Non-Matching Vet Bring Back K98k Rifles, How and Why?

[NDShooter]

Hello Everyone.

Now, I've been collecting K98's for most of my life and have run into just about everything you can imagine but I have passed up way to many that I should of purchased in the past. I have only posted a few of my rifles on here, and I plan to post more.

Regardless,

I wanted to start a thread on non-matching K98's that are Vet Bring Backs, and share what we know about them.

We all know the stories from vets of having to remove the bolt and put it in a bucket before getting shipped home, or the that German soldiers took the bolt out in surrender.

Any photos of this in action?

Thanks
Cody

[rogge16]

Great idea, Cody! I have two that my grandfather brought back. I'll try to post some pictures soon.

Luke

[GIZMO8Z]

Great idea for a thread, Cody! It's unfortunate that these pieces of history are often disrespected/ held to a lower degree than all matching rifles.

We all know the stories from vets of having to remove the bolt and put it in a bucket before getting shipped home, or the that German soldiers took the bolt out in surrender.

This also seems to be the accepted hypothesis as to why so many Japanese rifles are mis-matched. Another plausible hypothesis that I've heard (this seems to make more sense in the PTO with hidden pockets of Japanese resistance) is that soldiers clearing a still active battlefield would quickly pull the bolt out of a rifle and toss it far to the side so the firearm could not be reassembled and used by enemy stragglers.

[Doppelgänger]

It was probably meant to frustrate future collectors? ;-)

[NDShooter]

Haha, Thats exactly what they were thinking, "Okay, so we need to just swap these bolts.... the longest running practical joke ever.."

Does anyone have any photos of surrendering troops holding the rifle and bolt ?

[rogge16]

Here's one of the K98s that my grandfather brought back. It's proudly hanging in my living room. Non-matching but in fairly nice shape. I was told that he grabbed this up out of some building that they had raided. It's never been shot since it's been brought back.
I'm posting old pics since it's going to be raining here all day.

Luke

[rogge16]

Here's the other one, Cody. It stopped raining just long enough to snap a couple pics. I was told that this was taken off of a German soldier. This one has definitely seen more action than the other one. Non-matching with added scope and sling.

Luke

[Frundsberg]

I belive the answer is very easy - bolts were just thrown away before the surrender. That is the reason numbers and codes do not match. Or it was restricted to ship the riffle to USA with the bolt.

[mauser9]

Great pics from you guys. I sure would like to have that pile of 98s in your pic ND Shooter. Believe I would be a rich man. Wonder how many are matching LOL

[Wagriff]

A thought-are alot of these vet-bringback 98K's with mismatching bolts from field repairs? I've never had problems with any 98K's that I've owned, but perhaps they were prone to screw up in the field with firing pins and/or extractors breaking after firing many hundreds or thousands of rounds over time and rather than play around with the bolt and try to fix it, perhaps they were simply repaired and made ready to go again by slapping a different bolt into them? Such a procedure would be much quicker and simpler and be able to be done by any grunt out in the field rather than have them worked on by the company armorer etc.