Met up with Chrisftk at the Baltimore show this past weekend, had a great time finally putting a face to a forum name and ended up coming home with my first foray into 19th century German Army rifles. To be clear there was a lot of peer pressure involved, I've heard this happens a lot with him.... I knew little on these but the price seemed right and figured it was a good place to start. It is mostly matching, the bands are not matching, the cocking piece on the bolt and one of the TG screws. Stock proofs and markings are really clear and nice, buttplate is marked with a depot stamp for Koblenz so it looks to be a WWI used rifle. If my understanding is correct of the depot style work seems a pretty good chance the bands were probably swapped during that time? Buttplate is also marked to the 138th Infantry Ersatz battalion which also seems to support the wartime issue, I think most of these went to Reserve and Ersatz units. Keel of the rifle has a serial number stamp as does the inside. Not a perfect rifle but Erfurts seem to be less common with these and had most of the things I was looking for in one. Rifle was super dirty inside, I got it out of the stock and cleaned most of the caked on gunk, I've still got work on the bore but maybe next weekend. Getting it out of the wood actually turned out pretty interesting to see the inside mechanics, they are like a clock inside.
Nick
Nick
