Gew. 98 find

[Snowman1510]

I just got back from a vacation to my hometown where I picked up my first Gew. 98 at our LGS. The rifle felt like a relatively cheap purchase including shipping back to where I live. I snapped a few photos before it was boxed up and shipped away. The rifle was an Amberg 1914 build, I spotted a clean straight cut diagonally right above a spring retainer that was then glued back together so I suspect the rifle was a bring back as is the same with a duffel cut Type 99 I have. I continued looking over the rifle spotted no import marks and I also noticed it had a K98k style rear sight.

The only downside was somebody had put their initials in the stock... bummer . I looked down the bore which was somewhat shiny and had sharp rifling, so I thought it would be a good shooter. I noticed that all the serial numbers I saw on the exterior matched except for the bolt. But the bolt looked to have matched itself. I thought about the non-matching bolt, the initaled stock, the somewhat acceptable bore, and K98 style rear sight (which I guessed and correctly so were part of some post-war rebuild). I then came to the conclusion of why not buy it since it was cheap enough.

I waited a week before I could pick it up as the rifle had beat me home and was waiting at my FFL. I go and pick it up get home and break it all down. I found that all of the rifle matched serial number wise except for the bolt which completely matched itself. Then I did some sleuthing and found out it was GEW. 98M or Gew. 98 Transitional because of the rear sight. I held onto it for a day when I saw somebody mention on a forum about a marking on their rifle stock and to my surprise I had the same marking which turned out to be an EWB not a GI's initials like I had original written it off to be.

Interested I dug further and found that the EWB was a paramilitary organization shortly after WW1 that tried to stop civil unrest in Germany. Eventually they were found to be in violation of the peace accords and were disbanded. Apparently some of their weapons went into hiding (and correct me if I am wrong but could this rifle be one of them since it is lacking a 1920 mark on the receiver?). However it did make it back to the hands of the German govt. in time to receive the upgraded rear sights at Mauser around 1936 (S/42 coded rear sight). Eventually it was captured and brought to the US during or after WW2 (Duffel cut evidence). I was wondering what some of the proofs on this rifle meant.

There are also these odd dark circles that are covering the stock I don't know if they are covering up dents or serve other purposes because there are no cracks in the wood where they are placed. Below are photos (If you want more I have more):

[Please do correct if any of this seems out of place, I wouldn't want somebody reading this in the future and seeing any errors I may have written]

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