Gew 98 / Free Rifle / Neglected / Make it a shooter??

New to the forum and Mauser 98’s. Familiar with the rifle and some of its history, but I am a total novice to these. My buddy has had a rifle laying around for years and the other day he gave it to me. He wanted it out of his way. It’s made it from one man shed to the other over the course of a few moves and this time he handed it to me.

It’s a 1907 Danzig manufacture Gew98. It’s a 4*** serial code with an “a” so (14***) in the year of 1907 I assume. The barrel I believe has been shortened, it’s missing the front sight post and rear sight base and rear sight/elevator. It’s been drilled and tapped, two holes in the front over the crest and one in the rear. Bore is decent, I’ve seen worse. Action is nice and smooth. The stock, I have no idea what it’s story is, but it’s a surplus stock, just not sure for what.

Here’s what I’d like to do with this thing. Unless I’m ignorant and don’t know what I have, then I’ll leave it alone, but I’d prefer to get all the hardware back on it that it’s missing, regardless of its current configuration and get it checked out and make a shooter out of it. I may reblue it in the style of the older G98’s, (raw receiver and bolt), just need some help procuring the parts I may need. I’ve been seeing some vz24 parts that may fit....

Thanks in advance and look forward to hearing from y’all.

The fate of many Gew 98 rifles and many other German Imperial rifles of this era. They were prized for their actions and were made into many different types of sporter rifles.

Personally I would just clean this rifle up and keep it as a shooter. Just make sure the rifle is still chambered for the 7.92x57 round.

I see it still has its original front sight but the barrel is alot shorter then for a Gew 98 rifle. Always wise to check and be safe then sorry.

Thanks! Yeah, I intend to find some headspace gauges and/or get it checked out by a gunsmith. I’ve got it the barrel and action stripped clean and slicked up. It had been painted lol. I’m going to reblue it and try to find some of the missing parts for it and try to use the irons. I have no use putting a scope on this. However, irons may be challenging with whatever rear sight and front post I wind up with.....I’ll be sure to post pics when it’s done. I’ve redone a few rifles before and they turned out pretty good. We shall see. I almost got the shine back in the bore.....

If I get a repro rear sight, will it slide over the front sight base?

gilldawg79 said:

If I get a repro rear sight, will it slide over the front sight base?

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It might slide over it, especially as you are missing the front sight blade that goes in the dovetail of the front sight base. Then you would have to remove anything that remains of the original rear sight before you solder in another one. Originals are available, and repros are not, as far as I know, but if you were to use an original for the period of manufacture of the rifle, your minimum sighting distance is 400 meters with the original barrel length. Original sights are not generally cheap, but you might get lucky in somebody's parts box. You might try to see if you can use the drilled and tapped holes for a scope mount. That would make more sense if you want to shoot what is essentially a butchered rifle.

11mm said:

It might slide over it, especially as you are missing the front sight blade that goes in the dovetail of the front sight base. Then you would have to remove anything that remains of the original rear sight before you solder in another one. Originals are available, and repros are not, as far as I know, but if you were to use an original for the period of manufacture of the rifle, your minimum sighting distance is 400 meters with the original barrel length. Original sights are not generally cheap, but you might get lucky in somebody's parts box. You might try to see if you can use the drilled and tapped holes for a scope mount. That would make more sense if you want to shoot what is essentially a butchered rifle.

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Gun Parts Corp has or had original rear sights as well as repro GEW 98 sights. They were not priced too high.

They have complete repro rear sight assembly in stock. $48 https://www.gunpartscorp.com/products/1162630