Interesting how can you tell? Trying to learn what I should keep an eye for in the future. Thanks in advance sir.
In a nutshell. Russian Captures k98ks are German WW2 rifles that were “captured” by the Soviets. During the post war era, they decided to put them through a refurbishment program. ALL those rifles were disassembled into parts bins. Bolt bodies in one bin, bolt safeties in another, barrel bands, sight components all separated. I’m sure you get the picture. All that remains of the original WW2 rifle that was left intact is the barreled receiver. These barreled receivers were then “reassembled” with random components from these parts bins. I’m fairly confident that perhaps headspace was checked with a field gauge for basic safety, but that’s it. Bolt lugs and mating it to the receiver work was not performed. This explains in part why you have such a huge discrepancy in how R/C k98ks shoot. Some can do 2-3” moa and some do 7”+. There is more to that of course but original matching German k98ks were hand fitted and every rifle was tested for accuracy before leaving the factory (factory capture was another story however). A k98k would not leave the factory with 4”+ grouping.
Back to the RC stuff. Some R/C’s are also counterbored as that was seen as the best solution to fix accuracy or damage to the muzzle. Sometimes the firing proofs (Eagle with Swastika on the receiver, barrel and underside of bolt root) were peened and sometimes a “x” stamp was applied to the receiver. Then the metal was hot dip Russian blued.
The stocks were sometimes cleaned, but always stamped with the receiver serial number horizontally across the rear left buttstock and then shellac varnish was applied to the stock. Like you see on Mosins. Then they slathered the entire rifle with cosmoline and stuck them in crates. So on and so forth. They are basically post-war Soviet mixmaster re-works intended for long term storage. Reworked in case of a massive war with the west where the masses would need to be armed to defend the motherland.
The rifle that you showed is sitting in a R/C stock because most likely it’s a bolt mismatch sporter rescue. Many returning GI’s and bubbas sporterized k98ks post war here in the states by chopping up the stocks for a more hunt minded configuration. Then somebody shows up, buys that hunting rifle and tries to restore it to its military configuration. Years ago the cheapest way to get a k98k military stock for it was from a RC donor rifle because they were selling for $250 or less complete. To make it look better, the shellac was stripped off, serial number on the buttstock was attempted to be “steamed out” and sanded and than many people who didn’t know what they were doing, slathered copious amounts of boiled linseed oil from the big hardware stores because they read in Backbone of the Wehrmacht that the Germans used that. Which we know now is totally incorrect, but the practice continues….
The reason I know the rifle you show is in a rc stock is because I see a serial number stamped into the left side buttstock and the general look of the stock show aggressive cleaning at one point and a non original German finish.
