Güstrow Depot-marked Walther Sportmodell

[Pisgah]

This Walther Sportmodell has a butt plate marked with an eagle/HZaGw marking over what I am guessing is eagle/Gw3. Despite the depot marking I cannot find anything else about the rifle which appears to have been repaired. I added the handguard. I realize it does not match in finish but it was the only handguard in my box of spares that fit. The bolt has no numbers on the bottom flat. Typically one will find the last three digits of the rifle's serial number in that spot. I do not know whether some Walther Sportmodells had factory unnumbered bolts or if the presence of the unnumbered bolts always means a replacement.

 

[RyanE]

The other marking is E/Gw3, Güstrow acceptance. Looks like a variant, as the buttplates are usually marked with a large "H.Za.Gw" instead of that much smaller E/HZaGw.

The markings could indicate rework, but I think they might just be spares made by the HZa.

 

[Pisgah]

Thanks for the reply. I found one of your posts on this depot and updated my original post about the same time you must have been replying. So, I realized that the HZa marked buttplate is likely a flat buttplate for an earlly Kar.98k and the depot simply made that part work on this model. It didn't occur to me that the damaged part could have been the buttplate. By itself, that didn't strike me as a likely item to be damaged beyond repair.

 

[Pisgah]

I am adding a few more photos. One shows the depot-replaced Sportmodell buttplate in comparison to a second Sportmodell buttplate which appears original. Another shows the contour and beefy thickness of the original Sportmodell buttplate. The last shows how the replacement depot-marked buttplate has a different contour and doesn't really fit the Sportmodell stock correctly. I am curious what happened to the original. We will never know but it might have been interesting.

 

[mauser99]

interesting rifle and thought process.. This is the first variant WSM. Round top receiver . To be honest Ive never owned one but, it would'nt be uncommon for a manufacture to not used ser # bolts only to take up practice later on. Pretty much all if not a few did so.. As for the buttplate the theory at first sounded tantalizing but, more than likely the original was lost like the HG and was replaced with a common g/k98k type HG.

 

[Pisgah]

I think you are correct. If the rifle had a numbered flat butt plate from another rifle, I would have come to the same conclusion. Unnumbered armourer flat butt plates are so rare that it did not occur to me that someone would randomly find one and use it like this. Other than the missing hand guard, it came with an unnumbered armourer lower band. It wasn't modified to be retained in any way, so I guessed that it was put there by a previous owner (and not a depot). That same person must have had access to a stash of armourer parts. Thanks for fixing my thinking.