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K43 qve 45 - What the hell happened to this one?

KEP

KEP

Member
Hi everybody. Im new to this forum and i just bought my first K43.

I have studied them a lot and searched through this forum to find my answers but did not seem to find anything matching like this. What can you tell me about this one?

As far as i can see the rifle is matching. At first i thought it was a rusty piece of sh**, and i got it for a fairly low price here in denmark. But the more i have looked at it i started to wonder. To me the finish looks more like a late war phosphated finish kind of like a parkerised M1 Garand (my primary collecting field). Maybe even a painted dark black/green. The finish has similarities to what you sometimes see on last ditch rifles for example like this Forgotten Weapons video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NspqeRzgH4

I field stripped it and when i took it down the finish was all over the rifle, it looked like it had never been blued anywhere.

There's to me no question that this rifle could have been treated better by the former owners, but has it been refinished? Could it be original? Any opinions are welcome!

I still need the paperwork so these photos are all i got right now but when i get the rifle i can take more photos.

Thanks in advance.

Billede-11-09-2018-16.jpg
Billede-11-09-2018-16.22a.jpg
 
Hello and welcome to the forum.
It looks like this rifle has had a rough life and has been refinished by a previous owner to their best knowledge. The stock is a reproduction and the metal looks like it was heavily rusted at one point and a previous owner scrubbed it in order to remove the rust, leading to total loss of all blueing or phosphating. If you look at internal parts such as bolt, locking lugs or firing pin carrier, you should find parts in the white without any surface imperfections other then machining marks on the bolt. The bolt carrier with the charging handle should be rough on the outside but smooth on the inside.
 
GunKraut said:
Hello and welcome to the forum.
It looks like this rifle has had a rough life and has been refinished by a previous owner to their best knowledge. The stock is a reproduction and the metal looks like it was heavily rusted at one point and a previous owner scrubbed it in order to remove the rust, leading to total loss of all blueing or phosphating. If you look at internal parts such as bolt, locking lugs or firing pin carrier, you should find parts in the white without any surface imperfections other then machining marks on the bolt. The bolt carrier with the charging handle should be rough on the outside but smooth on the inside.
Click to expand...

If you look at the top of the stock, especially the wrist behind the safety, I think it may be an original stock, but ++sanded and heavily stained. The hand guard looks like it is durafoil but I would need more pics and could be a reproduction. Looks like a restoration project that went badly, more destroyed than saved, but the result is a 'complete' rifle.
 
Hi thank you for your replies! :hail:

I'm pretty sure that the stock is original. My photos show some sort of glare that's really not there in person. I will take some better pictures when i get the rifle.

When i field strip the rifle the inside parts of the receiver looks all phosphated including the barrel. Totally like this.
https://www.pre98.com/shop/gone-but-not-forgotten/pending-late-war-mauser-k98k-rifle-bnz45-full-kriegsmodell-matching-mint-example/

My first thought was to restore the rifle. It has a very nice barrel and could make a good shooter with the proper care. I of course don't want to touch it if it turned out to be all phosphated as i have never seen that before.
 
I can’t make out the serial number. If you can tell what it is, maybe I have it in my listings of these and have some history of it. If I don’t, I can add it as I am trying to get good hostory on these.
 
The serial is 8956d.

It sounds like it's going to be a good restoration project.

Thank you very much :happy0180:
 
OP, If the stock you say is original don't touch the stock or metal. Let it be.

just rotate the dust cover place round hold inside the bolt carrier

and You are good. Best. am
 
Thanks everyone for your advice.

I will post more photos when i get the rifle.
 
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The stock looks as a reproduction. The original stock should have the serial number + WaA214. Some of these stocks are also marked: ZF K43. The dustcover isn't the original dustcover. It should be the manual type.
 
The stock has the serial and the waffenamt. The stock seems a bit rough so i think it maybe has been sanded.

Ok with the dust cover. That concludes that the rifle is not perfectly matching.

All i really want is a good shooter. :happy0180:
 
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