This K98k was built by Mauser at Oberndorf and carries serial 3xxd. The receiver is marked S/42 over 1937, the code and date the Oberndorf plant used before the war. It is a Russian capture: taken by the Soviets at the end of the war and put through their refurbishment lines, where the numbers were force matched rather than left as the factory had them. The rifle is numbered consistently throughout on that basis, which is not the same thing as a factory matching rifle and should not be read as one. What it has kept, and a great many Russian captures have not, are its German markings. The droop wing eagle stamps and the Waffenamt inspection stamps are still present on the metal rather than peened flat or ground away. The bore is bright with strong rifling and the rifle is mechanically excellent.
The Karabiner 98k was adopted on 21 June 1935 as the standard service rifle of the German Wehrmacht, derived from the Mauser Standardmodell of 1924 and the Karabiner 98b. It is a controlled feed bolt action built on the Mauser M98 system, chambered for the 7.92x57mm Mauser cartridge, with an internal magazine that takes five rounds from a stripper clip or singly. Production ran from 1934 to 1945 and totalled more than 14.6 million rifles. Mauser’s own plant at Oberndorf am Neckar marked its rifles S/42 through the middle and later 1930s, with the year spelled out in full beneath the code, before the shorter wartime codes 42 and then byf took its place.
When the war ended the Soviet Union held enormous quantities of captured German small arms, and rather than scrap them it ran them through arsenal refurbishment and put them into store. Those lines worked for serviceability rather than for originality. Parts were swapped between rifles and then renumbered to match, stamped or electro pencilled, and German acceptance marks were frequently peened or struck through along the way. Rifles that came out of that programme and later reached collectors are known as Russian captures. None of that is a fault. They are genuine wartime German rifles carrying a second, Soviet chapter in their history, and it is worth saying plainly which marks are original and which are not.
Specifications
Manufacturer: Mauser-Werke, Oberndorf am Neckar (code S/42)
Country of origin: Germany
Model: Karabiner 98k
Action: Bolt action, Mauser M98 system
Caliber: 8mm Mauser (7.92×57)
Year: 1937
Serial: 3xxd
Receiver marking: S/42 over 1937
Matching: Numbered consistently throughout, force matched during Soviet refurbishment rather than factory matching
Markings: Droop wing eagle stamps and Waffenamt inspection stamps present, not peened or ground
Service history: Russian capture, Soviet arsenal refurbishment
Bore: Bright with strong rifling
Mechanical condition: Excellent
