my collection
 

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