So my good friend Dan has (2) K98icon Mausers his Grand Father sent back from WWII. Grandpa says that he took them off the Goebels Treasure train after he got out of The Battle of The Bulge after he Stormed Omaha Beach. Dan, is of course, very proud of his Grand Father's and his War stoires. The Mausers are nice, though they seem to have the GI Duffle Bag treatment and are missing the upper stocks etc.

Dan decides he will like to shoot the 1939 K98 and so proceeds to buy surplus ammo at the local gun show. He arrives at the range and proceeds to shoot it. All seems to be going well with all of that until he comes over to my station and says "Dude, my Mauser like back fired or something. I got powder burned on my hands and there is like black carbon all over the magazine". He agreas to stop shooting the iron.

After other guns are shot and a good day is had we go to inspect his rifle. He has cleaned up the carbon and discarded the case so no clues there. It looks normal. Since we were shooting the Mosin also he had Windex which was sprayed liberally down the bore and into the action/receiver. Nothing poured out of the barrel. I hand him my cleaning rod to probe the bore. He slides it in until it hits a bullet lodged 2/3 of the way down the barrel.

So we call it a day. Dan gets a 1/4" steel rod at Home Depot and proceeds to hammer the bullet out of the muzzle end of the rifle. I've seen the bullet. Typical old looking ammo on the tip and sides however the but end of the boat tail is just black and course and obviously corroded. I ask to see the rest of the ammo. Sweet Jesus I cannot believe soemone sold this much less my buddy tried to shoot it. Steel cased. Seriously rusted/corroded. Some of them were filed down and made into flat points and soem were filed into dum dums... I tell him he needs to bury that **** in the forest and get a second opinion on his next ammo purchase.

I assume that the round that went off so poorly had gotten corroded inside the case to such an extend that it only pushed the bullet so far and then caused the propellent to flash back through the action. I do not know anything about Mausers. I did not see a "Hatcher Hole" like i have on my 1903a3. So my question is. Does a K98 Mauser have such a back pressure relief opening? Is his action going to be cracked now? What should he expect?
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