Customer changes his mind.

[Paulie Lugnuts]

Several monthes ago I made an offer on a K98 that a customer of mine owned. His father brought it back from Italy during WWII. He told me his father said he "bought" 7 of them for a carton of cigarettes. Sold the rest to his buddies and kept this one. Its a 1937 ERMA arsenal. Very nice bluing and a shiny bore. The stock is nice except foe a gouge on the right side of the handguard. All the numbers match aswell. As you might guess he brought it in today and I bought it. Not sure what I'm going to do with it since we already have a K98 and I'm not to excited about duplicates. I'll have to discuss it with my son. Might be open to a trade. Here's a pic.

[Flyin Brian]

I'll trade you a nice Finn!!

[Wernher von Browning]

That's nice.

Prewar had better workmanship, I think.

Matching numbers is unusual and worth something.

Yours has a laminate stock, I believe 1937 was just about the time they were going over to mostly laminate from solid walnut. Or it could be a wartime replacement stock. I can't make out any proof marks on the butt below the takedown disk.

I dunno, if the bluing is that nice, and the numbers match, I'd keep it.

If you take the action out of the stock, there may be a manufacturing date in red rubber-stamp ink inside the barrel channel. Mauser Oberndorf did that, don't know about Erma.

[mosinnagantm9130]

That's a nice one. I'd like to see some more pics of that one.

Yours has a laminate stock, I believe 1937 was just about the time they were going over to mostly laminate from solid walnut. Or it could be a wartime replacement stock. I can't make out any proof marks on the butt below the takedown disk.

Flat buttplate screams early laminate to me.

[Wernher von Browning]

Flat buttplate screams early laminate to me.

So you made me pull out "Backbone of the Wehrmacht" by Richard D. Law.

The early guns had walnut and flat buttplates. 1936, 1937 was all walnut. Laminates began appearing in 1938 but still flat buttplate. The cupped buttplate came later, 1941.

If the ordnance stamps below the takedown disc are legible, it might be interesting to look up the Waffenamt number and see if it's consistent with ERMA. There should be a stack of three stamps between the buttplate and bolt takedown disc. Two of those should have WaA and a number. The number would identify if this was an ERMA stock or not.

A German book I have, "Karabiner 98 kurz" by Friedrich Graf, says laminate began appearing in 1938. It's beech plywood, it says. But walnut continued to be used to the end of the war, if and when it was available. Laminate warped less and had fewer factory rejects, 1 to 1.5%, walnut had about 10% rejects. Says laminate weighed nearly a pound more. With other mods (bayonet, cleaning rod, band spring, etc) there were at least 100 different stock variations.

[Wernher von Browning]

If it's determined that that stock is not correct for that rifle, and you want to throw some money into it, there's a fellow in Europe that sells stocks. He can usually match something that would be "correct" for the year and originating factory of a rifle.

[mosinnagantm9130]

I'm no K98 expert, but is it possible that this is a late 1937 action that received an early 1938 laminate stock at the factory?

[SKSer45]

hmmmm I need to see some more photos of that thing. Both Mosin and Brown are right. Plus the time where he found it in Italy suggest its 1943-44 time frame and the Germans where known for doing drastic things to the rifles since the war was going south.

[Wernher von Browning]

I'm no K98 expert, but is it possible that this is a late 1937 action that received an early 1938 laminate stock at the factory?

No idea. If one knew the complete number, with the letter "block" code, one might get an estimate of what part of the year it was made.

I don't think the laminates appeared all of a sudden on Jan. 1, 1938. Those too were phased in. Law says a total of 99,265 98ks were made by ERMA in 1937. Serial numbers are four digits with a letter suffix.

[SKSer45]

Yeah need to take a look of the block code as well. As for Browning I am seeing the same thing in the book. The book says on pg 50 that the Stock Type is suppose to be Solid Walnut. However on pg 60 for 1938 it says the ERMA had both solid walnut and laminated. 168,339 were made and numbers are such as 5474-6650i.

[Paulie Lugnuts]

A little more info. Sorry for the mistake, the date is 1939. The code is 27, ERMA from what I've found. The serial #, 6787, appears on every part that has a number, including the stock. There are several waffenamts with the number 280 under them. I guess 280 is an inspectors number. There 3 faint waffenamts in the stock behind the takedown disk. There are 2 more in the stock behind the trigger guard.
I have the rifle here at the shop, so if anyone wants me to take a pic, let me know. Also after talking to my son, we're going to keep this one. So our RC well probably be available. I have a friend that's interested in it, I'll give him 1st shot at it.

[SKSer45]

yeah I would love to see some pic ERMA IMO are some of the best pre-war builds.

[1-M-42]

Paul, I'm interested. If you happen to be coming up to Saturday's Silhouette match, bring it! Otherwise PM me, lets set up a meet

[Wernher von Browning]

A little more info. Sorry for the mistake, the date is 1939.

That changes things. The laminate stock may well be original to that rifle.

The code is 27, ERMA from what I've found. The serial #, 6787, appears on every part that has a number, including the stock.

Where on the stock? Should be across the underside, just behind the pistol grip I think, smallish numbers, maybe 1/8 inch (3mm) high.

Look on the receiver and barrel -- there should be a letter after (or, more likely, below -- right at the woodline) the 6787 on both barrel and receiver. That's the block letter. The numbering would go up to, say, 9999b, then roll over to 0001c or some such. Sometimes their letters are hard to read because of the script used, a c or e or a look kind of similar. That letter won't be repeated on the other matching numbered parts because there's just no room, they'll use 6787 or just 87 to keep the bits for one gun together through bluing, assembly, etc.

There are several waffenamts with the number 280 under them. I guess 280 is an inspectors number.

Sort of. The 280 was assigned to the Army officer in charge of that inspection team. If/when he was reassigned to another manufacturing company, the number went with him and the crew at his former assignment got a new boss with a new number. At any time, there was more than one guy doing inspecting at each manufacturing plant but "Number 280" had ultimate responsibility. I'm not sure how it worked in US arsenals -- you can find American rifles rebuilt at the Ogden arsenal with Elmer Keith's initials (and another guy -- Ed Klouser -- also used EK -- one stamp reads OGEK, another O.G.E.K) -- but does that mean Elmer Keith personally inspected that rifle? I don't know, and given the number of rifles going through, I tend to think not.

There are several lists of what WaA went with which supplier (not just of guns). Wikipedia's is probably as good as any --

WaA280 S/27 Erma und Geipel Erfurt 1935 - 37
WaA280 27 Erma Erfurt 1938 - 40
WaA280 ax Erma Erfurt 1940 - 41
WaA280 ayf erma 42-- 280 ayf
WaA280 S/243 Mauser-Werke Borsigwalde 1938
WaA280 243 Mauser Borsigwalde 1938
WaA280 cww Carl Weiss Braunschweig 1942
WaA280 ce Sauer und Sohn Suhl 1942 - 44


Note that the team (better said, the inspector -- one person -- with number 280) had multiple responsibilities -- ERMA Erfurt as well as Mauser Borsigwalde at the same time -- and later went to inspect whatever it was that [edit: leather goods] "Carl Weiss, Braunschweig" made in 1942, and (either concurrently or after Weiss) the rifles and other stuff made by Sauer from 42-44.

Here's something, source unknown, found on Scribd --

http://www.scribd.com/doc/52425292/detailed-listing-of-german-waa-markings-and-codes

When a Waffenamt Officer (Acceptance Inspector) assumed command of an inspectionteam, he received a commission number and a corresponding numbered set of Wehr-maschtabnahmestempel (common term: Waffenamt Stamps). When the Waffenamt Officer
was transferred to another factory, he took his stamps with him, but left the rest of his in-spection team at the factory for the next Officer. The Waffenamt Officer in charge couldmove from one factory to another. Some examples are: (WaA214) at the J.P. Sauer in fac-tory in Suhl in 1938, to the Berlin Lubecker Machinenfabriken in 1939, or (WaA63) Mauser-Werke in Oberndorf a.N. (Germany) to BRNO in Czechoslovakia in 1940. These transferswere not uncommon.

There 3 faint waffenamts in the stock behind the takedown disk. There are 2 more in the stock behind the trigger guard.

All correct. The topmost one on the stock -- anything different about it?
And the next two down -- are they also WaA 280? That would indicate that the stock came out of ERMA. If not out of ERMA, it's likely a replacement, but if ERMA, may well be original. Treat those stamps like gold. Don't sand, don't steel wool, don't do anything to them.

I have the rifle here at the shop, so if anyone wants me to take a pic, let me know. Also after talking to my son, we're going to keep this one. So our RC well probably be available. I have a friend that's interested in it, I'll give him 1st shot at it.

Oh, if it's a choice between an RC and what you've described, absolutely no question -- the ERMA gun is the keeper. I just don't like RCs, and your ERMA has tons more history -- prewar, higher quality, matching numbers (EXTREMELY rare), and a GI bringback. It doesn't get any better.

Now, just don't go shooting corrosive Yugo (or German for that matter) surplus crap through it. You can buy Prvi Partisan to just shoot (save the brass for reloading), but the stuff is notoriously inaccurate so don't blame the gun just yet -- I was measuring I think 300 ft/sec differences and a full foot change in drop at 100 yds in a single box of the stuff. If you want to shoot your Mauser with some accuracy, you have to handload. Winchester and Norma have good brass, Sierra has a good 200 gr match bullet, CCI benchrest primers work better for me than Winchester. Your best accuracy will be with loads that don't push a bullet quite as fast as the military standard when these were new.

Not knowing what year your RC is, or what parts were thrown together to assemble it, try putting the two next to each other and note the detail differences, especially in machining quality. Trigger guard, magazine bottom plate, barrel bands. I think you'll again convince yourself that the ERMA is the keeper.

I don't know Mauser prices but I would guess that an all-matching gun is going to be $1000 minimum. The mixmasters are already getting $400 to $500. And no, "Mitchell's Mausers" are not matching. They were just made to look that way. With a good selection of number stamps, anything is possible. Those are not even worthy of considering when it comes to comparing prices / qualities.

Now you get to look for a correct-year, matching-number bayonet and scabbard... Again beware of cheap Chinese repros for $30 or so.

[mosinnagantm9130]

Honestly, if that gun is all matching I would not fire it. Matching K98s are like hens teeth...plus, if a part breaks, it's not all matching any more.