Picked up a decent Portuguese Contract byf41

[Claven2]

Check this one out guys When I got it 2 days ago, it had never been disassembled. Had to grind my own screwdrivers to loosen the lock screws and action screws, they were frozen in dried grease. Bore was full of packing oil and the barrelled action slicked in factory preservative. I left all the below the woodline preservative in place after addressing one minor hidden rust bloom under the trigger guard.

There are a few minor bumps and bruises on the stock, presumably from handling, inspections, etc. maybe it served as a ceremonial rifle at some point? It's was handled enough to not be unissued, but is very low ware. There was some primer residue on the bolt face and fouling sitting on top of the grease in the barrel, so I think it fired a few blanks at some point. It's matching and though not import marked, does have more modern German commercial firing proofs probably related to/added during it's journey through dealer supply chains to reach North America post-war.






Seems to have been made as Mauser was transitioning from WaA655 to WaA135 and incorporates more than a few WaA140 (FN) parts.




Interestngly the floorplate has what looks like a high-gloss nitre blue on it. The rest of the rifle looks more like mid-war Mauser Oberndorf caustic salt blue.

FN bolt.












The bolt shroud seems odd. WaA135 on the side, but the flattening at the top of the shroud is done more crudely than I am used to seeing by MO. Almost looks like they scrubbed a stamping error and started over. I'd suspect a humped part if the rifle had not arrived so otherwise pristine from an old collection, and also the font on this part matches the rest of the bolt parts perfectly...?

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[Badger]

Nice looking piece...

Good find ..

Regards,
Doug

[WarPig1976]

Your on a roll lately Claven, nice.!! To me the shroud looks legit, looks like a worker took a file to it. I think a rifle humper would try to hide it more.

[Claven2]

yes, I'm certain it's legit since I know the provenance of the rifle, it's just unusual to see flawed workmanship as early as 41. I get the impression though, after seeing a few of these guns, that MO used up some heereswaffenampt-rejected parts in the Portuguese Contract to use them up. I don't think any of these parts had functionality issues, but on my rifle the examples are a rear leaf spring left over from what looks like a Chilean rifle contract, subsequently WaA inspected and used on this rifle and a bolt shroud that I assume originally had a s/n stamping error from the German Heer production line that was filed fresh and re-used on this rifle at the factory.