Third Party Press

Sauer Commercial

In my opinion the late commercials were produced for the Volkssturm, which would be for the war effort.

Hallo,

hard to say. The Volkssturm was a part of the Wehrmacht (for beeing protected as Kombattants by the "Genfer Konvention" and the "Haager Landkriegsordnung"), so they didn´t need commercal firing proofs. But there are some Units with Police Officers, and Police guns need commercial firing proofs as far I know.

Grüße,

Georg
 
Georg and Mike both interesting points. So rifles produced as 'commercial' but without full let's say Heer proofs and using failed components, are those considered outside normal production? Not exactly sure how these would be categorized. IMHO not 'true' commercial but not Heer either.
 
Sorry if this throws the discussion off track, but I have a couple random questions quasi related to this rifle. Feel free to move to its own topic...

We see police bayonets for 98ks. We see police proofed pretty much every german WW2 pistol. Yet there are no police marked 98ks (that I am familiar with). Why? Sorry if you covered this in volume 1, I don't recall seeing an answer in there.

A few reasons.

1) The primary reason is that the police were simply not a priority as far as rifles were concerned. Before the war, the police had little need for them, and the vast majority of what they did receive were the older K98a. After the war started, they were even less likely to receive K98k given the enourmous demands of the Army, and most of what they received would have been what K98a were left and the beutewaffen provided by the Army depots. SS-Polizei Regiment Bozen, operating in Italy, seems to have been equipped exclusively with Carcanos (mostly M41) and assorted Italian automatic weapons.

2) As for why virtually no rifles are marked, I have a theory. The E/B, E/C, etc. were only for new equipment purchased directly by the Orpo under contract (KKW, PPK, holsters, etc.). Rifles provided by the Army from existing supply (K98a, wz29, M41 Carcanos, etc.) were not required to be marked.

The only Police marked combat rifles I am aware of are the Yugo M1924, and the only thing that is E/B marked is the modified rear band. I have been looking for one forever without sucess. There is also a police marked wz.91/98/26 floating around but I am not 100% convinced it is authentic.
 
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Saw this too late so guessing is useless. I would have said commercial too, but saw the military proofs. Interesting gun.
 
A few reasons....


Thanks Ryan. I find it weird that they bought so many bayonets. Were they more of a utility tool?

I also find it interesting that one of the last runs of P38s (the late phosphate BYF44s) had a police run.
 
Thanks Ryan. I find it weird that they bought so many bayonets. Were they more of a utility tool?

I also find it interesting that one of the last runs of P38s (the late phosphate BYF44s) had a police run.

It was more of a tool than a combat weapon, but they fit the Mausers the police would have had.
 

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