SOS New to the forum, looking for advice

[GreatWarGuns]

Good evening all,
Joined the forum hoping to seek information on two old military rifles I have recently come into possession of. One appears to be a Mk. III and the other is german... says model 98 on the side of it. Anyone know anything about these guns?
Max

Information

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[Frederick303]

I would suggest you are overwhelming us with information...........not.

If you want a serious answer, you need to provide a more detailed description of the items. There are folks who pretty much know every detail about the respective arms, but the story is all in the details.

[GreatWarGuns]

They both appear to be sporterized. One is a British Enfield MK III, I believe, and the other has German eagle markings and is stamped model 98.
I have attached some photos.

[twh]

Sporterized BSA No. I MkIII*. Looks like they cut off the forend and removed the top hand guards. Could be restored but you would need new forend , hand guards, middle band with swivel, nose cap with piling swivel and the associated screws. The second is a sporterized k98 in a horribly chopped up stock. Can’t tell more without a picture of the top of the receiver but looks like it may have been based on a spare BSW receiver but the side view is to blurry to tell for sure.

[Roger Payne]

GreatWarGuns, if you can get a photo of the markings on the top rounded part of the receiver immediately behind where the barrel is screwed in plenty of people will be able to tell you more about your Mauser (which looks to date from WW2 not The Great War). At the very minimum we will know the manufacturer & year of production.

[mrclark303]

Looks like 43 on the reciver ring Roger.

K98's restorable too.

[Roger Payne]

Thanks. The old peepers ain't what they used to be!

[Sunray]

"...Could be restored..." It's gotten really expensive to do that. There are no more complete stock sets(a walnut, rear, hand guard, goes around the rear sight on top, runs $40 at Gunparts), but it's more about the cost of all the wee metal bits and screws. One of the screws that holds the nose cap(sight base and bayonet lugs) on runs $3.50. You can see how that stuff adds up. It's money you will not recover upon selling either.
"...Enfield MK III..." Lee-Enfield No. 1 Mk III* made in 1916 and Factory Through Repaired(arsenal rebuild) at some time. Thousands of 'em were assembled out of parts bins with no QC of any kind. So check or have the head space checked before shooting it. That one is a bit rusty. Just surface rust from the picture. 0000 steel wool and light oil will take it off without damaging the rest of the finish. Don't fiddle with the stock. It looks in pretty nice condition.
The K98 doesn't have that issue, but it's not a bad idea to check the head space anyway.
Assuming both have good head space, you have a couple of really dandy hunting rifles. Both the .303 Brit and 8mm Mauser will kill any game in North America, big bears included. There's lots of good commercial hunting ammo for both. The only thing is the No. 1 will need to have the barrel slugged. Hammer a cast .30 calibre bullet through the barrel and measure it with a micrometer. .303 barrels can measure between .311" and .315" and be considered ok. Commercial ammo comes with .311" or .312" bullets(Reloaders can get cast .314" bullets from Montana Bullets). It's not a safety issue though. Strictly about accuracy. And no .308" bullets.

[Alan de Enfield]

"
Commercial ammo comes with .311" or .312" bullets(Reloaders can get cast .314" bullets from Montana Bullets). It's not a safety issue though. Strictly about accuracy. And no .308" bullets.

I had a BIG argument with out local Police 'Manager of Firearms Licensing'.
In the UK the Police authorise the ground you can shoot over and rate it up to certain calibres - they approved my land for up to 303.
When I applied for a L42 in 7.62 / 308 they refused as they said my land was not approved for above 303.


It took some arguing that 303 and 308 were measured differently, with 303 being the 'bore' diameter and the 308 was to the bottom of the rifling grooves - when comparing like-for-like the 303 was actually 312, ie bigger than 308.


Case proven - I got my authorisation to buy a 308.

After that they actually gave me an 'open licence' so I didn't have to go thru it all again - I could shoot on any land with any calibre that (I was licensed for) that I deemed safe.
No more Police vetting.


The Police then altered their central calibre lists to show 303 as 303/7.7, much as they already show 308/7.62

[GreatWarGuns]

Thank you all,

I greatly appreciate all the insight and information you fine folks are sharing with me. I have a little more information that I can share after closer inspection of the rifles today. The receiver ring on the German rifle has markings on top CE with 43 below it, on left side the number 535 with two cursive lower-case g markings below that, on right side a small number 280 (230?) embossed in a smaller symbol, and some German eagles with the number 37 below them. On the barrel on front of the receiver ring is marked fxo ch and some more German eagles.

The Enfield has too many markings for me to describe them all but is dominated by GR under a crown and over crossed swords and a P.

More pictures are included in this post... Thanks again guys,
Max