If you know me, you know I have an illness for byf44 L blocks. Whatever, we all have our weaknesses. I picked this up from the grandson of a vet. He had no interest in it, I even looked up his grandad and honesty he didn't even know his name (it was an odd last name and he was from Utah, I've lost that info now as I had no other items to connect to him). It's amazing to me how these things hold little value to the extended families, and one reason we get a crack at them. I paid fair market value for it and he was happy.
This is a pretty late byf44 L block, has the broken firing proof seen on some early byf45 rifles. Not as common to have white glue Kriegsmodell stocks either. The lower keel proof is so clear it's amazing, stock is dry and rough and untouched by bubba, good thing nobody decided to fix it up all these years. Anyway, here's the pics, Dave Roberts has been asking for them for a while so here you go Dave. He'll be mad that I didn't put a scope on it for the photos- I have one, but figured it would be more fun to annoy Dave by not putting it on there.
By the way, I've heard rumors for years from overseas collectors that the late ZF41 program was intended for Volkssturm issue. It sounds plausible, as the Heer had discontinued the ZF41 program early in 44 due to the fact that it's basically useless. I'm going to take this opportunity to tell my story about these ZF41 guns.
Many years ago, when I reenacted, we had a German vet that we befriended. His name was Hans Peter, he was in the 5th SS Wiking Division. He was seriously wounded in Cherkassy and convalesced in Germany for a year after, before finishing out the war. Anyway, he was a signals guy but was front line and saw much combat. He earned IKII, IKI, silver wound badge, and 7 tank destruction badges. Every year we would get together and he would answer any stupid question we put before him. We'd ask him all kinds of stuff, like did you ever see a Tiger tank, did you wear dot44 camo (to him all camo was exactly the same, he didn't see patterns only green or brown camo). Anyway, one of our unit "snipers" brought a ZF41 rifle to show him. He asked, "Did you ever see any snipers like this?" Hans laughed out loud, and with no hesitation he said "That is no sniper rifle. That is the rifle you give to the worst shot in the company, so in a firefight he is at least useful!" So there you have it, if you see photos of a guy with a ZF41 look closely, his buddies are laughing at him.
This is a pretty late byf44 L block, has the broken firing proof seen on some early byf45 rifles. Not as common to have white glue Kriegsmodell stocks either. The lower keel proof is so clear it's amazing, stock is dry and rough and untouched by bubba, good thing nobody decided to fix it up all these years. Anyway, here's the pics, Dave Roberts has been asking for them for a while so here you go Dave. He'll be mad that I didn't put a scope on it for the photos- I have one, but figured it would be more fun to annoy Dave by not putting it on there.
By the way, I've heard rumors for years from overseas collectors that the late ZF41 program was intended for Volkssturm issue. It sounds plausible, as the Heer had discontinued the ZF41 program early in 44 due to the fact that it's basically useless. I'm going to take this opportunity to tell my story about these ZF41 guns.
Many years ago, when I reenacted, we had a German vet that we befriended. His name was Hans Peter, he was in the 5th SS Wiking Division. He was seriously wounded in Cherkassy and convalesced in Germany for a year after, before finishing out the war. Anyway, he was a signals guy but was front line and saw much combat. He earned IKII, IKI, silver wound badge, and 7 tank destruction badges. Every year we would get together and he would answer any stupid question we put before him. We'd ask him all kinds of stuff, like did you ever see a Tiger tank, did you wear dot44 camo (to him all camo was exactly the same, he didn't see patterns only green or brown camo). Anyway, one of our unit "snipers" brought a ZF41 rifle to show him. He asked, "Did you ever see any snipers like this?" Hans laughed out loud, and with no hesitation he said "That is no sniper rifle. That is the rifle you give to the worst shot in the company, so in a firefight he is at least useful!" So there you have it, if you see photos of a guy with a ZF41 look closely, his buddies are laughing at him.
