Third Party Press

Fake Luftwaffe depo build?

G

GCurtis01

Member
Hello all, I would first like to say that I did buy this rifle knowing it is almost certainly a faked rifle, none the less it still interests me and it was sold as a fake but the seller on gunbroker and the description read as followed, “WWII German Kar 98k Mauser Bolt Action Rifle, #6565C, 8x57mm, 23.6" barrel, blued finish, laminated stock set with cupped buttplate, inverted "V" front sight with attached hood and adjustable tangent rear sight. A very good condition reproduction steel cleaning rod is mounted under the barrel. Rifle is marked "Mod.98" on left side receiver rail and has been modified by adding "bcd/42" and "Luftamts" to the receiver and barrel. Matching numbers have been added to the bolt handle, barrel, and other parts. A serial number has been gouged out of the left side buttstock. Condition overall is good, the partially reblued metal showing gold toning to the barrel bands and trigger guard. Action operates smoothly, bright bore rates as excellent with well-defined rifling. No visible import marks.”

The rifle was $680+ 45 shipping so wrong what I see a lot of post war Czech’s going for so I decided to pick it up. This being said before buying the rifle I remember seeing a thread on another fake depo build bcd 42 rifle that also had the Lza 1 mark on it as well. This particular rifle has signs that the barrel has been remembered to match the receiver but the rear sight has what I believe to be the original sn#1628 B the rifles sn is 6565 c, to note the other fake bcd was also in the c block. The bolt body and safety match the an ad don’t seem to be restated, the bolt shroud has no sn on it and is blank with factory finish. The stock “matches” but looks far to nice to be original, there are also stampings just forward of the magazine and above and below the recoil lug on the right side of the stock, outside of these there are no other markings where there might be on others like near the takedown disk. The barrel seems to have still have part of a makers code/lot code but I can not tell if there is more that was “unscrubbed” form the barrel. The front band is also “matching” but is stuck on by way of being peend in place at the top left and right of the band for some reason. There is also an interesting marking on the bottom of the cocking pice pictured as well. Any info on the markings would be nice. As for the rifle over all I find it interesting that’s there is another fake bcd Laz 1 depo build rifle in the c block and I feel that getting this info out to people looking for real Laz 1 or any other depo builds is important. I personally like the rifle, it looks like it will be a good shooter among my other rifles that I have and I will enjoy it to the fullest.

Any thoughts and comments are welcome as I want to see what you all think of these bcd fakes.
IMG_6626.jpegIMG_6624.jpegIMG_6625.jpegIMG_6620.jpegIMG_6616.jpegIMG_6615.jpegIMG_6614.jpegIMG_6613.jpegIMG_6612.jpegIMG_6611.jpegIMG_6610.jpegIMG_6609.jpegIMG_6608.jpegIMG_6607.jpegIMG_6642.jpeg
 
So you know, the bcd42 code marking is fake as well, as are the majority of the numbered parts.

But for shooting it may be safe, if they didn’t remove too much material from the receiver to fake the code marking. But that’s dubious too, so many unknowns.
 
in pic 3/15, you can see what appear to be 2 different cyrillic letters on the barrel, an ‘r’ on the shoulder, & a ‘b’ with bent over stem further up the barrel.
 
mrfarb said:
So you know, the bcd42 code marking is fake as well, as are the majority of the numbered parts.

But for shooting it may be safe, if they didn’t remove too much material from the receiver to fake the code marking. But that’s dubious too, so many unknowns.
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Any particular reason that the bcd would be faked? To my knowledge bcd isn't a rare code by any means, I do know that there are fake dies for this stuff, but that goes for almost all the factory codes. also do know or have the pictures of the other bcd 42 i was referring too?
 
Muncher 1953 said:
in pic 3/15, you can see what appear to be 2 different cyrillic letters on the barrel, an ‘r’ on the shoulder, & a ‘b’ with bent over stem further up the barrel.
Click to expand...
Is there any factory during or post war that used these in their markings? Thanks for the help if you can.
 
The reasons are numerous for making fakes… not limited to the fact that many people are just stupid. You can say it’s done for profit, done for fun, done for the challenge, done for the psychological aspect of deceit or pulling a fast one on another, etc, etc, etc. Who knows exactly why these “humpers” do this, but it doesn’t con the experienced collectors and for every k98k destroyed like this… it just makes our legit examples more valuable. As Mr. Farb said, firearms like this MAY be dangerous to fire because of all the grinding work done to it.
 
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GCurtis01 said:
Is there any factory during or post war that used these in their markings? Thanks for the help if you can.
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during, no. post war, yes. there was no pre or during war years production of K98k rifles in countries not using the Roman alphabet. There may well have been repair/reconditioning by partisans in Yugoslavia with subsequent reuse against the Germans. I’m sure plenty of russian soldiers sent out without any rifle at all picked them up & used them, but the extensive refurbishment of them was a post-war make work program, same in the Balkan countries. My guess is that someone took a yugo refurbed rifle & scrubbed the markings, then added their own.
 
Mauserguy85 said:
The reasons are numerous for making fakes… not limited to the fact that many people are just stupid. You can say it’s done for profit, done for fun, done for the challenge, done for the psychological aspect of deceit or pulling a fast one on another, etc, etc, etc. Who knows exactly why these “humpers” do this, but it doesn’t con the experienced collectors and for every k98k destroyed like this… it just makes our legit examples more valuable. As Mr. Farb said, firearms like this MAY be dangerous to fire because of all the grinding work done to it.
Click to expand...
Did some measurements of parts with a Starrett caliper. I use my true matching bcd 4 that is in its original finish for a simi baseline to compare.
bcd 42 bcd 4
Receiver Thickness
bottom: 1.415 in bottom: 1.417 in difference: .002 in
middle: 1.412 in middle: 1.416 in difference: .004 in
top: 1.407 in top: 1.415 in difference: .008 in
Other Marked Thicknesses
safety: .165 in safety: .167 in difference: .002 in
bolt handle base: .436 in bolt handle base: .434 in difference: .002 in
barrel base: .985 in barrel base: .987 in difference: .002 in

To me this data leads me to think that the bolt itself is unmolested by someone remarking. as for the receiver, it's most definitely been tampered with, but it's well within the ability to shoot, the 98az had a receiver thickness of roughly 1.279 in and still in 8mm. I still find this rifle interesting none the less. as for the bcd 42 markings the top of the receiver doesn't seem to be ground down at all, mainly just polished and in person its visible to see a difference between the top of the receiver and the receiver bridge, the stampings all over on the receiver/ barrel are shallow but the shallowest are the bcd and 42, on average these are well set and "deep" in terms of thou, but the ones on the rifle are roughly .005-.010 in depth by my best guess. the sn and "luftawmps" are a slight bit deeper in the mettle but not by much. Hopefully this data might help someone else.
 
Keep in mind though, that there are “large ring” and “small ring” receivers, a standard unaltered large ring model 98 is 1.410” diameter, a small ring Kar98 is nominally 1.300”, a difference just under 1/8”. Though there are/were 8mm small ring Mausers, there was a reason why they beefed them up……..
 
Muncher 1953 said:
Keep in mind though, that there are “large ring” and “small ring” receivers, a standard unaltered large ring model 98 is 1.410” diameter, a small ring Kar98 is nominally 1.300”, a difference just under 1/8”. Though there are/were 8mm small ring Mausers, there was a reason why they beefed them up……..
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what was the accepted over under on the large ring by WWII, I'm sure as the war progressed the tolerance got slightly widened by a thou or two by 45? Thanks for the info as well.
 
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