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qve45 4181f Milled Action Cover

This is a topic that we may never know the real reason why this marking was applied. During the early years, prior to serious internet use, some G43 book authors
did not seem to accept that these markings were original WWII..hence it is not really mentioned in books. It was known by serious g43 collectors that these markings were of WWII origin, and only on certain late BLM QVE made sniper rifles.

They appear random, in certain late letter blocks, but not all of those matching sniper rifles received the marking it seems.

Nobody will probably ever know for sure and I'm sure all the factory records have been lost to time in some storage Russian facility.

What seems to be an accepted "opinion" is that BLM was having difficulties getting supplies of ZF4 scopes and/or mounts at the time. So, in the meantime, while waiting for the mounts/scopes etc. to arrive, they decided to mark the rifles that passed the "accuracy/Sniper" requirements with the ZF K43 marking. Therefore, when the needed items arrived, they could apply the scopes to them? Just an opinion here. The point is, they randomly show up during late QVE production.

From a collectors standpoint, having that marking on there would verify that the specific rifle was intended to be a sniper.
 
Glad I'm not carnival barking.. Im going back to the early mid 90's when Guys like Mike Despres and others were ahead of most in putting these pieces together. There are far far fewer g/k43's marked duv/qve than mounts. 214 mounts even to this day are super scarce.

Im sorry my worn out eyes and shorter attention span didn't even notice the damn mount didn't match the rifle on this example but is the correct type mount. So possibly never received a mount originally.
 
Brian, I have heard that theory also and it is entirely possible. However doesn’t marking the stocks like this while waiting for scopes seem like a lot of extra work? Seems like a simple tag would have worked. But the German’s are well known for making extra work for themselves.

And while I have never seen a BLM sniper with a DDX scope that I thought was legit, I have seen a handful of Walther snipers with both DDX and DOW scopes that are legit. This observation seems to support marking them while waiting for scopes. Perhaps it was a combination of both reasons.

Walther seems to have never marked their snipers in any way (that we know of yet). Wish we could find something besides the matching scope mount that indicates a Walther as a sniper.
 
mdarnell19 said:
Brian, I have heard that theory also and it is entirely possible. However doesn’t marking the stocks like this while waiting for scopes seem like a lot of extra work? Seems like a simple tag would have worked. But the German’s are well known for making extra work for themselves.

And while I have never seen a BLM sniper with a DDX scope that I thought was legit, I have seen a handful of Walther snipers with both DDX and DOW scopes that are legit. This observation seems to support marking them while waiting for scopes. Perhaps it was a combination of both reasons.

Walther seems to have never marked their snipers in any way (that we know of yet). Wish we could find something besides the matching scope mount that indicates a Walther as a sniper.
Click to expand...
Valid point. They are Germans lol... what if the tag fell off, could quitw easily happen..then you are starting over again.

Agree, blm seemed to use dow only for their snipers.

I had a german wwii document/contract from Walther to dow that seemed to indicate they were in need of zf4 scope bodies to complete their snipers. It was dated in late Oct 44 I believe. Not positive on translation, but, it could explain why one sees dow scopes on a lot of late Walther sniper rigs.

So much stuff we just will never know with these. Lots of the information available is just from observation it seems.
 
Brian Kowalski said:
This is a topic that we may never know the real reason why this marking was applied. During the early years, prior to serious internet use, some G43 book authors
did not seem to accept that these markings were original WWII..hence it is not really mentioned in books. It was known by serious g43 collectors that these markings were of WWII origin, and only on certain late BLM QVE made sniper rifles.

They appear random, in certain late letter blocks, but not all of those matching sniper rifles received the marking it seems.

Nobody will probably ever know for sure and I'm sure all the factory records have been lost to time in some storage Russian facility.

What seems to be an accepted "opinion" is that BLM was having difficulties getting supplies of ZF4 scopes and/or mounts at the time. So, in the meantime, while waiting for the mounts/scopes etc. to arrive, they decided to mark the rifles that passed the "accuracy/Sniper" requirements with the ZF K43 marking. Therefore, when the needed items arrived, they could apply the scopes to them? Just an opinion here. The point is, they randomly show up during late QVE production.

From a collectors standpoint, having that marking on there would verify that the specific rifle was intended to be a sniper.
Click to expand...

There are many theories about this topic, some of them are unlikely. Observations like these are extremely important:

"They appear random, in certain late letter blocks, but not all of those matching sniper rifles received the marking it seems."

Sometimes the distribution key was changed by Führer orders when the current military situation required it. In November and October 1944, this can be seen in the Fertigungs-Vorschau WaA and the increase in "Abnahme WaA" of the K.43 m. Zf. More snipers should be made available for the planned Battle of the Bulge.

In November 1944, an additional 1,000 K.43 rifles were taken from the K.43 assembly line. These were duly transferred from the official Waffenamt K.43 list to the K.43 m. Zf. list. The rifles with the best shot patterns were selected (hence the random letter blocks) and these K.43 rifles, which were additionally included in the K.43 m. Zf. list, could therefore have been stamped with the Zf4 K43 marking on the stock. It is only a assumption and my example is earlier, but it could also have been like this at BLM in April 1945. That could also be the explanation that not all of those matching sniper rifles received the marking.
 
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