Picked up a decent RC Czech VZ24
I believe the consensus is that these came out of Romania and are a mix of Mausers in service with Romanian forces at the end of the war, plus some captured Czech VZ24's the Russians gave the Romanians post-war. Romania evidently used these in various capacities until fairly recently and all of them were refurbed in the communist era.
Mine is A-typical in that the crest and markings aren't ground off - it seems the majority of these have the markings at least partially removed, especially those with Romanian crests. This one is a Czech-crested rifle and was likely an RC from the Eastern Front given to Romania post-war.
It was imported by Tradex from Europe directly to Canada, so luckily it has escaped US importation marking.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3954-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3978-1.jpg
Here you see the 1937 manufacturing date:
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3965-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3966-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3967-1.jpg
This was the only rusty spot on the rifle, it came well slathered in cosmolene and unlike many of these, it was black-paint free (thank goodness). The rust came off after 10 seconds with fine wool.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3975-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3973-1.jpg
Like all these guns out of Romania, it has a basic cleaning rod made of round stock with a circular jag hole. the other end is threaded to fit the retained nut. I believe the original rods were swamped and turfed by the Russians, these rods are, I suspect, later Romanian replacements.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3976-1.jpg
This rifle was put together with all VZ24 parts except for the bolt stop which is un-marked, but looks to have actually been from a late-war K98k or a late-production G24(t):
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3970-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3971-1.jpg
Although in excellent shape, this is the third rile the bolt body has been mated to. The original number is ground off, it was electro-penciled once, blued-over, then electro-penciled to this rifle. This lends evidence to how long Romania kept re-building an re-using their stocks of VZ24 rifles. The stocks on all these are too nice given all the re-building - I suspect Romania re-stocked them in new walnut at some point. they have not been heavily sanded from what I can tell.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3969-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3963-1.jpg
Handguard repair. The hand guards are generally in worse shape than the stocks on these, I imagine Romania tended to re-use them more than the buttstocks. Many (most?) have some level of repair. This one has a dove-tail re-infocement to deal with a hairline crack that I had to clean up as the original repair was poorly done (first pic is before, second is after):
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...ps1697h1-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3961-1.jpg
These were imported without capture screws, like a Russian-capture K98k. I had a spare set or original Mauser capture screws from a WW1-era contract Mauser that I installed. You can also see that at some point, this bottom metal was serialized - probably to another rifle - then scrubbed. I don't think any of these VZs from Romania are now serialized apart from the action, bolt and stock.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3957-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3956-1.jpg
Mine came with a 1938-produced Czech bayonet that has been re-blued over a lot of fine pitting.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3959-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3958-1.jpg
The scabbard is a bit rarer and seems to have come from a serbian-contract VZ24 bayonet, likely also captured in WW2.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN3960-1.jpg
All in all, I'm happy with this rifle. They are selling in the $400 range here in Canada, probably cheaper stateside, but for a real eastern-front WW2 Mauser rifle in decent shape, this isn't too bad.
