Israeli Mauser, legitimate serial number?

J

Joel762

Member
Hello all,

I have an Israeli Mauser 98k here built on a German DUV receiver. The receiver seems to match the bolt to me, with one character stamped lower than the others. A long time Mauser collector has told me that in his opinion, this is NOT original to the rifle.

Wanted to ask the experts here and put it to rest. Is this legitimate or not?

Thanks

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Your duv 42 is actually a bcd 43. Left over duv 42 receivers were used by gustloff werke when berlin lubeck transitioned into making g41 rifles. So your rifle is actually a bcd 43 S letter block. Compare your serial number to some of the other bcd 43 rifles in the picture reference and you will see the similarities.
 
bnz41john said:
Your duv 42 is actually a bcd 43. Left over duv 42 receivers were used by gustloff werke when berlin lubeck transitioned into making g41 rifles. So your rifle is actually a bcd 43 S letter block. Compare your serial number to some of the other bcd 43 rifles in the picture reference and you will see the similarities.
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Thank you! I was unaware of that!

What do you think the origin of the bolt is?
 
bnz41john said:
The bolt is not what I would call a forgery. But done by whoever did the 7.62 conversion process for Israel. It however is not a German number on the bolt.
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The safety does not match. Are there stampings anywhere like inside the bolt etc that might have the original on it?
 
Isreali reworked k98ks are alot like russian capture k98ks. They will essentially have zero original german matching numbers. These rifles went through a quite extensive rework process. They are built out of parts of many different rifles. You could check the bottom of the bolt root to see who made the bolt, but I'm quite confident that it is not the same bolt that your gustloff receiver left the factory with in 1943.
 
bnz41john said:
Isreali reworked k98ks are alot like russian capture k98ks. They will essentially have zero original german matching numbers. These rifles went through a quite extensive rework process. They are built out of parts of many different rifles. You could check the bottom of the bolt root to see who made the bolt, but I'm quite confident that it is not the same bolt that your gustloff receiver left the factory with in 1943.
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Alright, I'll unpack the rifle and check it out. Would be nice for confirmation of that, although I believe you.

Had thought it was quite rare to find an Israeli rework with bolt matching receiver as since you mention they are all-out mixmasters and paid what I consider a bit of a premium as this one was advertised as matching.
 
Well it is matching. Becuase it is no longer a German k98k. It's a Israeli k98k, and by Israeli k98k standards it is matching.

What little I can see of it in the photos it looks to be in great shape. Alot of the Israeli k98ks you see in the US today are beat to hell.

If you take the rifle apart I'm sure you will find all kinds of German markings from quite a few of the k98k manufacturers.
 
bnz41john said:
Well it is matching. Becuase it is no longer a German k98k. It's a Israeli k98k, and by Israeli k98k standards it is matching.

What little I can see of it in the photos it looks to be in great shape. Alot of the Israeli k98ks you see in the US today are beat to hell.

If you take the rifle apart I'm sure you will find all kinds of German markings from quite a few of the k98k manufacturers.
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It is a very clean rifle and has a nice, sound stock. Barrel looks just about unissued. It might have been my misunderstanding of what you just said above that caused me to assume it was the original bolt and receiver together and not "some other bolt stamped so that they now match!" which is basically the same as Soviet electropencling but nicer.

Least it would indicate that the bolt and receiver were more likely headspaced properly than some available bolt was slapped into some available gun!
 
A K98k that was assembled in the Concentration Camp and served with the IDF after the war, it's a interesting story.

We must be careful how we call it, to say "BLM receiver" or "Gustloff receiver" can lead to misunderstandings.

This receiver was manufactured by the company Astrawerke in Chemnitz and usually it should get used in Berlin-Lübecker Maschinenfabrik K98k production. In 1942 BLM was ordered to stop K98k production, the last big batch with 6,411 K98ks got assembled and accepted in December 1942 and in 1943 they started to assemble the G.41 rifle in Lübeck.

The left over receivers from Lübeck (BLM in-house and Astrawerke) were sent to the Gustloff-Werke. At this point Gustloff-Werke had already relocated the assembly of the K98k rifles from the Fritz-Sauckel Werk in Weimar to Buchenwald. This "duv 42" Sn. 6036s got assembled very early in 1943 by Concentration Camp inmates. The Gustloff K98ks with the code "bcd 43" were then assembled on the second, the main assembly line in Gustloff-Werke Werk II Buchenwald.
 
Stephan98k said:
A K98k that was assembled in the Concentration Camp and served with the IDF after the war, it's a interesting story.

We must be careful how we call it, to say "BLM receiver" or "Gustloff receiver" can lead to misunderstandings.

This receiver was manufactured by the company Astrawerke in Chemnitz and usually it should get used in Berlin-Lübecker Maschinenfabrik K98k production. In 1942 BLM was ordered to stop K98k production, the last big batch with 6,411 K98ks got assembled and accepted in December 1942 and in 1943 they started to assemble the G.41 rifle in Lübeck.

The left over receivers from Lübeck (BLM in-house and Astrawerke) were sent to the Gustloff-Werke. At this point Gustloff-Werke had already relocated the assembly of the K98k rifles from the Fritz-Sauckel Werk in Weimar to Buchenwald. This "duv 42" Sn. 6036s got assembled very early in 1943 by Concentration Camp inmates. The Gustloff K98ks with the code "bcd 43" were then assembled on the second, the main assembly line in Gustloff-Werke Werk II Buchenwald.
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Very well said.
 
Stephan98k said:
A K98k that was assembled in the Concentration Camp and served with the IDF after the war, it's a interesting story.

We must be careful how we call it, to say "BLM receiver" or "Gustloff receiver" can lead to misunderstandings.

This receiver was manufactured by the company Astrawerke in Chemnitz and usually it should get used in Berlin-Lübecker Maschinenfabrik K98k production. In 1942 BLM was ordered to stop K98k production, the last big batch with 6,411 K98ks got assembled and accepted in December 1942 and in 1943 they started to assemble the G.41 rifle in Lübeck.

The left over receivers from Lübeck (BLM in-house and Astrawerke) were sent to the Gustloff-Werke. At this point Gustloff-Werke had already relocated the assembly of the K98k rifles from the Fritz-Sauckel Werk in Weimar to Buchenwald. This "duv 42" Sn. 6036s got assembled very early in 1943 by Concentration Camp inmates. The Gustloff K98ks with the code "bcd 43" were then assembled on the second, the main assembly line in Gustloff-Werke Werk II Buchenwald.
Click to expand...

Wow...thats quite a story for sure
 
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