The gunsmith you choose matters

I generally like Mark Novac and he has alot of skill and knowledge on how to do things, but IMO he did a number on this Gewehr 98. Barn-find condition and all matching, but he went too far.

-wire-wheel the buttplate and then blued it
-broke a band spring (he says it was broken to begin with but in the screenshot he shows to dignify it, it just looks compressed, not broken to me)
-replaced (hopefully not threw out) the original matching clipped firing pin
-globbed some 'stock moisterizer' all over the thing
-scrubbed the stock with a soapy scratch pad and at later points in the video it looks to me like he had removed alot of original finish

If it were my rifle, I would be upset to say the least. I was really surprised by this one - he usually has pretty good judgement on what NOT to do with conservation

I cringed a little when he “treated” the entire inside of the stock.

He's an interesting and entertaining character, but a lot of his work is cringey.

I can’t stand that guy. He once raped an Ingolstadt rebuilt Danzig 1902. Now he’s ruined a Simson.

Individuals such as him do not have a view toward collecting, its refinish and get it out the door. I would venture to guess the majority of his customers do not know the difference between what he did and an actual do no harm restoration.

I think what hurts the most of watching that video for me. Is that my 1916 Simson was roughly in the same condition. But, seeing how my rifle turned out in the end compared to this one in this video? I personally would have been ashamed at myself that I went too far. I hope the owner of it is happy, but I sure would not be.

And honestly I brought mine back with lots of patience, lots of love, and the allman brothers band to keep me occupied. Didn't know about the Danzig 1902 either Cyrus. Quite frankly I don't want to know.

You and me both brother, a bit of oil and elbow grease goes a long way.

Dude....the homebrew counterbore

"If I can't counterbore, I'll re- barrel it"

The crap he did to this rifle was unforgivable. I wouldn't let those sausage fingers within a mile of anything I own...

" I'm not rebluing anything" reblues the buttplate lol. After he busted out the dawn dish soap I had a feeling the refinishing part was coming soon! I honestly just fast forwarded it after that, what was a beautiful rifle which really only needed some oil and elbow grease turned into a turd. Absolutely disgusting

If you want to see something interesting really read those comments. There are people replying that they have done the exact same thing. One of them even said "I'm going to soak an original stock in acetone." In the year 2024. People are still ruining original collectible military rifles.

That was a difficult watch. Ignorance and overzealous cleaning/conservation seems to be the real killer of original condition rifles these days imo, we've passed the age of sporterization. Less is more in terms of cleaning is true for most collectibles and something that needs to be put out more towards newer members getting into this sphere, especially with WWI stuff considering the survival rate of nice Gewehr 98s.

Novak does a lot of dumb stuff, and it kills me how many people point to his videos for tips on restoration.

edit:

Mauser4me said:

I was really surprised by this one - he usually has pretty good judgement on what NOT to do with conservation

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I'm going to disagree with this part. He's put out plenty of really bad stuff, with some of it being on the questionable and easy to screw up end and some of it being outright wrong. I have no doubt that he knows what he's doing, but I suspect that the more careful techniques make for bad Youtube.

I'm particularly annoyed by him because it seems like every time I've got to talk someone down from screwing up a gun they're citing Novak as an expert. He's not a conservationist. He's a "restorer" with all that the scare quotes implies. But because he has a Youtube channel with a bunch of views people act like he's the final say.

I'm the first person to say that not every 100 year old rifle is a priceless gem that needs to have museum-grade conservation performed on it. But there's a lot of daylight between taking a conservative approach that keeps your collection - even the ones that aren't truly unique and worth taking the utmost care with them - shootable and functioning, and doing this kind of spit-shine.

This man loves to blue mauser parts that were never blued originally. He also loves to say "Do the maintence" as if this rifle is getting ready to go back to the front lines. I imagine after a couple of shots the end of the muzzle would have cleaned up and shot okay. Not that a rifle like this one needs to shoot at all.

Fellas might want to look twice at any milsurp for sale coming out of his area of south Carolina...

bnz41john said:

He also loves to say "Do the maintence" as if this rifle is getting ready to go back to the front lines. I imagine after a couple of shots the end of the muzzle would have cleaned up and shot okay. Not that a rifle like this one needs to shoot at all.

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That's what gets me about these "collectors" who want to keep their weapons "front line ready." These weapons are no longer combat effective, they would get out classed instantly in a modern combat situation. They are veterans, they put in their time and did their service, now they should be treated like any other veterans; given the respect they've earned and liquored up/oiled every once in a while.

bnz41john said:

This man loves to blue mauser parts that were never blued originally. He also loves to say "Do the maintence" as if this rifle is getting ready to go back to the front lines. I imagine after a couple of shots the end of the muzzle would have cleaned up and shot okay. Not that a rifle like this one needs to shoot at all.

Fellas might want to look twice at any milsurp for sale coming out of his area of south Carolina...

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I hate this. It's the moral equivalent of Mitchell's stripping and polishing their bolts on a K98k in my mind. Him going nuts of the furniture is also troubling. He reminds me of Militech.

I can't really say a lot of bad stuff about him. The Gew 91 video on his channel was my Gew 91 before I sold to a friend of mine. I will say the first idea to repair the Gew 91 was really stupid. His second idea that you see in the video was a lot better then the first. I guess all I can really say is. Don't let popularity get to your head.

PrayingMantis said:

That's what gets me about these "collectors" who want to keep their weapons "front line ready." These weapons are no longer combat effective, they would get out classed instantly in a modern combat situation. They are veterans, they put in their time and did their service, now they should be treated like any other veterans; given the respect they've earned and liquored up/oiled every once in a while.

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I understand the thrust of the idea, with the caveat that not all collectors are alike in their focus and goals. To my mind that "front line ready" mantra isn't about actually thinking you're going to face off against whoever it is you're afraid of with a 100 year old rifle, it's about keeping them serviceable. For me, this means repairing what is broken, ensuring they are clean of both dirt and rust, storing them properly so they don't degrade, and keeping them oiled or greased as appropriate so that if I decide to take an impromptu range trip I don't need to haul them out on the bench before hand.

That said, this is obviously going to be different for a gun that you're comfortable shooting vs. something that is either too rare to take to the range or you can't shoot for other reasons. Bond rifles, for example, are best enjoyed as is. If it's got bad rust freckling and discoloration from 100 years of hanging up in a smoky VFW bar? Obviously take care of that. But you don't need to bother with oiling small parts that are never going to be moving.

There are also different kinds of collectors, and different kinds of collections. I've got my Prussian/German focus, and couple of those I won't shoot. But I've also got a secondary condition that's just representative rifles of major WW2 belligerents, those I absolutely shoot and keep in shooting condition - lubed, cleaned, and ready to go. None of them are especially noteworthy though. Well, in a collector sense. The semi-autos are getting expensive, but they're not so precious you can't haul them out and shoot paper. If I woke up tomorrow and found out my SVT was some rare variation that makes Russian collectors go nuts, though, I'd sell it in a hearbeat, buy a better shooter example, and roll the extra towards more weird German stuff I don't want to shoot.

What bothers me about Novak's "do the maintenance" mantra is that he casts a wide enough net with it that it also seems to cover what's basically refinishing. If I had a gun I was going to be hiking through rain with and dragging it through swamps? Hell yes I'd make sure the finish was as good as possible and refinish as necessary. Sometimes you need to refinish tools. But that's not the kind of maintenance you need to do on a 100 year old range queen. Who cares if there is some bare metal and spots of previous corrosion that are going to be prone to rusting again if they get too damp? It lives in a climate controlled safe, just don't take it out on a rainy day.

Was interesting that he said he wouldn’t shoot this Gew 98, with the rust at the crown because it would “bulge the barrel”.

Here I am shooting some of my rusty barrels, before I do the thorough cleaning. Minus just sending a snake through first.

Though I couldn’t see how bad this Gew 98 was. Maybe it was “that bad”.

I appreciate several things from Mark, first of all he is bringing attention to vintage guns in the same way that C&R Arsenal is. (owned/managed/produced by the same person as I understand it) Second, Mark may be an internet "celebrity" in our obscure corner of the world (the kid my kids watch play minecraft makes $7-10 MILLION a year, Mark's a nobody in reality) he made no attempt to use that when he bought parts from me for a Gewehr 88 restoration. Many influencers would have asked for those parts for free (I've had it and worse happen).

Generally speaking though, I have to agree, his "restoration" videos are often quite bad. However, the simple fact of the matter is, nearly every single one of you that condemned him for doing it wrong, do not pay someone to do the very restoration work that you are saying he should have done. Most businesses are beholden to their customers, many are not able to do the work that they would *prefer* to do. I don't offer restoration work except under very certain circumstances because I found 99% of people simply won't pay for the labor required.

As a group of dedicated collectors you guys have reached a fairly tight consensus as to acceptable restoration processes. When I was studying museum curation in college (that's what I wanted to be when I grew up) it was amazing to me how LITTLE consensus there was. There were standards, and generally accepted processes, but by and large, it depended on the institution, funding, and technical direction. The same applies to collectors who in the end, span a giant chasm of funding and technical capability.

Finally, there are people out there that simply do not have our narrow minded approach to history. I had a gentleman approach me about building two custom rifles for his sons. He had two excellent matching numbers K98k's that his father had brought home from WWII that he wanted to use. I refused and told him that I would be happy to supply two excellent condition matching numbers actions. He offered a very good counter point that I had not considered before. The simple fact of the matter was that his boys had zero interest in the two rifles as K98k's. They would have interest in them if they could hunt with them. He would rather give them something they would be interested in, which they would keep, than something that they were not interested in and would get rid of. He took them to a different gun maker and had two very nice custom rifles built out of them.

I kinda get his "do the maintenance" shtick, as he probably sees so much trash that has been neglected, but I think it does more harm than good. I've personally seen so many guns harmed by people who don't know what they are doing. For instance, Enfields are notorious for having their stocks broken by people taking them off incorrectly.

And then you have all the idiots who tell any to just boil and card everything to people who have zero clue about anything.