German pre WW1 shooting-hunting catalogue

It's interesting to see that individual German citizens could buy themselves the latest & greatest Gew1898 infantry rifles from the sporting goods store at a time when the military was still issuing 1888's (and even older models) to some units.
 
I suspect the German army, like any organization, had an annual budget and ordered rifles at a delivery rate to match the budget. It’s not necessarily true that they would consume the entire annual production.

It’s also possible the sporting rifles were reject parts that were functionally fine, but maybe needed hand fitting, did not pass parts interchangeability gauging, etc.

We may never know.
 
Claven2 said:
I suspect the German army, like any organization, had an annual budget and ordered rifles at a delivery rate to match the budget. It’s not necessarily true that they would consume the entire annual production.

It’s also possible the sporting rifles were reject parts that were functionally fine, but maybe needed hand fitting, did not pass parts interchangeability gauging, etc.

We may never know.
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The South American export Mausers made during that period are some of the nicest ones made, so your first statement must be true. It looks like the autocratic Kaiser trusted his German subjects enough to let them own modern military arms, unlike our leaders.
 
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