RC stamp for “Russian Capture” ?

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bthacker12

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Would this RC and a crown stamp, be a Russian Capture marking? Tried some googling, but couldn’t find anything that looked like the stamp
 

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russian capture mark is a crude X made with a cold chisel or hardened screwdriver, typically on top of the receiver or near the orig serial number on the left side of the receiver. It was applied after the rifle was put back together from piles of parts, and served the same purpose as the “1920” property mark, ie control of weapons. private citizens in soviet russia weren’t allowed private ownership of firearms. I’ve seen it mentioned that this represented “crossed rifles” but this seems to be an internet fantasy, as no examples of actual “crossed rifles” have surfaced.
 
Muncher 1953 said:
russian capture mark is a crude X made with a cold chisel or hardened screwdriver, typically on top of the receiver or near the orig serial number on the left side of the receiver. It was applied after the rifle was put back together from piles of parts, and served the same purpose as the “1920” property mark, ie control of weapons. private citizens in soviet russia weren’t allowed private ownership of firearms. I’ve seen it mentioned that this represented “crossed rifles” but this seems to be an internet fantasy, as no examples of actual “crossed rifles” have surfaced.
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I don't think we know exactly when the X's were applied, but I'm fairly certain it was independent of the RC process. I've seen rifles that went through the RC program without the X, and we've got examples of VoPo weapons that do have the X but never went through the RC process. Here's a G/K someone posted here: https://www.k98kforum.com/threads/reporting-east-german-vopo-reworked-k43-stock-questions.45007/ Note that lack of any kind of RC treatment ,although we do know that G/K's got the same treatment after the war.

My personal theory is that it was depot/stock control of captured weapons in Germany immediately after the war. Everyone was super paranoid about a German resistance movement cropping up, and if it did happen it would be really useful to know if your capture stockpiles were leaking or if the rebels had just swept up some un-secured firearms. That would fit with the current evidence: You could have guns that were in Germany and got X'd but never went through the Soviet refurb process because they went straight to the VoPo etc, and you could also have refurbed guns with no X because they were captured during the big years of the war and went into a warehouse in the USSR without ever going near Germany again.

But, again, there's no solid evidence one way or the other so all we're left with is conjecture to fit observed rifles.
 
Cyrano4747 said:
I don't think we know exactly when the X's were applied, but I'm fairly certain it was independent of the RC process. I've seen rifles that went through the RC program without the X, and we've got examples of VoPo weapons that do have the X but never went through the RC process. Here's a G/K someone posted here: https://www.k98kforum.com/threads/reporting-east-german-vopo-reworked-k43-stock-questions.45007/ Note that lack of any kind of RC treatment ,although we do know that G/K's got the same treatment after the war.

My personal theory is that it was depot/stock control of captured weapons in Germany immediately after the war. Everyone was super paranoid about a German resistance movement cropping up, and if it did happen it would be really useful to know if your capture stockpiles were leaking or if the rebels had just swept up some un-secured firearms. That would fit with the current evidence: You could have guns that were in Germany and got X'd but never went through the Soviet refurb process because they went straight to the VoPo etc, and you could also have refurbed guns with no X because they were captured during the big years of the war and went into a warehouse in the USSR without ever going near Germany again.

But, again, there's no solid evidence one way or the other so all we're left with is conjecture to fit observed rifles.
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Fair, it does seem logical to me that it WAS a property mark, for the reason you described. I just really wanted to stomp on the silly ‘crossed rifles’ thing, as it seems to have come from fb or reddit or somewhere else silly people hang out & write silly things!
 
Muncher 1953 said:
Fair, it does seem logical to me that it WAS a property mark, for the reason you described. I just really wanted to stomp on the silly ‘crossed rifles’ thing, as it seems to have come from fb or reddit or somewhere else silly people hang out & write silly things!
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It's older than that, I've got a few reference books from the 90s that claim it. Lapin's Mauser reference does, if memory serves.

I think it was just gun shop / gun show lore in the 80s - 90s that got picked up by a few authors. There's a lot of silly stuff re: Mausers that has more or less that story. Heck, some of it even older. I've spent way too much time chasing bogus stories on Imperial that eventually trace back to one of the really old references from the 40s or 50s. WHB Smith's Mauser Rifles and Pistols (1946, revised 1954) is particularly terrible about that and turns up as a cited source in a lot of other books.
 
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