Recent content by James K

Thanks very much for the interesting information. I confess that I was a bit surprised at the number of spares needed, since the Mauser bolt is pretty rugged and I wouldn't have thought so many replacements would have been needed. Jim

Can anyone define "armorers bolts". Would that be replacement bolts for the field armorers? If so, that is a large number, more like bolts for production rifles. Jim

I yield to the vast expertise shown here, and now believe without question that Mauser preferred to blow up a completed rifle rather than test barrels. As to barrel failure never damaging a receiver, that is nice to know, as a little bird told me that the usual result is a split receiver ring...

We are getting a bit out of the site subject, but no, the "dot" was not a hardness test, it was a barrel proof mark. As to testing a barrel without a receiver, it was done all the time, using a special test fixture with a breechblock that contained a firing pin. They put the barrel in a slot...

If you good folks don't believe barrels were proved before assembly, you may well be experts in rifles, but not in how they are made. Barrel proving was/is standard practice in almost all arms factories, for the reason I gave. There are other examples; on the Luger pistol, the barrel proof is...

Hi, RyanE, Sorry, but barrels were proof tested before they were released for assembly. The reason was that if a barrel was weak, it would blow during barrel proofing rather than after it was installed on a rifle, only to have it blow in the final proof, taking the expensive receiver and...

Hi, RyanE, Well, no. The German law (then and now, and for almost every other country that has national proof laws) is that arms offered for sale to the public or in the general firearms trade have to be proved. A firearm retained at the factory for testing, or whatever, would not have to be...

Hi, jbMauser, point taken on the font. Hi, RyanE, that military receiver was not "scrubbed", it was a German military contract receiver and the markings are correct and intact. To use it to build a commercial rifle could have been illegal diversion of government property. It might have...

Well, Mauser was making commercial sporters in 1936, but it is a pretty sure bet that that was not one of them. That receiver is not and never was a Mauser commercial sporter; it was a military contract receiver that might have been taken from the contract production for some company reason...

I see a lot of very odd things about that rifle that don't seem to jibe with the story, which is itself rather strange. But since I am not planning to buy it, I will refrain from criticism. Jim

Hmmm. I have trouble looking at the rifle, but FWIW, that marking is for the other Liege rifle factory, the government owned arsenal, Manufacture d'Armes de l'Etat, or MAE. (The name we associate with Belgian arms is Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre, the famous "FN", a private company.)...

That is the color those laminated stocks normally turn when sanded then given a polyurethane finish. It is a nice color but not original. The barrel is a replacement, probably marked that way so as not to be mixed up with barrels made for .30-'06. Jim

Is the right side rail marked "Mod. 98"? If not, it is not a K.98k. Pictures of the receiver ring, side rails and bolt will be needed. (The marking described might indicate a Spanish Model 1943, a decent rifle and shooter but not up to the German rifles in general quality or collectibility.) Jim

I have nowhere near the number of rifles some folks here have or have access to, but I have always considered that nothing more than a simple difference in jigging or manufacturing techniques among makers, or even at different times for the same maker. In determining whether a bolt is original...

Is the pistol WaA marked? The gun and holster are in such good condition that that, and the color of the holster, indicate that Herr Schneider might have been a member of the SS or held some official position in the civilian administration rather than being in the armed forces. (Allied forces...