Yugo captured K98

[pe4king]

Hi all this is my first post in the Mauser forum, as Im afraid to say generally I'm an Enfield man (sorry).
Anyway my question is this I have recently been followed home by a Yugo capture K98, and have a couple of questions.
It has been scrubbed of most of the german markings but some remain in obscure places, it is marked with the Yugo crest on the reciever along with Preduzece 44, but in good light I can see the remains of J. P. Sauer & Sonne, which leads me to the question when did the Germans stop the manufacturers from using trade names ?, that is if they ever did or was this a private purchase, or was it pressed into service at some stage ???.
It just seems a bit strange as all of the K98s I have seen in pictures or in the flesh have had reciever code No'sAttachment 35166Attachment 35167Attachment 35168

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[pe4king]

Anyone

[Patrick Chadwick]

but in good light I can see the remains of J. P. Sauer & Sonne, which leads me to the question when did the Germans stop the manufacturers from using trade names ?, that is if they ever did or was this a private purchase, or was it pressed into service at some stage ???.

According to Richard Law "Backbone of the Wehrmacht" the K98k was, right from the start, marked with the manufacturer's code, not name. And the pre-introduction examples were stamped on the side of the receiver. So I guess that this was a capture of a commercial rifle (maybe an officer's private hunting rifle) and the receiver, at least was used to make up this example of a Preduzece 44. The Yugoslavs seem to have recycled every bit of 98 series components that they could.

Unfortunately, since the end of the cold war, there has been another scouring of the Balkans in the search for "original" K98ks, with the result that it is also possible that the rifle was assembled fairly recently. So you cannot be sure that it was a wartime capture. It could be more recent "recyling". Preduzece 44 was a type, not a date!

[pe4king]

Patrick
Thanks for your reply, im not really too bothered about the rifle, I was just interested to find out a bit more about its history, at the end of the day it shoots very well and it cost me next to nothing as it was bundled in with an Enfield No5.

[Claven2]

I can see the "1" from a WW1 date below the crest, this is actually built on a 1916 to 1918 JP Sauer & Sohn Gewehr 98 that was likely converted by the Nazis to a Kar98b in the 1930's. The Yugos then converted it to an M98/44.

See page 182 of Storz's "Rifle and Carbine 98".

[pe4king]

Claven2
Thanks for that, I thought there was something different about it, Is this a good or bad thing ?. and is there anything else I should look for ?. with the rifle removed from the stock there are a lot of stamps and markings on the bedding block.

[Claven2]

It's neither good nor bad. It's a standard Yugo K98 now and worth about the same as any other Yugo K98. Have fun with it.

[pe4king]

Ok thanks for that, and yes I do enjoy the rifle it also came with a bag of ammunition from various countries dating from 1944 to 56 including a few WW11 german so far every round has gone bang, which is a bonus

[hillertactical]

P4 ,

Did you headspace this rifle before shooting it?


HILLER......................................

[krinko]

"Did you headspace this rifle before shooting it?"

Why would anyone want to do that? It's clearly evident that the serial number on the bolt matches the serial number on the receiver.
The Serbs, Croats, et alia, were very serious about shooting their annoying neighbors in the former Yugoslavia and did not make crappy firearms.
This matching Preduzece 44, with Yugoslavian made barrel, will never get a headspace guage in it---



At the ENGC range last Sunday there was a man next to me with an M1D practicing for some sort of a sniper match. While he was fiddling with knobs trying to get on the steel at 300 meters, I put 4/5 onto the 500 meter gong with the irons.
I love doing that---but it takes a really good rifle to pull it off.
-----krinko