SS marked K98's and the Truth?

[mauser9]

Good advice GEW98. Have recommended members from this forum to check out Gun Boards Forum for some knowledge and advice from those guys. I learned much myself in the past year. Good to gain some knowledge before jumping in and getting burned. I also have seen the faked crap out there and am tired of these fakers.

[gew98]

Good advice GEW98. Have recommended members from this forum to check out Gun Boards Forum for some knowledge and advice from those guys. I learned much myself in the past year. Good to gain some knowledge before jumping in and getting burned. I also have seen the faked crap out there and am tired of these fakers.

The frauds in german small arms have been at it for decades. Some expert at their dark craft and most thankfully village idiots. All in all they have destroyed soem beautiful rifles for profit & ego. There was a guy out of TN a few years ago whom went by "tankdriver" on several forums and had a german sniping rifle collection/fetish. He ran into financial need and sold off a bunch of things... one was a formerly matching and beautiful byf43 in a sold wood stock he turned into a short side rail rig..... and tried to sell it off as the real deal. But the internet caught up with his chicanery as he bought it online and some stalwart souls saved the pics of the unmolested rifle down to the serial and compared them to the fraudulent post humped scoped rig he tried to peddle for much bucks on a couple forums.

[mauser9]

Thank you Gew98 for quoting my post and your reply to myself and forum members. As most know these World War 2 items such as firearms, helmets, and daggers are bringing some very high dollars these days and unfortunately there are many forgers out there trying to make a dishonest buck on their fakery. Hope enough forum members read and take heed of your valuable post before jumping in with both feet when purchasing militaria items. As I have stated before always consult with knowledgeable people if not sure of items originality. Best Wishes.

[phillyriverrat]

not alot on SS rifles, there are some correct SS contract rifles out there. i have a K98s, which is a large font BNZ 43, , it has a 3 digit serial number, it has a single eagle, a single waffen stamp which is 140. and that is FN, has a SS rune on right side in front of bolt handle area. barrel is also marked with CH which is FN, it is all matching and a duffle cut bring back from WW2. from what i can find out, they were made by slave labor, assembled bu 4 different plants, FN and dot being 2 of them. being new on here, i have to figure out how to post pictures of it

[Anderson]

You've probably figured it out correctly. bnz was of course Steyr-Daimler-Puch and by 1943 they were manufacturing K98's from an underground factory at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. It's possible they produced components for other factories as well as the complete rifles. Slave labour was essential to the German war effort. By mid 1944 almost everything manufactured in the Third Reich was made by slave labour, or "guest workers" and POW's. most German men being in uniform by then. For companies like Steyr and the SS it was a profitable "win win". The company sold rifles to the State, the SS provided workers who had no wages, the company paid the SS for the service. Everybody made money. The slaves had only a six month life expectancy at Mauthausen in 1940-42, down to 3 months in 1945.
But it's a mistake to think of these rifles as "SS issued". It simply indicates where manufactured not who used the rifle.

[BlackCat1982]

Read this thread with interest, have not handled an "SS marked" K98 but have seen several examples, and with different styles of runes, deaths heads etc. One question I would ask is, why would a rifle allegedly produced by slave labour in mid/late war and marked with a Deaths Head also clearly be stamped with a Weimar Eagle?

I've seen "SS marked" K98 with such markings and as far as I'm concerned the Weimar proof mark clearly implies the part was made circa well before 1939 and therefore is highly unlikely to have been made by slave labour in 1943/44 - unless of course they were recycling old weapons.

Fair comment, or am I missing something else?

[TheGoon]

From what I know, there are no marked ss rifles. But they had contracts with bnz and byf if I'm not mistaken. The only rifles "if" they were marked would be very early in the war or pre war, they sure wouldn't bother marking ss on them mid war.