Who made this K98?

[m4a3sherman]

Your Sling is an Izzy (Israeli). I had one just like it but traded it to Sht_le for something else to go on his Izzy 98k. The symbol in the circle on the buckle is Hebrew but I am not sure what it says.

I would also agree that the Sight hood looks a bit funky, or rather the front sight base does- According to Backbone of the Wehrmacht by Richard Law, the 1940 /42 K98 should not have a front sight hood(see page 156)- Could have been added later- Was that sling on the rifle when you go it? Perhaps the rifle has seen some time in Israeli service and picked up the hood there.

[clarkmilitaria]

The sling came with the rifle, which came from an auction comapny. The auction company may have had the sling sitting around and decided to add it to the gun, or maybe the owner before the auction company added it. It definitely sounds like the sight hood is a later addition. Would Israel have put their own markings anywhere on the rifle? I have not found anything out of the ordinary so far.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

I think you're probably correct in that the sling was just added by someone in the civilian sector along the way.

Your rifle is in remarkable condition and doesn't have the wear and military markings other than original as most do that were used in service by any country after the war. Besides marking many stocks with serial numbers, etc, if it had been used by Israel I believe they they would have almost surely defaced the swastikas.

[m4a3sherman]

Usually one will find some sort of marking on the rifle indicating Israeli service however this is not always the case. The vast majority of K98s used by them were converted to 7.62 however many were kept in their original caliber as well. So... yes and no... It definitely does not look like there are Izzy markings on it anywhere and theoretically, the sighthood could have been added by the Germans but I wouldn't have thought so. It appears that many soldiers didn't care much for the hood anyway and even if it was added, one assumes that an armourer would have replaced the front sight base or rebarreled all together. From the pictures, it looks to have the original barrel on it as well... so I don't know about that. I know this is super helpful

[berlinlubecker42]

that sling didnt come with the rifle did it? Thats a post war israili sling on a matching rifle. what the israili's did was ground off all the serial's to force match them to the receiver/barrel. after careful examination, your looks like a true matching rifle which lead's me to believe either you put that sling on there yourself or you have a weird variant of a israili capture where they left all the parts alone. If it is option #2 you are very lucky. I got ripped off on a rifle 6 months ago that was all matching and had the exact same sling with the green salt on it. when I received it from my ffl i looked closely and all the serial's except the receiver were ground off and restamped to match the rifle. This made pretty much every part except the receiver worthless. but either way, very nice rifle!!!!

[clarkmilitaria]

"that sling didnt come with the rifle did it?"

As I said earlier, "The sling came with the rifle, which came from an auction company." My guess is that a previous owner, or the auction company, had a separate sling and decided to add it. Or, an owner had the rifle and bought a sling for the rifle not knowing or caring about the authenticity.

[m4a3sherman]

Hey, when that rifle was bought the original owner, a sling was a sling was a sling. Especially on mausers with the 'through-the-stock' mounting system, a correct sling was (and largely still is) hard to come by. And, no doubt, as leather is one of the hardest things to preserve, the Izzy slings were cheap, in great shape, and probably the mostly widely available sling that would work.

[clarkmilitaria]

Hey, when that rifle was bought the original owner, a sling was a sling was a sling. Especially on mausers with the 'through-the-stock' mounting system, a correct sling was (and largely still is) hard to come by. And, no doubt, as leather is one of the hardest things to preserve, the Izzy slings were cheap, in great shape, and probably the mostly widely available sling that would work.

That is exactly my thinking.