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“Too fantastic to believe?” “Secret Cache of AFRIKA-KORPS Mausers from the Middle East”.
So this American Rifleman ad from an Aug. 1962 magazine claims.
Anyone on the forum own one these?
Was there any way to attach provenance to the YE OLD HUNTER’s claims?
So is it too fantastic to believe… even today?
Does an AFRIKA-KORPS MAUSER exist?
Welll....yes, and, no(?)
The DAK certainly used 98k's, so yes, I guess you could call them 'DAK 98k's...
Are you asking if they marked them as such? I honestly don't think so. So in that respect I'd have to say 'no'.
But I've learned to never say never in this game. As you said, if anyone has one so marked with concrete proof behind it, I'd love to see it!
Not to slander reputations, but I don't think that Ye Olde Hunters (Lodge) has/ had a solid reputation.
They still do exist in some form, since the advertise via SGN.
I would say that this was a good marketing technique/ ploy in the golden age of cheap imports where the US was awash in milsurp.
I look forward to an expert weighing in...
I suppose some laminated, cupped buttstock models may have made it to North Africa. I recently attended an auction of an estate's Africa Corps items. Very large collection. Saw some equipment that had been altered to suit the desert environment. I suppose one could do that for a rifle to some degree. Documenting it would be very difficult. For $27.95, who cares right!
Where would they come from?
The British weren't likely to let a stash of modern rifles in the hands of the Arabs. I don't recall the Germans actively recruiting the Arabs either so they wouldn't have given them to them. Captured weapons would have been removed, the Germans would have evacuated the rest.
Doesn't mean there wouldn't be a few out there but to have enough to advertise them nationally?
Could be Israeli rifles, who knows. I do recall reading somewhere, perhaps here on this forum, that rifles which served in the desert lack their finish as it was blasted off by the sand.