French Capture??

I've seen a rifle for sale locally that is marked 147 and 1939 and has a stock with French sling modification and waffenamts with 359 and 31 codes. My limited understanding of "French Capture" is that they were rifles made late in the war in German plants that had been captured by the Allies, and turned over to the French. From this I would expect these rifles to have late war dates, not 1939. Is this a 1939 rifle in a late war "French Capture" stock?

Unless you mean that this program was confined to new-build rifles captured with the plants or rifles produced in those plants under French/Allied supervision, I would think they would use whatever was found in a suitable condition and earlier built rifles would of course have better fit and finish, and perhaps quality overall. What sits in depots unused and what is issued and "used hard and put away wet" is often just a matter of chance. First into the depot can easily mean last out.

31 wouldn't be a waffenampt stamped on your rifle as that was for the ball bearing factory in Schweinfurt but 359 is correct for the Carl Walther factory in Zella-Mehlis, Thurlingia. Walther made 98k receivers for a few years, 1939 included.

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Originally Posted by alanten

I've seen a rifle for sale locally that is marked 147 and 1939 and has a stock with French sling modification and waffenamts with 359 and 31 codes. My limited understanding of "French Capture" is that they were rifles made late in the war in German plants that had been captured by the Allies, and turned over to the French.

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Well, if its a 147 code 1939 date, that means it was made by JP Sauer & Sohn, so not one of the post-war made rifles...which have very distinctive receiver markings...and no Waffs.
Immediately post-war, the French did make use of a lot of German surrendered arms, hence the, the French mods to a German issue surrender rifle.

My reading says that the French reworked a lot of K98's post war and not just those from the captured factories. There were also entire units of French troops equipped with captured German Mausers during the war, including former resistance fighters, North African Vichy French troops (some of whom were equipped directly by the Germans prior to the Torch landings), plus stockpiles that would have been captured during the fall of Tunis where Leclerc's troops were involved. That's in addition to rifles surrendered by the Germans or located in German stockpiles in Italy, France and Germany. They would have had a lot of rifles to work with.