February 1945 Another Sporter for the Volksturm?

[mauser22]

See my thread on the first of these I acquired.

Volksturm Sporter from November 1944

Hope the Mods are OK with posting this here. Move or delete as appropriate. Wanted to share. Some years back I acquired this rifle from the family of the Vet. I find it fascinating. I have observed a handful of these austere sporting rifles made in Suhl and Zella Mehlis in the autumn of...

www.k98kforum.com

Here's another one. This one built from salvaged bcd 43 by a different Zella Mehlis maker (Hermann Schneider) with only a couple months left in the War.

For the most part I will let my pictures do the talking.

These are not "Cigarette Mausers" built for occupation G.I.'s although along the same pattern of many.

They are "war booty" and likely were some of the rifles that went to equip the Volksturm.

May or may not have been used in the last-ditch defense of the Reich.

I find them fascinating.

See "Desperate Measures" by Weaver pages 53 through 57, illustrations on pages 54, 347.

And by the way, I did use the rifle in that previous old thread to harvest a Whitetail buck a few years back.

Good Collecting!!!

 

[JimF]

Just as an aside, I offer . . . . .
On the two Mauser sporters I made, I carefully filed down the extreme rear of the tang . . . .behind the rear screw-hole, in order to COMPLETELY AVOID the UGLY notch in the stock adjacent to the rear of the tang.
I’ve seen more than my share of these Mauser spotters, and ALL of them exhibited this “notch” . . . .except mine!

 

[mauser22]

I have no intention of modifying these as they bear evidence of the period when the "Enemy was at the Gates".

They are functional as built and if I live to see another fall and am able I may try to blood this second one on an Ozarks Whitetail.

 

[biggymu]

I have one from the same maker with similar features in military configuration. Discussions have taken place about these and their intended use.

 

[mauser22]

Way cool rifle! I think Weaver laid out the evidence well in his work. Hunting rifles were being confiscated to arm the Volksturm.
Not likely there was a retail market for such after the fall of 44. Anything that could be built from scraps particularly if it chambered for the standard Military round was assembled and went in the pool. Procurement for the Volksturm was independent of the Wehrmacht, they were resorting to issuing anything that would shoot from any and all sources. Whether there was economic incentive or motivated by patriotism and or panic or directed by the Gauleiter, the smaller firms contributed to the last ditch effort.
Those commercial bcd 98k's fall into the same category in my opinion.

 

[Jdt]

Way cool rifle! I think Weaver laid out the evidence well in his work. Hunting rifles were being confiscated to arm the Volksturm.
Not likely there was a retail market for such after the fall of 44. Anything that could be built from scraps particularly if it chambered for the standard Military round was assembled and went in the pool. Procurement for the Volksturm was independent of the Wehrmacht, they were resorting to issuing anything that would shoot from any and all sources. Whether there was economic incentive or motivated by patriotism and or panic or directed by the Gauleiter, the smaller firms contributed to the last ditch effort.
Those commercial bcd 98k's fall into the same category in my opinion.

The main leading opinion (with what I've read here on the forum from the leading members on here) with regards to these commercial K98K's is use for ammunition factory production facilities. They would use the K98K and MP40 etc. too test lots of ammunition in production and if something didn't perform right with there test weapons then they could address or identify what was wrong with that batch of ammo production. I still regret so much missing out on a stone cold, mint condition commercial K98K. There's more out there tho. Definitely very neat pieces of history in regards to the story of Mauser series of rifles.