https://www.gunbroker.com/item/735463698
Another bnz43 single rune on Gunbroker - jacked up from polishing, but another real one. Anyway, haven't had time to answer some of the questions due to work so I'll give it a shot.
When I mentioned the use of foreign rifles for training, I meant VZ24 type rifles. Of course although it seems the SS was able to buy K98k rifles direct from the manufacturers (see attached document from Oct.1944 Mauser sales ledger) it wasn't commonplace for some reason (in fact I think this may be the only such entry seen in the Mauser Oberndorf ledgers). Perhaps due to the fact that all of the Mauser rifle production was specifically intended for the OKH and not to be siphoned off (Speer held tight controls over such things). This was the sole reason for the SS contract with Steyr, so the SS could have their own supply of new rifles unimpeded by Speer's office.
As collectors, we tend to believe that there was so much material being produced that it was no problem to take a dip in the well without anyone noticing. This doesn't seem to be the case - most factories had quotas to fill, and raw material shortages always put stress on the supply of materials used to produce enough product to fill the demanded quota. The actual K98k SS contract was a big deal, finding the raw materials alone would have been a huge deal, as those were tightly controlled down to the kg. Material waste was also a big problem, and it seems clear the SS concentration camp manufacturing system was a huge waste of materials in most cases (the SS were terrible at everything not related to killing people and breaking things). The difference was Steyr was a partner in the endeavor, which meant at least the materials might not be wasted. This may be the only reason the project was allowed - that's right, the SS didn't just do this without permission from the Office of the Minister for Armaments and Ammunition. Speer trusted Industry leaders, and probably begrudgingly allowed cooperation with the SS because it met the end game. I don't pretend to be a scholar on Speer and his thinking, just what I gleaned from cramming for this book.
I'll expand a bit on why I think many of the SS contract guns were from Dachau - I mean guns found in the US, not those that are found in Europe or as Russian Captures. One interesting thing I found while doing to the book - SS double claw sniper rifles. If you look, many of the SS double claw rifles found were made from SS contract or single rune rifles. Also, lots of byf43 rifles in the c-e blocks used, along with bcd43 rifles. These were the rifles found in the depot that were pulled to make the snipers - if you have the book, in my opinion the document on P.732 explains the appearance of large numbers of byf43/bcd43 rifles in the depot (note that this document specifically says 17,000 K98k rifles were to be transferred to the SS from July/August production, the document was from June - this would probably be about the time a byf43 c-d block would hit the Army depot system, where the rifles would have been transferred from). Anyway, this shows that the SS depots were not full of just every maker 98k - mostly I think because they didn't regularly get 98k's from Army production for their depot. The field army (Waffen-SS) did get them from Army depots, which would allow some to get into the system. Anyway, Dachau was the largest of all the SS depots, so it would have been full of material, which I think would have been looted completely by US forces. So - by default, a large number of them would have come from Dachau to the US.
It must be remembered that the SS was NOT equal to the Heer or Luftwaffe in getting material from the OKH. The SS was a separate organization, outside of the main armed forces, even in 1944. The subject of SS rifles is not an easy thing to understand, even reading my chapter on them is just a scrape on the surface. I have many more thoughts about the subject that I didn't put into print, as some is speculation or just a "feeling". I tried to just use facts or solid evidence in there.
When the SS contract started, most of the rifles were assembled using Radom components. I have a feeling that if Speer knew Waffenamt accepted parts were being siphoned off to make the SS guns, he would have been furious. But, as all things concentration camp, the slow start made it necessary that Radom parts were used to start fulfilling the contract for "delivery of 10,000 pc. per month of K98k" (from the original document on P.734). The contract was for that - 10,000 rifles per month: "The SS-FHA manufactures 10,000 K98k in their own workshops under the supervision of Steyr". At the time that document was written (June 1943) I think the work was ready to start or even underway. So the idea that only 10,000 or 20,000 rifles were assembled by Steyr for the SS in 15-16 months is way under what Steyr was capable of. My production estimate of 65,000 in 43 (approx 7 months) and 85,000 in 44 (approx 9 months) is probably pretty close, give or take 10,000 for the bombing and startup. For startup, the process was probably instantaneous - Steyr just started assembling parts they already had in the pipeline from Radom, assembled in the main plant at Steyr. I'd guess they increased the output of Radom to make up for the siphoned off parts, after all they had some influence over production there. So the idea that "camp assembly" would slow the process is wrong, the camps only made parts, which were taken from Radom production at first until the production at Gusen caught up- but guess what, it took nearly 6 months before any appreciable supply of parts came from there, something you would fully expect from such a thing.
The subject of SS rifles may be a great topic at the SOS forum meeting.
