Need help identifying this Mauser

[sd4f]

Anyway to accurately date it to date of manufacture?
Did the Poles make it, are is it originally german?
Any guesses on its value?
Most importantly, can I shoot regular current commercial 8mm in it?
After originally posting, I looked it over again and found an interesting cartouche on the stock. Anyone recognize it?

The really short history of interwar rifle production in Poland is that after the first world war, Poland was given all the equipment and machinery from the Danzig factory, which was promptly relocated from Danzig/Gdansk and iirc was for a short while In Warsaw, but ultimately ended up in Radom. This infrastructure included a lot of parts, and those parts were used up to complete rifles, and new production went underway as well filling any shortfalls. There are rifles which were completed by the Poles, but still using parts such as receivers made by the Prussians.

I'm not too sure about the really early production, i.e. immediately after WW1, as very soon after WW1, the Poles had to fight a war with the soviets. From what I've read, much of the firearms used were anything they could get their hands on, as a result, after the Polish - Soviet war of 1919-1921, they then embarked on standardising their armament ultimately choosing the mauser platform.

Now some opinions are that the rifles sent for the Spanish Civil War was a lot of these bitsers completed from parts. It's hard to tell, that one looks identical to my one, except for the scrubbed receiver. The main difference between the Danzig K98AZ is the stacking hook, where the Danzig ones had a bent one, while the Polish one has the milled example as seen on your rifle.

Now firing commercial ammo, US stuff is generally underpowered. It should be .323 groove diameter, so full powered stuff should be fine. I have an unscrubbed K98 and have fired it with full power loads, and it has no issues. One oddity with them is that they're a small ring action, standard length with a large ring thread.

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[45aseep]

Now firing commercial ammo, US stuff is generally underpowered. It should be .323 groove diameter, so full powered stuff should be fine. I have an unscrubbed K98 and have fired it with full power loads, and it has no issues. One oddity with them is that they're a small ring action, standard length with a large ring thread.

Thanks for the info. What do you mean when you say they're a small ring action, standard length with a large ring thread? Not sure I follow you on that.

[sd4f]

Thanks for the info. What do you mean when you say they're a small ring action, standard length with a large ring thread? Not sure I follow you on that.

The main physical variations with M98 actions are in those three aspects, ring diameter came in either large or small, where large had a 1.410" diameter, while small ring had 1.300" diameter. Following picture will show the difference;


Thread diameter generally followed with this, since there was more material when the design went up to 1.410", the thread was larger, I think, I'm not sure what thread M96 or earlier Mausers used, so chronologically it may be off. There are some exceptions to this as the Danzig and Polish small ring actions had the same diameter thread shank as regular large ring actions. Meanwhile, there's the Turkish Mausers which had a large ring, but used a small thread shank. The following picture should give you an idea of the difference, however, I believe that the actions on display are small ring large thread, and on the right a turkish large ring small thread.



Lastly action length. Standard length is most common. There are some M98 actions which were made to intermediate length, which is a few millimetres shorter overall. I'm not entirely sure where the reduction was made, but I believe it was in the magazine area. Bolts are not interchangeable as far as I know. Mexican Mausers, Yugoslavian ones and the 1909 Argentine are most notable as being intermediate length.