Commercial production G98s? Pictures now up

Good evening:
Does anyone have any information on probable commercial production Gewehr 98s? I picked one up recently which must be one, but I can't find out much about it in my usual reference books. It is a full length, full wood Gewehr 98, with receiver "in the white", marked Mauser Werke Oberndorf a/n as usual, but with no date of manufacture. The receiver side rail is marked Gew 98. There are no military acceptance stamps/frakturs on it, but it has a commercial 5 digit serial number, no letter suffix, and the Crown B Crown U commercial type proofs. The stock has been duffel cut under the front band, hidden and easily fixed. I haven't had the stock off it yet, but the topwood matches the receiver number. The rearsight and floorplate also match, but the bolt is not matching. The buttstock has the usual steel unit disk (no marks) and no bolt take-down hole, but has a gothic type WM monogram on the right stock flat which I assume is for Mauser. Some dipswitch has applied some cold blue "assistance" to the floorplate as best I can tell, and there are some nicks in the wood around the trigger guard like someone tried to pry it off without taking the screws out. Otherwise the rifle seems original. The bore is immaculate.

I am puzzled by this piece. It is a standard pre-WWI configuration Gew 98 (Lange-Vizier sight, lack of takedown hole, no forewood finger grasping grooves) made by Mauser but no manufacture date, no military marks, no crests of other countries. I don't see it in the Speed sporter/commercial book or the Mauser Archives book, although I admit I haven't gone through them page by page. Were miltary spec G98's made available to the public by order pre-WWI?

Thx

Ed

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Post-WWI commerical gun with civilain proofs. After WWI ended Germany had piles of finished, semi-finished, forgings Gew98's. Very likely this is one of them. This one needs Patrick to jump in.

Thanks Steve:
I agree it has commercial proofs and serial number. What mystifies me though is its style. As I recall, the Treaty of Versailles rather strictly limited what the Germans were allowed to produce, and they abided by that fairly closely for several years. They were allowed to produce sporters, but not military rifles. By the time they were contravening those regulations, the "Standard" Model was around, with the flatter tangent rearsight, shorter barrel, etc. They were making the "transitional" models aka G98B's by the late 20's, and those were all converted from existing military proofed rifles. The features of this one would suggest it would have had to be made relatively early post war, unless perhaps someone wanted a special order "older" style military rifle? I haven't run into one like this before, and quite like it. The bore is lovely, so I'm going to see how it shoots one of these days.

Ed

One more point. It does not look like a "Closet Queen". It has a been there done that look. Cadet issue to German Military Academy? Need Patrick to weigh in.

Plus, it's duffel cut, so was somewhere where it had to be cut to bring back...


Ed

It could be one of the Wehrmannsgewehr target rifles chambered in 8.15x46mmR. These are often made from Gew 98 parts and sold commmercially.

I don't think it's one of those. I have one, and it's a beautifully made, lovely rifle. It is single shot, as are most of the Wehrmannsgewehr, but it is also clearly marked as to calibre. This rifle has no calibre designation on it, so it would be unlikely to be one of the 8.15 x 46 ones--it would be downright dangerous to make a rifle which was identical to the service rifle in every way but a different calibre, and not clearly marked as such.

Good thought, though, and I'm certainly open to suggestions!

Ed

The German “Alpha” catalogue of 1911 offered new and used military rifles.
The Mauser Gewehr 98 new, in 8mm was offered at 150 Marks.
During 1900 the Prussian state factories produced a total of 90,000 rifles at a cost of 54 Marks each including licensing fees.

Not sure about the proofs. Need Patrick on this one. But, are those Post-WWI proofs? Anybody know?

According to The Standard Directory of Proof Marks, the Crown over U was brought in with the first German standardized proof laws of 1891, and was "a final or definitive proof, also on guns proofed in the finished state, and then marked with the Crown over B stamp"

The Crown over B stamp "is the proof mark applied to a gun that has undergone proof in the finished condition. Crown over U mark must also be present"

Both marks continued in usage with the modified proof laws of 1912, but were done away with with the new proof laws of 1939. So, these marks were in use both pre and post WWI. I have seen them on Mauser pistols and commerical sporters, etc. So, not a lot of help in narrowing things down. I note that my pre-war Mauser sporter in ".30 US" has a 5 digit number and these two proofs.

Logic would dictate that this would have to be a pre-WWI or immediate post WWI rifle, as it has the older features. I would expect that any rifle put together after the war, especially if using existing parts stocks, would have the grasping groove on the forestock and the bolt take-down hole in the buttstock. Once the Czechs started making and marketing the VZ24 and the Belgians the similar FN equivalent, everyone went with the flatter tangent rearsight, so I can't see a lot of effort being put into utilizing Lange-Viziers on new production rifles after about 1925........

I suspect that sail32 is correct and this is a pre-WWI offering to the commercial and "interested small dictatorships" market, but maybe we'll never know.

I'm leaning more towards my Canadian/British/French stuff these days, and am most likely going to offload the bulk of my German collection, but this is a cool old rifle so it might be a keeper! It's funny, because it was part of a lot of rifles at the spring Rock Island Regional Auction, where it was not well described; it wasn't the rifle I really wanted in the lot, but I'm having more fun with it than I am with the one I had been really after.

Ed