Russian Captured Mauser

CaptainW said:
When the Russian grinded down the Nazi stamp and mix/match with different parts - they already completely destroy the value of the original rifle. They did not put any thing new to the rifle except to put a coat of shellac on top - other than that, nothing.
I guess no one restore a RC K98 expect it become a perfect matching gun. They just want to restore it to look close to original configuration. In other words - they value the K98 as it was before becoming a RC..
History - of what ? I would rather interest to know the history why/when/where/how it became a RC rather than to bother whether a coat of shellac/black paint was history.

Stewienb- you can also use Boil Linseed Oil. Also available in Home Depot.

K98ACTION - both of yours rifle look really nice. Where did you get the front sight hood and cleaning rod ?
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Captain I picked up my cleaning rod and front sight at a local edmonton gun show. Go to your local ones and keep an eye out. Also Ebay is a good place to find them,, search WWII, MAUSER K98 ETC...
 
NAA said:
My question is are the Russian capture 98's worth in the ~ $380 [before tax] for a decent example? :confused:
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ABSOLUTELY. Mine's an AX41 (Erma 1941) Shoots great, and not afraid to take it out of the safe like a $1000-2000 all matching specimen.

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PS - budget for a repro cleaning rod, sling, locking screws and sight hood
 
The Queens Medalist 86 said:
I was lookin at a 98K RC the other day. The 3 eagles on the receiver were untouched and 2 on the stock were legable even through the coating. Bore was v. good I just might buy it.
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Grab them while you can guy's. They won't be around forever. IMHO an original RC K98 will be worth more in it's original Russian re-arsenaled condition, then after you "clean" it. I had 2 Uncles who fought on the Russian front, so my Russian captures have special meaning for me.
 
glang1 said:
Grab them while you can guy's. They won't be around forever. IMHO an original RC K98 will be worth more in it's original Russian re-arsenaled condition, then after you "clean" it. I had 2 Uncles who fought on the Russian front, so my Russian captures have special meaning for me.
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Same here. Only my Grandfather and Great Grandfather... although I've seen a photo of his unit and one of the fellows was holding a Mosin instead of a K98.

Almost all soldiers wanted what the Latvians called the "Goat's Leg" gun. In one small town called Cholm, eventually everyone was armed with a "Goat's Leg." You can probably guess what kind that was!

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A "Goat's Leg"

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I'm always a bit conflicted on what to say when someone "Un-Russifies" an RC Mauser. They usually look much better than before and the owner can rightly take pride in their work, but I hate to encourage it. Not that big a deal really, much different than drilling and tapping, cutting and chopping for sure, and many guys restore their stocks, especially Lee Enfields. I suppose you could always concoct your own Red Russian Shellac and make it look like it did before.

To be honest, in some moments of weakness I have considered it (I have two). I'd make a "shooter" out of it - strip the stock, add the missing screws, cleaning rod and sling and use the darn thing.

The gun looks great - I hope you shoot it a lot.
 
The Queens Medalist 86 said:
I was lookin at a 98K RC the other day. The 3 eagles on the receiver were untouched and 2 on the stock were legable even through the coating. Bore was v. good I just might buy it.
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Mine has very clean, unpeened Swastikas as well. J.P. at P&S militaria was excellent to deal with. He helped me find a good, clean gun with the correct bands, butt plate, etc for a 1941. If I'm ever on business in the Sherbrooke area on business, I hope to make an appointment to see him.

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My RC stock was almost black with grease and grime. I lightly sanded it and got the worst off but it is still dark coloured. Then I put about 5 coats of tru- oil on it and now the stock is "preserved". It looks nice and is protected for decades to come. The receiver and barrel are mint condition and the eagles are still intact.However the swastikas have been peened. I don`t understand why some posters here seem so negative about these guns. Are they not actual Mausers? I read that these guns were machined so accurately that parts could be swapped easily. A mismatched bolt is not so critical for shooting or accuracy as it is on a more crudely made lee-enfield I would think. Are not these RC battlefield pick-ups or taken from prisoners?
 
conifergreen said:
My RC stock was almost black with grease and grime. I lightly sanded it and got the worst off but it is still dark coloured. Then I put about 5 coats of tru- oil on it and now the stock is "preserved". It looks nice and is protected for decades to come. The receiver and barrel are mint condition and the eagles are still intact.However the swastikas have been peened. I don`t understand why some posters here seem so negative about these guns. Are they not actual Mausers? I read that these guns were machined so accurately that parts could be swapped easily. A mismatched bolt is not so critical for shooting or accuracy as it is on a more crudely made lee-enfield I would think. Are not these RC battlefield pick-ups or taken from prisoners?
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Have you tried the safties on them? Some I assume work fine but others will break your thumb off.

Israel re-machined some of the safties on their converts to make it a smooth process again.
 
jiminthecorner said:
Jeez I get a little pissed off at "collectors" sometimes. If I want to make a sporting rifle out of a mauser that's MY RIGHT!!!! (a) its the best bolt action ever made!,and(b) THEY MADE 11MILLION OF THEM!!!!!!!!! and still are.

You collectors have em all?? An entire collection of every model is going to be huge! anyway its my Rant. JITC:sniper::slap:
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People said the same thing 20 years ago about Enfields as well, when they were still packed in boxes from WW2 and going as junk rifles for $25 each.
Then they got "bubba'd", shot out, otherwise used up and ruined and now the only "new" ones we have coming up are the Indian rebuilds. The good ones are becomming fewer and further between and cost an arm and a leg.

The Russian capture K98's will be the same one day.
 
would love to find a israeli mauser with markings still intact. i know the odds are million to one . but still would love to get .
 
Slyder73 said:
People said the same thing 20 years ago about Enfields as well, when they were still packed in boxes from WW2 and going as junk rifles for $25 each.
Then they got "bubba'd", shot out, otherwise used up and ruined and now the only "new" ones we have coming up are the Indian rebuilds. The good ones are becomming fewer and further between and cost an arm and a leg.

The Russian capture K98's will be the same one day.
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The short-sightedness of bubba is always amazing. They think these guns will never run out so slaughtering a few won't hurt!
 
Andy said:
A small minority are as you described. Most that survive were taken from stores and factories and would not have "seen action".
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How do you know all this stuff?...from where do you get your information from?
I always thaught, there were close to 3 million german prisoners of war in Russia, and most of them went into war with a gun (k98)...
These means, that there is a very good chance, that the Russians captured up to three million k98 right?...
When the Russian forces entered Germany at the end of the war, there were no guns/or not very much left...therefore the "Volkssturm" was armed with all kinds guns very often made from lousy leftover parts in a last ditch effort...
 
polaris said:
How do you know all this stuff?...from where do you get your information from?
I always thaught, there were close to 3 million german prisoners of war in Russia, and most of them went into war with a gun (k98)...
These means, that there is a very good chance, that the Russians captured up to three million k98 right?...
When the Russian forces entered Germany at the end of the war, there were no guns/or not very much left...therefore the "Volkssturm" was armed with all kinds guns very often made from lousy leftover parts in a last ditch effort...
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I usually just read threads like this and let people go on living in blissful ignorance, but in this case, I have a great article a wrote some time back close at hand to cut and paste here that explains this issue rather well :)

And how do we know this stuff? Well, huge reference libraries on milsurp rifles, years of research on ww2 and the years that immediately followed the war in the former Soviet Block. In fact, I even have family in the Ukraine that participated in the RC K98 rebuild program. So let me start by saying that you are somewhat wrong in your above assumptions.

Also worth considering is that while millions of German soldiers ended up prisoners, most of these "prisoners" were all the soldiers in the future eastern Germany at the time of surrender. Prisoners taken in battle are more aptly measured in the hundreds of thousands, not millions. Large groups of prisoners taken together (think of Paulus' 6th army at Stalingrad) were part of organized capitulations and were usually not "overrun". In these cases, many men would have deliberately rendered their arms unserviceable prior to the appointed hour of cease-fire. In fact, standing orders existed to do so.

Now imagine that while many combatants were on the eastern front, a good rule of thumb is that for every soldier at the front, there is a uniformed support person who is not carrying a K98k, though by the end of the war, not many support people were left, most having been armed and sent in as reserves to depleted combat units.

Read this:

Russian Capture K98k's all share similar traits. The are all WW2 era German Karabiners (though some are former Gew98's the Nazis had converted to K98k spec - rare though!). Most have matching receiver and barrel.

When the Russians came into these guns they stockpiled them and promptly began doing other more important things like rebuilding their cities, etc. Many RC rifles sat for months or even years exposed to the elements. By the late 1940's, many of these rifles were in an advanced state of deterioration, while some remained like new.

In true Russian style, a colossal public make-work project was undertaken. The ENTIRE inventory of German small arms then in Russian possession (roughly half the surviving total wartime output of Nazi Germany's arms production) was ordered to undergo refurbishment and as many useable arms as possible to be made ready. Why? Russia was paranoid. The Cold War was freezing over and Russia feared invasion from the West. Also, it was a cheap source of arms they could export to allies in North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and every other wanna-be commi armpit of the world without depleting their "front line" weapons stockpiles.

The Russians took all their K98k's, and totally disassembled them except for the barrel. Bores were inspected and those found to be acceptable (ie, some pitting OK - so long as it's still safely shootable, much like with their refurbed Mosins) were set aside. Those that were deemed too far gone were recycled into steel for tractor parts or Order of Lennin medals, or whatever.

The small parts were all hot-dip reblued. Rusty parts were wire brushed or sandblasted first. These were placed indiscriminately in bins. The stocks were also inspected for serviceability. Those deemed acceptable were retained, those unacceptable were burned.

When the rifles were re-assembled no effort was made to match parts. A new (used) bolt was assembled and fitted to the receiver and the whole affair was assembled into a rifle from the binned parts. When done, most parts were electropencilled with the rifle's serial number and a flat was sanded on the left side of the wood stock (think big belt sander and half-drunk worker). The rifle's serial number was stamped there running parallel to the rifle's bore line. (Yugos are stamped perpendicular, for comparison)

Once complete, the whole rifle was generally painted in cheap shellac as a preservative agent - these are often not cosmolened for some reason - crated up and sent to war reserve, especially in the frontier states like Ukraine (which stored them in underground "nuclear proof" depleted salt mines). Today, cash strapped former Soviet states are all too happy to sell these to us.

It's difficult to say what percentage of captured arms survived the rebuild programs, but I'd imagine maybe half (or less) would be a good guess. Many of these arms sat out in the open for LONG periods of time before being rebuilt, so attrition due to the elements was probably a factor.

It's also wrong to assume that RC's are, in fact, "captures". At any given moment, less than 2 million Nazi troops would have served on the Russian front. Not all would have had K98K's. Over 14 Million K98k's were built and most experts agree that somewhere around 7 million likely ended up in Russian hands after the war. Throughout the whole war, it's doubtful a full 7 million K98k's traveled to east Prussia and beyond.

When Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies, the Whermacht assembled at depots all over Europe and turned in their arms. Additionally, government arms stockpiles and factories were captured and divied up by the victorious armies. At hostilities cessation, every Mauser weapon in the future East Germany (and all points east) would have become what we think of as an "RC K98k". Public ownership of guns in the USSR was banned as well. So whether a rifle was taken from a dead private in 1944 Minsk or if the NKVD knocked on a door in Berlin in 1947 and confiscated the arm from a retired volkspolitzei prison guard, it still ended up in the stocks of RC mausers. In fact, it's safe to say the MAJORITY of such guns are likely NOT battlefield captures.
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So just WTF does all your #####ing about ####ing bubba, RC history, Facts, name calling, and some of the stupid comments have to do with the FACT THAT CAPTAINS RC, LOOKS AWSOME!

and who gives a ####! about what may or may not have happened to the RC's value because he simply removed an ugly Russian applied finish??

Christ, I can't believe some of you people, and even trying to compare "CAPTAIN OR OTHER LIKE MINDS With regards to the stock finish" TO BUBBA!!!

There has not been any chopping, drilling, welding, or anything of the SORT done to CAPTAINS, RC...

GET A BLOODY LIFE OR VOTE LIBERAL...
 
tiriaq said:
Seems a shame to destroy a piece's demonstrable history. Even if it does look better.
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He didn't destroy anything. He restored it to it's original condition. All he did was reverse the damage done by the Russians by applying that finish to it. Well done.
 
A captured weapon is not necessarily a battlefield pick-up? If you are an invading Army and capture a weapon from an individual soldier, Arms Depot or Factory it is still captured is it not?
 
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