Mauser Chinese Contract K98k - ex. John Wall rifle

[bruce98k]

One of the rifles I have been chasing down seemingly forever and thanks to Bob Landies at Ohio Ordnance, this one came my way.
Its also featured in Balls Military Rifles of the World in the Chinese section.

I have learned a bit more on the background of a group of four rifles that were sent to Winchester in the late 1930s for ammunition testing.
We believe this is one of the group of four. This one and the one pictured in Karabiner Volume I are two of them. A third rifle is known but
the whereabouts of the 4th rifle are unknown. At some point the rifles were put in the Winchester Museum collection and when that closed,
much of the contents were dispersed.

A few observations of the rifle now in hand. The cleaning rod and extractor match each other but not the rifle. I assume this is a factory assembly
mistake. Secondly, the bolt while factory new is a recovered bolt, likely diverted from a rejected military assembly.

At any rate, a very hard to get rifle in near new factory condition.

 

[Mike2994]

Glad to finally see good photos of it Bruce! Super neat and rare rifle in that condition!

 

[joryfreeburg]

Sweet rifle Bruce…… Top notch!!! I might even fight Mike for it someday

 

[DaveDavis]

A great find

 

[Cyrano4747]

Seconding that it’s nice to have solid photos of it. Thanks for that.

 

[Herk1994]

Very cool, love it. Love those nationalist stamps, too cool. Amazing to think that German firms were supporting another war against communism, all the while the Imperial Japanese were invading. Dan Carlin in his history podcast calls out an interesting point in that the Imperial Japanese, while they hated the communists as well, basically (if inadvertently) helped to secure Chinas communist future…

 

[moconfed]

Nice one Bruce! I passed up one years ago and still kick myself for doing so.

 

[jbmauser]

Amazing rifle! Nice to see it in detail!

 

[CanadianAR]

Incredible find in this day and age. And damn fine condition. Those markings pop!

 

[mauser99]

China was a valuable customer prewar... Its well stated in BBOW. Interesting is USA ammo supplier. I can only assume the USA was going to supply ammo to the Chinese. Thus needed examples for ammo production.
One thing of note is the use of the letter suffix on the TG and floor plate.. Something I've never noticed before on one of these.

 

[cj556]

Lovely rifle. I remember seeing this one in Balls book years ago. FWIW JW comfirms here it did come from a Winchester executive: https://www.k98kforum.com/threads/japanese-contract-k98k.19136/page-2#post-128555

 

[Jdt]

Very cool, love it. Love those nationalist stamps, too cool. Amazing to think that German firms were supporting another war against communism, all the while the Imperial Japanese were invading. Dan Carlin in his history podcast calls out an interesting point in that the Imperial Japanese, while they hated the communists as well, basically (if inadvertently) helped to secure Chinas communist future…

Love Dan Carlin work! Super nova in the east is incredible.

 

[RavenOps]

Very handsome rifle and a nice historical item. Thanks for posting.

 

[student of history]

Well that’s just sublime. Wild rifle in wild condition. Pretty typical Bruce move!

 

[Stephan98k]

That's a very nice rifle, congrats Bruce!

Now I have to think about the Chinese K98k divert to Kriegsmarine, another interesting rifle from Bob Landies: Link

 

[nirvana]

So what’s the theory on its origin? Was it shipped from Germany to the US for some unknown reason, at which point it was later given to Winchester? Did they come from China after delivery?

The four guns that were sent: were they sequential serial numbers, or noted in some sort of receipt that might indicate the origin?

 

[bruce98k]

The rifles were either sent to Winchester by Mauser or by the Chinese...based on condition sent directly out of new inventory....we will likely never find out the exact circumstances. Serial numbers of the 2 documented are not or near consecutive.