Absolut
Senior Member
The "needle in the haystack" really applies to this rifle - because it was found in a haystack last year! After so many years of buying rifles that came from farmers and out of the woodwork I finally was able to find one that was found very close to my home: only 10 km away. The neighbor of an employee of mine rebuild the house and removed the hay that was still in there from former decades. And to his huge surprise he did not only find a rifle, but it also came with a bayonet and a canvas bag of ammo. It took nearly half a year to get to see the rifle, but it only took a few minutes with waving with money to get the rifle!
I'll be cleaning it, but to show off how a rifle looks like after it had spent so much time under hay, I thought it would be good to post it for reference. Note the extreme contrast especially with the bayonet blade. I can however give a small teaser: I've already disassembled it today and under the wood the metal of the rifle indeed is identically nice to the bayonet. The outside metal also turns out quite nice, but will need lots of love and time to get better. Fortunately it still had the rubber muzzle cap on it, the barrel is extremely nice.
Another huge surprise for me were the stock stamps. This rifle never got sanded - but the stamps turned into a really dark color whereas the rest of the stock got very light. When oiled it surely will look like it once got cleaned, despite it never got cleaned. Only clue to that are the super crisp and deep stock stamps.
From a short glance into Vol. I it seemed it has one oddity: the stock acceptance already has the Nazi Eagle on it what Mike and Bruce list as introduced in 1937. Maybe they can share a thought on this one. If not visible in the pictures, it is a 1936 g-Block rifle.
Finally two things to point out: the bayonet is mismatching to the scabbard (interesting to see it came this way), secondly the ammo found with the rifle seems to be mainly pre 1939 made, only the steel cases are later. Some might even be Weimar made rounds. Still need to clean up the ammo as well and see if there is anything of interest among it.
I'll be cleaning it, but to show off how a rifle looks like after it had spent so much time under hay, I thought it would be good to post it for reference. Note the extreme contrast especially with the bayonet blade. I can however give a small teaser: I've already disassembled it today and under the wood the metal of the rifle indeed is identically nice to the bayonet. The outside metal also turns out quite nice, but will need lots of love and time to get better. Fortunately it still had the rubber muzzle cap on it, the barrel is extremely nice.
Another huge surprise for me were the stock stamps. This rifle never got sanded - but the stamps turned into a really dark color whereas the rest of the stock got very light. When oiled it surely will look like it once got cleaned, despite it never got cleaned. Only clue to that are the super crisp and deep stock stamps.
From a short glance into Vol. I it seemed it has one oddity: the stock acceptance already has the Nazi Eagle on it what Mike and Bruce list as introduced in 1937. Maybe they can share a thought on this one. If not visible in the pictures, it is a 1936 g-Block rifle.
Finally two things to point out: the bayonet is mismatching to the scabbard (interesting to see it came this way), secondly the ammo found with the rifle seems to be mainly pre 1939 made, only the steel cases are later. Some might even be Weimar made rounds. Still need to clean up the ammo as well and see if there is anything of interest among it.
