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K98k bnz45 mismatch

Tiger 2 Tank

Tiger 2 Tank

Senior Member
Hello,
I am looking at a nice late 35XX T block K.98k. Rifle matches itself, except the entire bolt assembly which matches itself in the T Block as well. The bolt assembly is not too far off in serial number to the rest of the rifle (40XX T). The cocking piece is a blued S/42 (matching to the bolt assembly) part. Everything looks correct. Stock is dark walnut and the wood hand guard is lighter laminated. Majority of the rifle finish is phosphate. Bolt assembly is mostly phosphate as well. Stock has e/H stamp. Receiver has the final proof stamp.

If it has the final receiver proof and side stock proof, I would think that it would have been ALL correct and not mismatched coming from the factory? Probably answered my own question. Wanted the expert's opinion.

I know it is a mismatch, but is it a GI assembled, factory capture mismatch? No photos to show, sorry.
 
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Brother, without pics… who can say? Not saying this applies to you, but a quick story I can remember from many years ago…

A buddy of mine who is not a primary k98k collector was looking at a byf45 in dual phosphate/blue . He didn’t have pictures and called me on the phone to get my advice. From what he described it sounded great on the phone. Chatter on the stock, kriegsmodell, matching numbers, bore excellent, etc. The only detraction he told me was that it was missing the handguard. The gentleman told him he purchased it like that and didn’t know much about it and the asking price at the time was decent. If I recall, an even $1000 cash. I told him get it….

He got it home, takes pics, sends it to me, every pic looked awesome until… I noticed the handguard retaining lip on the rear sight sleeve was apparently ground off and touched up with some kind of cold blue (which popped against the phosphate). I learned my lesson, luckily I was able to track down a “135” marked phosphate sleeve for him and I had a armorers red glue unnumbered handguard (I bought it and sent it for my error, I felt) and he was able to have his local gunsmith take care of it. This thing had to be restored, was too nice of an example.

Sorry for the long winded response but at least for me, after that experience I personally do not do any “value” assessments on k98ks without pics. It can get messy. Especially when we are talking about wood stocks….
 
Yep. Walnut Kriegsmodell, except the hand guard which is laminate. Mostly pretty dark wood overall. Unfortunately it's from an auction and don't want to post that. From my visual on this side of things, it looks correct. But, I wonder about the final proof being on there, stock proof being there, but mismatched bolt assembly. Doesn't sound like it should have come like that. Probably mismatched later post factory is what I'm now guessing.
 
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If I'm understanding what you're saying, it could have been assembled by a GI when the Steyr 'facility' was found. The bolt being close in serial number is key.
Usually scrub walnut is lighter in color, but....
 
It's probably the dark photos on the darkness of the stock. Stock looks correct with wood mill lines, good crisp e/H. Yeah, like you said, the bolt being close in serial number is the key to it all.
 
Tiger 2 Tank said:
It’s kinda in “stupid price tag range”. The left side could have been where the rifle was thrown into a pile of them? Who knows? Just wondering what everyone else thought about it being maybe a factory mismatch pick up.
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Most are anymore, sadly...maybe Farb will touch base on this, seems kind of earlier in the T block to be picked up at the factory, but who knows, the bolt is definitely the correct bolt and not far the gun's s/n, so I'd say it has a decent chance to have been "mismatched" on site...

Of course the bad thing is, if its already in the stupid range, add the buyers premium and all the other extraneous charges, and it becomes real stupid, real fast. But damn its got a good look, I like the phosphate, and that bolt cut out is SHARP...looks like a blued trigger on it, cool contrast with the phosphate TG...
 
pzjgr said:
too bad about the dings they are pretty deep
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A friend of mine once told me that these kind of dings you can remove with an damp iron, or was it a wet rag to the stock and then using the iron? Since the fibers are only compressed and not cut these dings can be undone with that method.

It is tough to tell where it was mismatched. Since there are many with even higher serial known, among them surely others which also may have been captured at factory, it is somewhat odd that this has a mismatching bolt. On the other hand, where would one be getting a bolt this close? Personally I'd rather guess this one made it out in the field/close to the factory, and when captured they just made one pile of bolts and one pile of rifles, then someone just took a bolt from one pile and a rifle from the other pile. Those that came matching IMHO are more likely to come from factory, where the matching parts were together. Just some assumptions from thinking about this may had happened. To get to the conclusion: it is a mismatching, no matter how close it may be. It will never command the same value as an all matching one. Just keep this in mind when thinking about buying it.
 
pzjgr said:
I like the phosphate, and that bolt cut out is SHARP...looks like a blued trigger on it, cool contrast with the phosphate TG...
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I meant to comment on both those points, but you beat me to it. In pic #7 in post 9 you can really see it. e/H is crisp too, although they usually are in the scrub walnut.
 
To use the Walther factory capture as an example, there were numerous P.38's and PP's captured mismatched when the Americans went in. We have documented the ac PP's where you will have a set of matching PP's, then a set of mismatch, then matching...there was no real ryhme or reason as to how that happened. Maybe this was one of those rifles at Steyr where a batch would be matching, then not, then matching again? Absolut, your theory is probably more correct-which I am more to believe with the damage to the stock. It almost looks like it was tossed in a pile of rifles. The damage could have been done by many other ways as well, but it just sort of fits what it looks like may have happened.

This kind of pressed dents into the wood is sometimes an easy fix. I had a Norinco AK-47 once that I accidently put some dents into the wood stock with. I got a medicine dropper, laid the rifle down and put some drops of water on the depressed wood area and let it sit, no wiping it off. After a few hours, I found that the wood pulled back up to its original form. Kinda neat how that worked.

So, that's another discussion: Do you "fix history" or leave it alone? The wood stock kinda looks like it could tell the story of the rifle, so do you "fix it" by doing the non-invasive water treatment and have the pressed areas pop back up....or leave it alone to tell the story of the rifle? Of course fixing anything in this field would have to be a non-invasive thing.

I just picked up a really neat late Walther PP that is super late (like within the last two hundred known to exist) and in the white with an early unserialized, unpainted aluminum frame. I'll put photos up here before too long on it in the pistol section. So, I'll probably pass on this rifle. It's on gunbroker if anyone wants to try and get it. There are more photos of the rifle, but I just put up there the photos where I had questions. It's a good looking rifle overall. Neat discussion though.
 
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Tiger 2 Tank said:
To use the Walther factory capture as an example, there were numerous P.38's and PP's captured mismatched when the Americans went in. We have documented the ac PP's where you will have a set of matching PP's, then a set of mismatch, then matching...there was no real ryhme or reason as to how that happened. Maybe this was one of those rifles at Steyr where a batch would be matching, then not, then matching again? Absolut, your theory is probably more correct-which I am more to believe with the damage to the stock. It almost looks like it was tossed in a pile of rifles. The damage could have been done by many other ways as well, but it just sort of fits what it looks like may have happened.

This kind of pressed dents into the wood is sometimes an easy fix. I had a Norinco AK-47 once that I accidently put some dents into the wood stock with. I got a medicine dropper, laid the rifle down and put some drops of water on the depressed wood area and let it sit, no wiping it off. After a few hours, I found that the wood pulled back up to its original form. Kinda neat how that worked.

So, that's another discussion: Do you "fix history" or leave it alone? The wood stock kinda looks like it could tell the story of the rifle, so do you "fix it" by doing the non-invasive water treatment and have the pressed areas pop back up....or leave it alone to tell the story of the rifle? Of course fixing anything in this field would have to be a non-invasive thing.

I just picked up a really neat late Walther PP that is super late (like within the last two hundred known to exist) and in the white with an early unserialized, unpainted aluminum frame. I'll put photos up here before too long on it in the pistol section. So, I'll probably pass on this rifle. It's on gunbroker if anyone wants to try and get it. There are more photos of the rifle, but I just put up there the photos where I had questions. It's a good looking rifle overall. Neat discussion though.
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That rifle has been sitting awhile, he's a guy I've done business with in the past. Good guy.
 
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