1918 Amberg Gewehr 98

Hi everyone,
Here are a couple of photos of my 1918 Amberg. I bought it a few months ago. The rifle is all matching, the sling was added by me recently. The stock is beech wood and probably finished with Train oil. I'm not sure if the front sight is the original one, seems to be a bit higher than usual ones. The barrel was repaired by counterboring. I wonder how may I properly oil it occasionally just to keep it in the best shape. Should I use Linseed oil or Train oil? I plan to shoot it from time to time, so some sort of maintenance is crucial to avoid cracks. I haven't found any post-WW1 markings or signatures so it seems the rifle is almost in its original shape. Super happy if you share your thoughts or find anything interesting worth commenting.

That's a nice one-- as I mentioned before it's textbook late war Amberg with a nice train oil beech stock. They have a nice light color that really shows the scaling in the beech wood. Amberg started bluing receivers on or about the b suffix in 1918 (bolts remained white). Your rifle is special in that it is a white receiver, which accounts for fewer observations.

Was this the one at RIA last year? Looks familiar.

**Edit: on further review, it's an "e" suffix, so it's possible this may have been blued originally and the receiver stripped by someone not knowledgeable. I may be wrong, but it appears this may be the case based on what I see. Regardless, I'd still buy it

It’s a lovely rifle, one that I would own myself. With that said, I think you should be aware that the receiver on this rifle should be blued. While I’ve never trended an ‘a’ block Amberg 1918, I’m very confident that no rifles above the no suffix left the arsenal with a white finish. Further evidence is the lack of polishing in the metal. They could get away with leaving the metal in a more austere state by bluing it. They simply ran out of emery in 1918.

chrisftk said:

That's a nice one-- as I mentioned before it's textbook late war Amberg with a nice train oil beech stock. They have a nice light color that really shows the scaling in the beech wood. Amberg started bluing receivers on or about the b suffix in 1918 (bolts remained white). Your rifle is special in that it is a white receiver, which accounts for fewer observations.

Was this the one at RIA last year? Looks familiar.

Click to expand...

Thank you I don't think it was at RIA, I found it in Poland and believe it was imported from Germany.

Thanks for posting the photos! Great Amberg, i will add it to the reference. To answer your question, use Ballistol to oil it, putting stock finish on it won't have the same effect as oiling but will gum up over the original finish, better to maintain it they way they did with Ballistol.

Excellent 1918. Thanks for sharing it with us. These don’t come up all that often.

Very nice sir!

That rifle has a great look to it! Really crisp stock…

chrisftk said:

That's a nice one-- as I mentioned before it's textbook late war Amberg with a nice train oil beech stock. They have a nice light color that really shows the scaling in the beech wood. Amberg started bluing receivers on or about the b suffix in 1918 (bolts remained white). Your rifle is special in that it is a white receiver, which accounts for fewer observations.

Was this the one at RIA last year? Looks familiar.

**Edit: on further review, it's an "e" suffix, so it's possible this may have been blued originally and the receiver stripped by someone not knowledgeable. I may be wrong, but it appears this may be the case based on what I see. Regardless, I'd still buy it

Click to expand...

That's one of the things that I have doubts about... in Dieter Storz's book on page 95 there is even a photograph of blued 1918 Amberg, compared to the 1917 Amberg with the polished and shiny receiver. I don't know the history of my rifle, but this is the shape it was found in. No idea why mine is not blued... it doesn't look like it was removed, but I may be wrong about it. The surface seems to be shiny, not sandblasted... Thanks everyone for sharing your insights. Much appreciated.

Hello again. I had a bit of free time today, and since I was photographing another piece (Spandau 1918 from Hannover), I'm sharing a few more detailed photos of that Amberg again.

I hope you'll like them and find them useful for further research. If you notice anything interesting in them, let me know. Have a great day!