8mm Mauser

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Gary

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I bought an interesting rifle yesterday while pawn shopping. it is a sporter built on a Mauser action. The action says Preduzece 44 Model 98 on it. It has a full length walnut stock with an 20" barrel. It also has a Williams Foolproof peep sight. It is in 8mm Mauser. The craftsmanship is very good with all of the metal nicely blued and in good shape. The stock is glass bedded and has an older Pachmeyer recoil pad, a non-monte carlo cheekpiece and a schnable front. It also has a rosewood cap on the pistol grip and is fairly well proportioned. It appears to have been built sometime in the 50s or 60s. I like the old sporters that were made from military rifles back in the day. They are interesting and can often be found for a pretty good price. They range from pretty crude to high quality. This one is somewhere in the middle. The trigger has the hump ground off of the 1st stage of the standard military trigger to make it a single stage trigger. They did a good job as it has a servicable pull. I may replace it with a Timmeny or Bold aftermarket trigger though. Other than that it is in really nice condition and ready for the range. I gave $230 out the door.
 
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In the 60's bought a FN98 for $49 (they stacked in several barrels in a discount store) turned down the bolt, crowned the barrels, chamfered the floor plate, added a Williams peep sight and bought a set of RCBS dies......had a lot of fun and shot a few whitetails
wish I still had it.
 
What you have is a Yugoslav rebuild of a German 98k that somebody butchered into a sporter. The good news is that the Yugoslavs usually fitted a new barrel during refurb. If it was not abused the bore should be excellent.
 
Its actually a war time captured German 98k 8mm karbiner mauser. These captured 8mm mausers had there german markings ground off and the yugo seal or crown put on the receivers and were marked preduzece 44 thats the factory where they were refurbished. I believe the Model 98 is the orginal german markings. Your file will have an awesome smooth 98 bolt too. This yugo 8mm mauser is one of my first 8mm mausers. There a german 8mm mauser in a yugo wrapper.
 
BigBill said:
These captured 8mm mausers had there german markings ground off and the yugo seal or crown put on the receivers and were marked preduzece 44 thats the factory where they were refurbished. I believe the Model 98 is the orginal german markings. Your file will have an awesome smooth 98 bolt too. This yugo 8mm mauser is one of my first 8mm mausers. There a german 8mm mauser in a yugo wrapper.
Click to expand...

That is just one of the places they were refurbed. Mine was done at Radionica 124. A few are marked VR.69 and I think perhaps Radionica 145. Quite a lot of these Yugo rebuilds are marked 98/48, with the /48 clearly added later. Preduzece 44 is the Kragujevac factory outside of Belgrade. The locations of most of the other refurb shops are unknown to this day. Secretive lot over there.:)
 
I own a Yugo refurbed K98k that's 'Preduzeece 44' marked with the cool Yugo crest stamped over a barely legible 'bnz 43' on the receiver ring. Has lots of German eagle stamps on the various parts.

A pal has a very similiar Yugonized K98k thats better scrubbed...can't read the original maker on the receiver..and but few German eagles on the parts...His being a 'Preduzece 44' rifle too.
 
I remember seeing pictures of huge piles of surplus WWII rifles in gun magazines growing up. I also remember seeing barrels of them in K-Marts and simiar stores with price tags that were even approachable by a kid on a limited allowance. The mail order business in them was thriving as well. There were a LOT of them around. From what I understand the arms manufacturers, (Winchester, Remington, etc.), took awhile to retool to domestic production after WWII and hunting rifles were in short supply. A cottage industry sprang up to convert surplus military rifles to meet the demand. I have seem several commercial rifles built on sporterized Mauser or Springfield actions. I have a "Kent Firearms" 30-06 that has a birch stock, Mauser action, after market trigger, new barrel, low scope safety, etc. I have seen similar rifles built on Springfield actions. A lot of gunsmiths got in on the action also. Besides the one I bought yesterday I also have one in 6mm built on a Springfield action. It has a maple stock and is sort of a poor mans Weatherby. I find them interesting and since they don't cost much I sometimes buy one that appeals to me. Since this one is like new I suspect it will make a fine shooter. Even if you didn't worry about butchering an original rifle, it would be far to expensive to attempt conversions like this today.
 
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