1917 Gew. 98 - S42G

H

Hellraiser

Well-known member
Bought my first WW1 era Mauser today :)

Story goes: Grandpa got it as a present during his military service, grandkids didn't like it, so it was up for sale :)






Most metal parts match incl. the buttplate :p

Now what would you do with it?

- keep it as is, incl. the thick black paint and enjoy it as an antique piece of furniture
- strip all of the black paint and see what there's left and eventually spray paint the entire thing again
with a thin coat of matte black and have all the markings visible and still use it as a lamp afterwards.
- ...

Thanks!

Kind regards,
Johan
 
this Weimar G98M seems to have a good potential , personnally i stripped the black paint of a small surface to see what is remaining of the original blue .
 
Kind of difficult to say what is the best course here. I suppose the first step is to see if it is deactivated, then whether it is matching, or to what degree it is mismatched. It is an interwar upgraded rifle, so the value is minimal unless it is live and mostly matching-original.

At the moment you have a fairly cool lamp, this was done in the US also, seen similar and Mike has a rare Simson/15 made into one, but unless it is really nice and original, you would "probably" be better off with a cool lamp than a beater mismatcher... of course, opinion only. Try and do more pictures, I for one would like to see what the suffix is, the letter under the serial and the right receiver. Assuming you can get a good picture of them with all that paint. (naturally I wouldn't mess with the paint until you decide the best course for yourself)
 
All metal matches
Bolt mm
Handguard matches
Stock and buttplate nr is x'ed
and force matched
Handguard is split and stock cracked
at the wrist.
 
Receiver has been polished once.

I'm going to clean everything up,
New black paint and find an old lampshade :)
 
Ok, forgive me my ignorance, didn't know the receiver isn't blued :)
bluing on the barrel still looks great, I'm going to use a paint stripper
this evening to see how much of the blue is left.

Will paint stripper affect the blueing?
 
It was blued when the updated sights were put on, so someone polished the receiver to make it look like a WW1 rifle.
 
Thanks!

Decided to cut off the lamp rod yesterday that was copper welded to the barrel and stripped the copper residue with a file.

Going to use brake cleaner and thinner tonight to clean the barrel, bands and other small stuff.

What bayonet should be on this rifle?

Why doesn't it have the 1920 date on it?
 
Sg98/05 is probably best, though an Sg84/98 III is fine, most pictures i have seen in the interwar period are Sg98/05, but these served throughout WWII.

Probably because the stock is not original, at least to its mating with the barreled receiver before 1920. Little can be said about the rifle with these pictures, but if the rifle were original to the immediate postwar period (in governments hands 1919-1920) both would have the 1920 (receiver and stock). That the stock has the property mark and the receiver doesn't, it suggests the two components were mated after 1920, probably much later. If they were mated during the period of German service, the stock would be re-numbered to match the rifle (there would probably be more clues if you take pictures). If done by another country, the variables are endless.


Hellraiser said:
What bayonet should be on this rifle?

Why doesn't it have the 1920 date on it?
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Loewe,

these are pictures of the stock:

Handguard matches:


Stock matches the buttplate and the buttplate is force matched to the receiver by X'es

 
Removed all of the black paint and it has a nice patina underneath :)









Still wondering what Regiment 1./J.R. 10.111. is though..
 
But a Regiment is lager than a Company, wouldn't they first denote the Regiment and than the company

as in 1st regiment, 10th company, instead of 1st company, 10th regiment.
 
According to Görtz and Bryans, Wolfgang (Amberg) is correct, - it is company first, IR identified after "J.R.", as in "infantry regiment 10" in this case. Bob T also emailed me this correction, however I didn't get around to putting his email up before Wolfgang posted:

Paul: The lamp stock is Reichswehr and the unit marking is that of first company, 10th Infantry Regt. Bob
 
Did you take a picture of the right receiver acceptance and the barrel code? Sometimes the right receiver has extra stamps when it went through a depot. Usually they are not decipherable (probably just related to reworking acceptance, mating new barrels and such, - your barrel seems original, so it may have no new markings), however sometimes you can make assumptions about how they are marked. Typically when they are present, they are earlier reworks, but this rifle seems more likely later.
 
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