A comparison of last ditch-ness…

[Texas88]

Greetings, all!

I purchased my first K98 the other day, and was honestly quite shocked by how crude the machine work on the receiver is. Lathe marks, random dents and dings, and what appears to be minor inclusions in the forging - one of them, on the right side of the receiver ring, is surprisingly deep. After careful examination under various lighting conditions and magnification, I’m almost 100% sure that all of these defects are under the original finish.

Out of curiosity, I decided to do a comparison between my K98, and my series 25 Kokura Type 99 from 1945. Turns out, the K98, which is a dot 43 from much earlier in the war, appears to be just as hastily made as the Type 99 - perhaps even more so. Thats said, were all mid-war K98s made with such little regard to finish, or do I just have an exceptionally rough example?

 

[Guillaume d'Orange]

Your dot 43 is representative of limited polishing of the receiver.
Have a look here: https://www.k98kforum.com/threads/picture-reference-index.45/

Simplification/rationalization started in December 1941 with a decree:

Hitler's Rationalization Decree (3 Dec 1941)

Hello everyone, First off, I do not own the Kar 98k books (perhaps I should as the info may be there). Has anybody here obtained an electronic copy of Hitler's decree Wi/I F 5.117 from the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv ? It is dated 3 December 1941 and it is the starting point of the rifle...

www.k98kforum.com

This is when they understood that Barbarossa failed.

It continued and increased exponentially after D-day and until April 1945. Last ditch is Volksturmgewehr.

 

[heavy_mech]

Agree with the above and would add that some of the late Steyr pieces in the S and T block have ridiculously rough parts of the forging untouched where it 'didn't matter' and very course machining.

 

[Texas88]

I suppose you’re right - looking at this example, it is equally rough, right down to the deep dings/gouges in the metal:

dot 1943 H band

dot 1943 H band

www.k98kforum.com

Those late Steyr examples are quite eye-opening; looks like they did, in fact, go straight from the forge to the phosphate solution, without much in between!

Has anyone every tried to determine if the functional build quality (i.e., accuracy, reliability, durability) deteriorated as well, or if the diminished standards permitted only cosmetic defects to get through inspection?

I didn’t realize that the German military industrial complex was already under such strain before the U.S. even entered the war.

 

[Leaf-blowing gooback]

Late war manufacturing shortcuts/crudeness were accepted, & became normal. Remember: documented functional production shortcuts began in late '42 at Oberndorf, w/ the blank-bottomed rear sight leaf. Ref: "First Acknowledgements of the Pressures of War"-Law.
Cosmetic shortcuts quickly followed, & were much easier to justify, ala: less "touch" labor per each component = more finished rifles out the door.
Seems the armories in the occupied countries (Brno, Bystrica, Steyr) always marched to a slightly different beat anyway, & flaws found upon these arms (such as that dot 43's forging void noted above) might not have passed inspection at Oby, even in '43.
Re: "Has anyone ever tried to determine if the functional build quality (i.e., accuracy, reliability, durability) deteriorated as well, or if the diminished standards permitted only cosmetic defects to get through inspection?"
This is a GOOD question.
Accuracy: For 2 armories (Brno & Bystrica), it seems that accuracy remained status quo, if not better - at least 1 source has claimed these Czech-occupation produced dot & dou K98ks had consistently better first-shot string accuracy than their German & Austrian peers, & believe the data was empirical. Note: reminder to find that link.
Reliability & durability: Pretty much a wash.

 

[Texas88]

Late war manufacturing shortcuts/crudeness were accepted, & became normal. Remember: documented functional production shortcuts began in late '42 at Oberndorf, w/ the blank-bottomed rear sight leaf. Ref: "First Acknowledgements of the Pressures of War"-Law.
Cosmetic shortcuts quickly followed, & were much easier to justify, ala: less "touch" labor per each component = more finished rifles out the door.
Seems the armories in the occupied countries (Brno, Bystrica, Steyr) always marched to a slightly different beat anyway, & flaws found upon these arms (such as that dot 43's forging void noted above) might not have passed inspection at Oby, even in '43.
Re: "Has anyone ever tried to determine if the functional build quality (i.e., accuracy, reliability, durability) deteriorated as well, or if the diminished standards permitted only cosmetic defects to get through inspection?"
Good question.
Accuracy: For 2 armories (Brno & Bystrica), it seems the accuracy remained status quo, if not better - at least 1 source has claimed these Czech-occupation produced dots & dous had consistently better first-shot string accuracy than their German & Austrian peers, & believe the data was empirical. Note: reminder to find that link.
Reliability & durability: Pretty much a wash.

Thank you for the very comprehensive reply!

I’ve always been fascinated by the evolution of manufacturing techniques and quality control standards throughout the war, especially as it applies to factories in occupied territories, seeing as the labor force in these facilities would likely be lacking the intrinsic motivation to produce the best possible products.

 

[Remfan]

Your DOT 43 actually looks better cosmetically finished than the BYF-44 I owned. Especially the barrel. My BYF almost looked to have "rings" around the barrel where not properly polished or finished. Noticed this on other later war produced 98ks here on the forum. it did though seem to fire and function OK.

 

[Leaf-blowing gooback]

I’ve always been fascinated by the evolution of manufacturing techniques and quality control standards throughout the war, especially as it applies to factories in occupied territories, seeing as the labor force in these facilities would likely be lacking the intrinsic motivation to produce the best possible products.

In Poland & Austria: sure, there were plenty of bad vibes going around.
The Czechs have always been a proud, stoic people, & the war didn't alter this very much.
But, (of course) they were "annexed", not invaded - like Poland & Austria were.
CZ's pre-war armaments & heavy industries were on par w/ pre-war Germany's in every regard except shipbuilding, & possibly aircraft.

To this day, the Czech Republic & (current) Slovakian small arms industries are still very highly regarded - & starting in 2021, CZ even owns the (former American) Colt Holding Company's brand name.

 

[heavy_mech]

Agree with all the comments regarding functionality and accuracy. In reality the exterior surface finish of the machined metal surfaces generally has zero correlation to whether a firearm is either functional, safe to fire or accurate. Metallurgy and the lack of critical elements for the alloying of steel is a different story. Another factor is the general wear and tear of the machine tools and I can't speak to how that effected say rifle bores.

 

[Texas88]

In Poland & Austria: sure, there were plenty of bad vibes going around.
The Czechs have always been a proud, stoic people, & the war didn't alter this very much.
But, (of course) they were "annexed", not invaded - like Poland & Austria were.
CZ's pre-war armaments & heavy industries were on par w/ pre-war Germany's in every regard except shipbuilding, & possibly aircraft.

To this day, the Czech Republic & (current) Slovakian small arms industries are still very highly regarded - & starting in 2021, CZ even owns the (former American) Colt Holding Company's brand name.

Yes, CZ makes outstanding firearms to this day - I’m hopeful that CZ will do good things with Colt, but only time will tell…

 

[Cyrano4747]

Something I'll add is that the degree of final machining also varies by factory. Extremely anecdotal and from the hip, but I've got a kind of mental image of a gradient that's got probably Mauser Oberndorf and Sauer at one end and, say, Steyr at another. Brunn I've got kind of slotted as middle of the road.

Again, super unscientific and just based on gut feelings.

FWIW I've got a dot 43 that's got a chunk taken out of the receiver face that they blued right over. Looks like a milling error or something, guess it was good enough for a government contract and out the door it went. I find stuff like that fascinating.