Luftwaffe Depot Build K98k

Horilka

Horilka

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Toronto, ON
Not gonna claim I knowledgeably picked this rifle, just noticed some unusual things and that's triggered my interest. CanadianAR was nice to explain that it is Luftzeugamt Depot Build from re-used parts. So he it goes. Apart of the extractor, which I'm sure is a modern replacement, this Mauser looks decent.







































































 
Horilka,

The plum color of your extractor is from the Nickel (Ni) in the heat treatment process. It is WW2 German and not a modern replacement. I have a few like that on all matching K98's.
 
Thanks guys.

Coyote Ugly said:
Horilka,

The plum color of your extractor is from the Nickel (Ni) in the heat treatment process. It is WW2 German and not a modern replacement. I have a few like that on all matching K98's.
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What I mean is I think extractor probably was replaced later. I would expect original part unnumbered or renumbered to the rifle. This is my limited understanding of LZA builds.
 
Late war I'd imagine that the depot sites had a much larger part to play in supplying arms to troops with the daily bombing of factories etc...
 
philhut said:
Late war I'd imagine that the depot sites had a much larger part to play in supplying arms to troops with the daily bombing of factories etc...
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You’d think, but it wasn’t the case. As their territory shrunk, depots were evacuated and the parts sent to factories. You see a lot of armourer spare parts in production late 44 to the end of production.
 
So, I purchased this rifle from Horilka about month or two ago (Great guy to deal with), and have since done some digging to get to the bottom of where that blank receiver came from, and I have dug up the following:

The rifle was made by LA 4 at Kupper Bei Sagen Luftzeugamt, using a blank receiver manufactured by Walther for the depot system.

Reference: Bruce Karem and Michael Steves, Karabiner 98k: A collectors guide to the development and production of the German K98k volume 2b p 799, 826, 834.

Overall a fantastically interesting piece, certainly not your ordinary K98.

Edit: Corrected receiver info.
 
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CanadianAR said:
Yup, e/359 marked receivers are used by a lot of manufacturers and depots
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Yeah, I read that they are sprinkled throughout most depot build variants and were also the receivers that were supplied to JP Sauer for their standard manufacturing. (Obviously these received standard markings as a result).
 
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