Mitchells' Mauser K98 question

[mtykim]

i came across a WWII german K98 Mitchell's Mauser for sale. i know that company has a bad reputation and from what i've reach all of their K98s are reblued and rebuilt with renumbered force matched parts even though they say they are original matching. what i'm curious about is the bolts on their rifles. this one has an unfinished silver color bolt. were any german K98s originally made this way during WWII? all the others i've seen have blued bolts.

[postal16]

i do not know why they strip the bolts down to metal, but they do. I suspect it is for presentation, or they couldn't get the bluing to match when they reblued the guns.

My 43 dot k98 has a blued bolt, as do most actual German WWII k98s.

[Beswick]

From what Ive heard, there were no unfinished/polished bolts used in production German WWII K98s. The post war Yugo bolts however were pretty much all unfinished I think.

[Fate]

MM is bad juju. Run away.

Ok, now that the required disclaimer has been uttered, not all WWII German K98 bolts were blued. Some late war bolts were phosphated instead. This appeared grey or almost in the white at times.

However, this is not what is being offered at MM.

[Spiggy]

the purple or blue appearance from the bluing is really difficult to reproduce as it only happens naturally with time

if you paid for it, you got ripped off

[smeg]

the purple or blue appearance from the bluing is really difficult to reproduce as it only happens naturally with time

if you paid for it, you got ripped off

+1

also i've noticed that the purplish color tends to happen on spring steel parts..such as the extractor, the flat spring for the bolt release, etc.

[vf111]

My MM K98 is quite a looker and does have the unfinished bolt. Is the rifle authentic? Nope. Does it have any collector's value? Doubt it. But what it is is a good looking shooter and I figured MM saved me the trouble of refinishing one of my RC (something I was considering until I came to my senses ).

[Rogerbutthead]

This MM auction was discussed at another site.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=124052086

I can understand the bidders who went up to $255 for it - as a shooter.

I wonder what the buy it now winner was thinking.