Have you an image of the siderail? (Mod.98) I track this in my trends work.
Interestingly, S&S (Sauer) drops serialing the barrel not long before this rifle, up through the mid "d", early "e" block both barrel & receiver are serialed, this changes by the early "e" block, though hard to say exactly when it occurs because not everyone takes such good & detailed pictures of their rifles.
I saw your posts on Gunboards this morning also, really a nice selection, and interesting that you bought them all 20 plus years ago, at roughly the same time, and that you did so well! Not a lot of good information readily available back then, and I remember the time quite well, as I was buying then also, - not as many humpers certainly but it was also a time of limited information, so you could get snookered easily back then also. I got stuck a number of times, I subsequently found out..
Re- the changes in serialing and acceptance (not proofs), were part of the general rationalization of German industry. While Germany had been officially on a war footing since before the war, it was never really taken too serious, until the winter of 1941-42, when due to the circumstances brought on by the failure of the Russian campaign, Hitler personally intervened, starting in September 1941, increasingly so through November, he finally brought the will and authority required to overcome the most stubborn resistance (mostly German political officials, Gauleiter’s, petty bureaucrats protecting turf, and an idiotic procurement program - and military interference requiring constant changes to programs.. all hindered mass production, which was well under way in the US and Britain) to the obvious need to rationalize industry for total war. By early 1942, most armament firms production began to show a minimalist approach to serialing and acceptance, in the case of some firms, like S&S and MB, they even dropped acceptance of the bolt bodies when the parts were made in-house (not subcontracted).
Later some of these rather aggressive changes were toned back, acceptance comes back for obvious reasons, some serialing in key areas, as the original orders were taken a little too serious, and after all acceptance is primarily a function of responsibility, its purpose is to be able to identify problems when they develop, and serialing is really a necessity when your industry hasn't achieved complete interchangeability with its components, as the German industry never really did. (It could have, German machine tool industry was nearly the equal of the United States back then, - no one was better, back then, over the US in machine tooling, but due to the nature of German rearmament, it was never implemented before the war..)
Nice looking rifle. It looks totally honest (a real Veteran).
Bob32268
Just one question, can you tell what serial # letter block this ce 42 is in? Is it an 'f' ? The photo is not clear but I've seen this 'letter' on other rifles as well. Thanks Again, James
James, it is an "f" and is correct in every way. S&S is one of the more difficult firms to decipher the suffixes, "e", "L" and "b" are often easily confused if the images are not clear.
S&S is one of my favorite firms also, really the only privately held firm that assembled rifles. BLM, Mauser, ERMA privately held but hardly "family" businesses, - the rest were all state owned to one degree or another. Of course in a socialist state, like nazi Germany was, there was no real "private property" or even any real decision making as far as manufacturing went, - hell even in the "democracies", like the United States production was very "socialized" during the war, strict controls and government interference that would make obama blush was widespread.
Re- siderails, just confirming what each rifle possesses is fine for my work, I trend changes among all the manufacturers and this is one of the things I track. I know what they should be, of course, but I rather like to leave nothing to chance.