Battlefield find
- Thread starter Jdlaplander
- Start date
Jdlaplander
Member
sadly no, there isn’t one, I’ve been searching for one to put in it though, it’s something to display, clearly it’ll never fire again
Jdlaplander
Member
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Jdlaplander
Member
The bore is clear, it’s not welded shut or sealed in any way
Jdlaplander
Member
I have also not had any thought of cleaning it, however im going to talk to one of my connections who’s a curator at the Smithsonian and see if he can tell me what to do
Jdlaplander
Member
I just sent him a message about seeing if there’s anything I can to do preserve it and clean it up a bit! Thank you for the pointers!
I recently bought a gewehr off gunbroker that had a tag that stated it was "found in a sunken submarine". Which it wasn't, yours however looks like it may have been 
. Really neat rifle! I wouldn't clean it to be honest with you. Im sure there is a crusty gew98 bolt out there for you!
Here is my recent crusty "battlefield pickup"
. Really neat rifle! I wouldn't clean it to be honest with you. Im sure there is a crusty gew98 bolt out there for you! Here is my recent crusty "battlefield pickup"
Warrior1354
ax - hole
Looks like a 1906 DWM. I do remember seeing this one on Gunbroker damn shame about the condition. But, had a cool unit marking on the stock disk which is always a big plus.I recently bought a gewehr off gunbroker that had a tag that stated it was "found in a sunken submarine". Which it wasn't, yours however looks like it may have been
Here is my recent crusty "battlefield pickup"
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Jdlaplander
Member
That thing is beautiful lol! I actually found mine while doing some recon for work I do overseas, it was a pain in the a$$ to bring homeI recently bought a gewehr off gunbroker that had a tag that stated it was "found in a sunken submarine". Which it wasn't, yours however looks like it may have been
Here is my recent crusty "battlefield pickup"
View attachment 424944
View attachment 424945
Cyrano4747
Well-known member
Where was it recovered from? That's likely to tell you more about the history of the rifle than anything we could provide. Especially with a late-war rifle (no unit markings etc. by 1917).
Can you get a picture of the rear sight? Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like it might be a post-war rear sight. A lot of these guns lived second lives after the war, so if it was recovered someplace that saw action in the 20s-50s that could be the explanation. Again, where it was found is likely to tell most of the story.
Personally I would warn off of doing too much in the way of cleaning. With wood that damaged a lot of time cleaning can be fairly destructive. I would try to stabilize it as much as possible. This is a pretty good candidate for liberally hitting with Renaissance Wax.
As for the rifle itself, it was made at the Amberg Rifle Factory, which was set up at the very beginning of the 19th century as a state-run weapons factory to produce arms for the Kingdom of Bavaria. After German unification they made rifles for the Empire more broadly, but I believe that most of their arms still went to Bavarian regiments. So that might be a bit of a lead for you, again depending on where you dug it up.
But get pics of the rear sight. That plus where you got it are going to tell the most about it.
edit: looks like I can see the edge of a Lange sight in the second photo of the OP, so that at least points to original configuration. Still doens't rule out post-war use (a lot of guns walked away) but I'm not going to hypothesize on that until we can narrow down at least the rough geographical area it was found. The possibilities are very different if it was in Estonia vs. France vs. the Middle East.
Can you get a picture of the rear sight? Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like it might be a post-war rear sight. A lot of these guns lived second lives after the war, so if it was recovered someplace that saw action in the 20s-50s that could be the explanation. Again, where it was found is likely to tell most of the story.
Personally I would warn off of doing too much in the way of cleaning. With wood that damaged a lot of time cleaning can be fairly destructive. I would try to stabilize it as much as possible. This is a pretty good candidate for liberally hitting with Renaissance Wax.
As for the rifle itself, it was made at the Amberg Rifle Factory, which was set up at the very beginning of the 19th century as a state-run weapons factory to produce arms for the Kingdom of Bavaria. After German unification they made rifles for the Empire more broadly, but I believe that most of their arms still went to Bavarian regiments. So that might be a bit of a lead for you, again depending on where you dug it up.
But get pics of the rear sight. That plus where you got it are going to tell the most about it.
edit: looks like I can see the edge of a Lange sight in the second photo of the OP, so that at least points to original configuration. Still doens't rule out post-war use (a lot of guns walked away) but I'm not going to hypothesize on that until we can narrow down at least the rough geographical area it was found. The possibilities are very different if it was in Estonia vs. France vs. the Middle East.
AN-94
Well-known member
I think I recall seeing this rifle sell at auction before it made it to gunbroker maybe 5 months ago or so now. The auction listing had it described as "recovered from a sunken submarine" which might be where the gunbroker seller got their description from. Would be neat to find any rifle associated with an Imperial German submarine, does anyone have any images of submarine crews armed with rifles? I would think that a Kar98 would be a better option for them.I recently bought a gewehr off gunbroker that had a tag that stated it was "found in a sunken submarine". Which it wasn't, yours however looks like it may have been
Here is my recent crusty "battlefield pickup"
View attachment 424944
View attachment 424945
Muncher 1953
Senior Member
sorry, I missed the era, (really missed the boat!) comments removed as extraneous.
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Jdlaplander
Member
I found it somewhere between Metz and Verdun in the Argonne forest. I’ve had it for a couple years (since 2023 or so) and I don’t remember the EXACT spot
Cyrano4747
Well-known member
That actually makes things a lot easier. The way you refereed to digging it up on a job I was afraid you were an engineer and found it in the mideast or E. Africa scouting for oil deposits or something. Or, as I alluded to earlier, you doing something in E. Europe which opens a whole other can of worms. Once you're talking about the Baltics, for example, we're looking at a pandora's box of possibilities for when a German rifle could have been left behind.
Given the date on the rifle, the obvious candidate for it ending up there is going to be the Meuse-Argonne Offensive late in WW1, but that was a fairly heavily fought over sector for years before. Plus, it's worth noting that even a "quite" sector on the Western Front in WW1 is going to feature a level of base-line attrition that would be hair raising today. Still, being a 1917 dated receiver that does give us a solid boundary for when it could have ended up in the dirt. Factor in the time to get it from the factory to the soldier etc. and the general fighting in that sector in the year from late 17 through the armistice makes sense.
