1930 Greek Mauser - How'd I do?

[cipherk98]

So I've been in the market to add another Mauser to the roster for awhile since my G29/40 is a mixmaster and a bit tired and my Geha 12 gauge is an oddball I don't really shoot anyway. I was tempted to order a matching M48 but am not in the mood to clean cosmoline in the middle of winter, while a Type 24 is a huge risk in terms of being able to recover it as most were beat hard. So when I found this 1930 Greek FN Mauser at a local auction, I reviewed it carefully, tried to educate myself a little on it before bidding, and wound up winning the bid for far below a price where I'd have to think about it.











The serial number on the receiver matches the bolt and stock, could not find it anywhere else on the gun, but I understand that most parts should have an A on them. This showed up everywhere I checked except the trigger guard, rear band, bolt release arm/stop, and buttplate (which is very rough, it may be obliterated). Any thoughts on this and where I should look for them, or if they had them? It was present on the front band, front sight, bayonet lug, rear sight, safety, bolt sleeve, cocking piece, and bolt handle, not had it apart yet. Most of what looks like rust is actually just old grease that should clean up no problem. I can also not find any import marks on it. Bore seems to be pretty nice without major pitting or any damage to the crown. The crest behind the receiver is there as well but hard to make out.

On the bad side it came with no sling or cleaning rod, the bayonet was a mismatched 1939 German K98k with frog, and there is small, about 3/8", small crack behind the rear of the receiver in the stock. I paid $261 out the door on the gun, which I think is okay? I saw one go for $1100 on Gunbroker but I don't know what it's story is, most of them seemed to be around $400 no sales. Plan is to keep the bayonet and sell the rough Czech one I have now instead but that should make me back a few bucks on that one. I also noticed Ball's book didn't have much on these, so any other sources for information?

Information

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[Aragorn243]

I think you did real well. I would have bought it without thinking for that price. Can't help you out too much information wise. Might want to check under German Mausers rather than FN Mausers, that's where Peterson's has it. Price you paid is what my six year old listing has for fair condition. Jumps to $400 for good. I've found pricing to be much higher for most Mausers now.

[cipherk98]

That's about in line with my book by Peterson which has a 9 year old copy right. I actually couldn't find it at first until you pointed me to the German section, I looked in Belgium and for a non existent Greece section. So I feel pretty good about it. Of note is how there are some gouges/scratches in the side of the stock that cross over onto the handguard in one or two spots, confirming to me that the handguard is correct to that stock too, or at least they saw action at the same time.



In addition, the crack is hard to picture... but it's a tiny one I've circled in photoshop. The color balance is a bit wonky here but it makes it a little more obvious what is grease and what are tiny rust spots too, but overall it's barely noticeable in person both the crack and rust spots.



Kind of debating trying to track down a cleaning rod for it and maybe sling, but I doubt I'll be able to find a correct cleaning rod as they were not blued on these from what I read and I can't find any pictures of slings at first glance. For a gun like this perhaps better to have nothing at all with it accessory wise than something that is wrong imo.

[Aragorn243]

Probably a standard K98 cleaning rod would fit. If you want it without blue, just soak it in vinegar for an hour. Slings hard to tell. Greece bought firearms from almost everyone so almost any sling might be appropriate. I found two photos with slings. Mauser had what appears to be a Swedish style sling with buckle and center pin. Mannlicher had what appears to be a standard Spanish style, square buckle, no center pin. I've found rifles look a whole lot better with something that at least looks appropriate. But that's just me. I put a Swedish sling on my Polish Mauser because only photo I found of them looked like the Swedish slings. I can't say it's right but can't say it's wrong either.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Cipherk98, the tiny crack may suddenly grow into a serious one. It is the start of the "traditional" Mauser split caused by the tang being rammed back into the stock. The recoil thrust is supposed to be taken up by the recoil cross-bolt shown in your previous post below the receiver ring. A correctly set-up Mauser stock should thus have a visible clearance behind the tang. Over decades wood shrinks and the wood behind the recoil bolt is slightly battered. This allows the recoil load to push the tang back into the stock, acting like a blunt wedge and causing the split.

See post no. 6 in this thread:
https://www.milsurps.com/showthread....ghlight=recoil

From my own dismal experience I can assure you that the crack can develop very quickly. To avoid this, insert a metal shim (about 0.02") between the recoil lug on the bottom of the receiver and the recoil bolt. And scrape out the cutout behind the tang so that there is about 0.5mm / 0.02" clearance to the rear between the metal and the wood.

[cipherk98]

I figured as much... I failed to check this clearance properly when I dropped my G29/40 into a mystery WWII stock and it cracked it 20 rounds later, made worse there as it was a laminate. In that case I put a dowel at the end of the crack to stop it and filled what was cracked with glue, worked it in, and clamped it. Held up fine so far but it's not a pretty repair as it was not a pretty gun. For this gun I'd like it to be nicer.

Now there is a gouge right where the crack stops and above the stamp; maybe it helped stop it from spreading further? If I make sure there is proper clearance will the crack continue to be an issue to where I'll need to drill the end and put a dowel in, or would I be alright injecting in glue via a syringe and clamping if the clearance is right? I used some aluminum foil to a thickness of about .0268 to test fit a shim; I think I'll need to dig through my scrap pile and make one as I doubt the foil will hold up even after compressing it before fitting, but it left me with this much of a gap which looks alright, if even a bit generous:



No sanding yet, just trying to see how much it looks. If I do need to touch up this fit after putting in a shim a little 200-300 grit sanding on the inside part where the receiver fits shouldn't hurt right?

As for the tear down on the gun itself, it took some effort but I got it done. I want to make a bad pun about the grease on the gun but am drawing a blank - there isn't much of it but what is there is old and sticky, though on the barrel bands, mag well cover, spring, and follower have cleaned up pretty well thus far. It did however take some work with my electronics heat gun to get the front band freed up, same for the handguard, due to wood shrinkage, old grease, and in the case of the front band, a little cosmetic rust.

Stamp wise I've found an A on the follower and magwell cover, bottom of the receiver, the trigger guard, the trigger, and the sear. These are all internal and not visible with the gun assembled. Nothing on the middle band I can find, and I don't want to try and take off the rear swivel as I don't have a screw driver I feel comfortable using on the pristine screws (have blades long enough but are all too thick). Can't find anything on the firing pin yet, it's still pretty greasy. Is it safe to put the "in the white" parts from the bolt in a bath of mineral spirits for a few minutes to help break up some of the old grease? Feeling pretty comfortable this gun is almost completely original though I don't know if they put the A on all their gun parts (for Accepted or Acceptance maybe), or if they rotated numbers from gun to gun or lot to lot as some means of indication how it fit/acceptance. I'm guessing the former but could swear I read something about the latter. Also uncovered the matching serial on the barrel and all the proper Belgian proofs that I know of from a quick look on the internet and no evidence of import marks, covered up or otherwise.

Very happy with this purchase so far and hoping to get it to the range soon once everything is sorted. Only sad thing about buying a gun like this via a third party without meeting the seller is being unable to get the story on it. A lack of import marks means it was imported before '68, right? Still could be a commercial import but would be interesting to know. My Yugo SKS is my other matching gun but it's not as interesting as this, due to this one being 40+ years older and Yugo's SKS being common guns, even when matching. Plus I like Mausers even if I don't know a whole lot, mainly due to the seemingly millions of variants.

[cipherk98]

Solved the mystery of the circle A myself, apparently an FN inspection stamp, though it seems the Circle A variant may be unique to the Greek models. The letter that changed was the H prefix in the serial which seems to indicate the series, in this case 7th (H being the 7th letter in the Greek alphabet) if what I gathered was correct. If so it would be one of the last that made it to Greece if it made it that far... I've seen a few in the H8xxx and H9xxx range that showed signs of having been taken and reissued to the Germans. I also assume that the 1930 is only the model number then, not the year of production if that is the case. I feel like learning the fine details of a rifle and it's history, good or bad, once it's in your hands is as fun as shooting it.

[mtoms]

I also purchased a Y1930 recently to go with my Y1903 MS. I paid $325 shipped but even though the bore appeared decent, it shot so poorly I rebarreled it this last weekend with a military profile replacement from Numrich. With it's sanded stocked and miss matched bolt I'm sure I have more in it now than it's worth. It is a fine shooting rifle now however.

[cipherk98]

mtoms, that is a nice looking gun. Glad your rebarrel got it shooting again. If you like it was worth it, and since these are uncommon it's nice to keep one going. As I will get to at the bottom of the paragraph, your results shooting it mirrored mine.

Got the gun reassembled on Monday. The bluing is still pretty good aside from expected wear spots like around the front band and where the hand guard snaps in. A light coat of oil get it nice and shiny again. The old grease cleaned up pretty well with a little Hoppes and a paper towel, or for the tough spots mineral spirits and a very gentle use of a brass brush. The touch of cosmetic rust where the front band was in contact with the barrel, likely where some water got trapped between the two, cleaned up fine. I am still looking for ideas though on what to do to help maintain the finish of the stock and protect it, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

As for shimming it, I ultimately had to use about a tightly wrapped .010" piece aluminum foil shim, as anything more than that moved the receiver too far forward for the front action screw to thread properly. To account for this I gently swiped the inside of the stock near the rear of the receiver with some 150 grit to get a little extra clearance. From there I cleaned out the bore, lubed up the bolt, and today, took it out for an action check. Ultimately shot out around 50 yards to see how it would do, not knowing how far it was off and facing pretty nasty winds today.

Shooting a mix of new and milsurp ammo my best group was about a 1-1.25" group with Yugo M75, which almost always gets me my best. The Romanian and Turk I had also shot quite well. On an odd note and in relation to another thread, I shot a little of my PPU Match for the first time and found it shot unusually low, about 3" lower than my M75 and lower than my normal PPU. My shim seems to have held up as the spacing between the stock and tang is the same as before shooting.

Overall, this has gone from a good purchase to a great one. When conditions are better I'll take it out to 100 and see what it can do but I'm hoping for 2-3" groups, limited by the shooter and not the gun. I also will not be splitting up the German bayonet from this gun. While "wrong" for the gun I do not know the circumstances behind how it got paired with the gun. It's very possible someone just had one and threw it on the gun, or it got switched by accident in their safe and that is how it got consigned with the proper Greek one still in a box somewhere. On the other hand there is no way to know that the original wasn't lost/missing and someone didn't grab a German to put on it in the field or something. So it really adds no value but I don't want to split them up so if I sell one it'll be my Czech (maybe Turkish? Haven't examined it awhile) bayonet.

Also, in reading in Ball's book about these, I notice he says the letters in the series suggest 80,000 or more were ordered/delivered, which he notes conflicts with a suspected total number ordered of around 75,000. I believe this is due to him believing these were lettered with the Roman alphabet and not Greek as I mentioned above. The lettering is confirmed after finding one with a Greek "delta" before the serial number to back up reading that elsewhere. It's not possible to know the total order but it would seem likely somewhere around 65-68k were delivered given this H5xxx gun shows no markings that would suggest it was used by Nazi Germany like the later guns I mentioned above unless a series was skipped for some reason.

When the weather gets nicer and can I take pictures I'll take some of the gun in it's now cleaned up state. In addition I shot nearly 36 pictures on film with my macro rig documenting the stamps and proofs on this gun and will share some of the more interesting ones once it is is developed.