Mitchell's has done it again!

[wallenba]

Wow! He's amazing. He just keeps finding these treasures. I got the Blue Press yesterday.
Mitchells Mausers latest ad, or at least the latest one I've looked at, touts the RAREST of all, a Banner Mauser. Is this for real, another 'genuine' K98? Civilian hunting Mausers secretly confiscated from the factory and diverted to the army.
I don't know about you guys but I smell a rat. A lot of his stuff don't pass muster with me. Not that they are not intrinsically fine rifles, but from a historical aspect they seem suspect.
:roll:

[Frank46]

Haven't received a Blue Press in quite awhile. Check out the posts on gunboards. They definitely have a lot of negative posts. I did see a yugo M48 that was sold by him. Except for the cleaned and sanded stock looked just like mine. Frank

[BruceB]

Be aware that "the blue Press" is a DILLON publication.

Mitchell's Mausers is a PAID ADVERTISER in the BP, and Dillon is in no way responsible for claims by Mitchell.

Mitchell has been making very shady claims about their firearms for years to date. I wouldn't touch anything of theirs.

[Junior1942]

A friend bought one of the Spanish 93 Mausers in 308 from SARCO or SAMCO or something like that. $200 in the door, and the rifle looks new. No kidding--new.

[wallenba]

Be aware that "the blue Press" is a DILLON publication.

Mitchell's Mausers is a PAID ADVERTISER in the BP, and Dillon is in no way responsible for claims by Mitchell.

Mitchell has been making very shady claims about their firearms for years to date. I wouldn't touch anything of theirs.

Yep, I understand that. In no way did I mean to imply that Dillon is 'shady'. Money is money, and they take advertising in their magazine.

[bruce drake]

I was on the firing line of the CMP Rifle Match in 2010 and the shooter two targets down had a "new" Mitchell Mauser (a Yugo 48 with a very worn bore - pretty reblue though...) and he was shooting Romanian 8mm surplus when halfway through his first string of fire when we heard an "Ah Shoot!" go across the firing line ( it wasn't "shoot") from him.

The Mitchell Mauser with the steel case Romanian Ammo had blown out upon firing his 5th shot. The extractor had blown off in two pieces, the bolt was stuck and the floorplate was bent. The owner of the now "pretty piece of wood and reblued steel" had a small scratch on his hand and nothing more thankfully but the rifle was defunct for the day and would need a trip to a gunsmith for repairs.

I'm not sure the ammo was to blame as I was shooting a 1938 8mm Turk with surplus 8mm Romanian steel-case ammo (same lot # as his!) as well and it performed excellently in my Turk Mauser. No extreme recoil issues or click-bangs with this lot. I still have several hundred rounds of this ammo and it has been excellent for CMP/NRA matches under 300 yards. I did have some difficulty with the 150gr bullet at 600 yards with wind but I normally shoot 198gr Turkish 8mm pulled bullets at the 600 yard line anyways so I just reserve the Romanian for short-course matches where it performs excellently.

I did peek at the four empty cases that he had successfully fired with his Yugo 48 and the steel case necks were smoky and streaked with what appeared to be scorch marks on the lacquer on the case body which in my experience makes me believe that his reblued and varnished Mitchell Mauser had either field or max headspace issues and that was the reason that the rifle self-destructed on the firing line.

So in my opinion Mitchell Mausers -- Caveat Emptor! You are buying an idea of a WWII German rifle (that was actually rebuilt/built after the war) that has been refurbished and reblued but with no guarantee that it will match buyer expectactions.

Bruce

[tomme boy]

The ammo he was shooting is not very good. The steel case does not seal in the chamber very well. That was why you seen the soot. I used to shoot a lot of this stuff. Every once in a while I would get one that would blow powder and gas back at me. You had to wear safety glasses with this ammo as you never could say when it would happen.

Also, it you pull one of the bullets on this Romainian ammo, you will see that it is just as long as the 198gr ammo. It has a steel core so they were able to make it act like the 198 gr ammo for the ballistics.

I tried to reload some of these using 154 gr data and blew a couple of primers. You have to use the 200gr data to reload them using commercial powder.

[bruce drake]

I've pulled apart my Romanian Ammo and my ammo had 150gr Flatbase bullets, which was still steel-core because it attracted to a magnet, but it was noticeably different in shape from my Turkish 198gr pulls because those are steel-cored as well but at FMJ with a Boat-tail and noticeably longer.

I agree with you that his lot portion of ammo was probably bad, but I also feel the Mitchell Mauser had a Max Spec headspace issue which compounded it.

The Turk 38 and the Yugo 48 that I shoot this Romanian ammo though have minimal spec chambers because I took the barrels off and cut a thread off the barrel and rechambered them again for 8mm so I know my rifles' chambers are tight and will be good for several decades to go.

The fellow in Georgia with the Mitchell Mauser is a known gun kook in that he'll buy just about every commerative firearm he can (at 2-3 times the regular price) and then shoot them. He had that rifle back out on the line a few months later but it was sporting a 308Win barrel and a new match rifle stock but he was also shooting a WWII Commerrative Garand with the gold engraving and laser-engraved Boyd stock...

Bruce

[pietro]

Wow! He's amazing. He just keeps finding these treasures. I got the Blue Press yesterday.
Mitchells Mausers latest ad, or at least the latest one I've looked at, touts the RAREST of all, a Banner Mauser. Is this for real, another 'genuine' K98? Civilian hunting Mausers secretly confiscated from the factory and diverted to the army.


FWIW - The term "Banner Mauser" has been around a lot longer than Mitchell, and simply refers to the boxed "Mauser", stamped into the top of some Mauser receiver rings.

The rest of the story, however, sounds like it a carnival barker spiel from Secret Squirrel.

.

[Kraschenbirn]

I've actually seen/handled two genuine "banner" Mausers and both were WWII "bring-backs." The first was a late-war M98K that appeared to have been assembled using military parts around a pre-war commercial action. Receiver ring carried the Mauser 'logo' with a obviously overstamped "svw 45" manufacturer's code and all (visible) matching #s but the stock was a pretty shoddy piece of work and very poorly fitted/finished.

The second was, at that time, still in the possession of the gentleman who 'liberated' it from the Obendorf factory in 1945. Seems, right at the very end of the war, his infantry battalion was assigned to secure the Mauser Werke until arrival of French occupation forces. Somehow, Charlie managed to snag, not one, but TWO of the factory's quality-control samples. One was sporterized into a lovely Mannlicher-stocked carbine by an old-time gunsmith named Harry Roberts but the other was left as it was. And a really lovely piece it was, too! Banner-marked receiver (w/o mfg's code or date), military inspectors stamps, not a scratch on it, and possibly unfired. (Charlie said he'd never shot it.) Wish I had pics of it but, alas, I don't and, when Charlie passed away a few years back, his guns went to his son who lives out of state.

Bill

[Multigunner]

If I remember correctly the Mauser "Standard Model" is the military rifle most associated with the Banner marked receiver ring.
Mauser sold these in the 30's to a number of nations, and China bought many before copying the rifle as their standard infantry rifle.

The standard model was the same length as the later 98K rifle, but most commonly with straight bolt handle, turned down bolt handles may also have been available on special order.

No doubt any Mauser receivers left over from previous contracts would have been used to assemble 98K rifles.
Later use of number codes for factories did for the Mauser banner markings.

A side note. Many if not all the 98K styled ceremonial rifles were assembled using WW1 era Gew 98 actions. Those with stocks painted black used Gew98 stocks cut and otherwise altered to look like 98K stocks.
I missed out on one of those ceremonial rifles many years ago, at the time I thought the black stock and chromed steel was the work of bubba.

[Junior1942]

When I bought my Turk Mausers back in 2005, I also bought a case of surplus 8x57 ammo. After circa every 10th round of that ammo, a little trail of smoke rose from the action. After the 3rd trail of smoke or so from pierced primers, I stopped shooting the surplus ammo. In an effort to save it, I decided to pull some of it down and (1) see why some rounds were too hot; and (2) remove some of the powder from each round as I assumed too much powder was the problem.

To make a long story short, the powder charges varied several grains in weight. The pulled bullets varied several grains in weight and as much as .003" in diameter. So the "too hot" problem was a tolerance stack. If a too heavy and too large bullet happened to seat over a too large charge of powder, an old song named "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" comes to mind. Before the song "Shrapnel Got In My Eyes" played for me, I permanently stopped shooting that surplus ammo.

I believe I could salvage it via pulling it all down and reloading it with an average 10% powder reduction. I'd also need to find a quick way to check bullet diameters so as to discard the big ones. Fastest way would probably be to use a digital scale and discard the heavy ones as they were more than likely the big ones, too.

Me, I don't know. The cases are Berdan primed and with corrosive primers. Maybe they're best left in the corner as a visual reminder to stop and find out what happened when I first see smoke coming out of an action.

[Hardcast416taylor]

My brother once bought a wood crate of steel cased surplus 8mm. I don`t recall what nationality of make it was, wasn`t German made. He asked me to look the stuff over and clean off the "dust" on each tier of the ammo. The "dust" was instead "RUST"! Some cases were rusted thru already, while others were just freckled. I decided to pull a couple apart. I started finding a red/brown gel instead of powder. Some the case seperated at the neck as the steel jacketed bullet was rusted to the case. I told and showed what a "bargin" he had bought. Over the next month I pulled down what I could of the rest of the wood case of rusted ammo. If memory serves me I got about 400 bullets out of the case that were deemed shootable.Robert

[Multigunner]

A friend asked me to pull down a sack full of 7.62X51 FNM ammo he had picked up at a gunshow.
He only wanted the cases and figured I could make use of the powder and bullets.

I soon found that many cases already had pinholes formed under patches of verdigris. The powder looked okay but had a strong odor.
The gilding metal began to peel off the steel jackets of the bullets, so both bullets and cases were discarded.
I put the powder in an old IMR steel powder canister.
After being out of town for a couple of months I opened the drawer where I'd left the powder. The bottom half of the steel can had completely disintegrated into fine brown powdery rust.
Every steel object and unplated tool in the drawer had a thick layer of powdery rust on it despite having been oiled before packing away.
The strong odor had become a strong ammonia reek like cat urine.

A few years later I got a can of IMR 4320 that had that same extra strong ammonia odor, not quite as bad, and ended up trashing it to be on the safe side.
I've keep other cans of IMR and Norma powders for decades without them developing that odor. I suspect high temperatures while in storage caused the break down.

[gew98]

No doubt any Mauser receivers left over from previous contracts would have been used to assemble 98K rifles.
Later use of number codes for factories did for the Mauser banner markings.

A side note. Many if not all the 98K styled ceremonial rifles were assembled using WW1 era Gew 98 actions. Those with stocks painted black used Gew98 stocks cut and otherwise altered to look like 98K stocks.
I missed out on one of those ceremonial rifles many years ago, at the time I thought the black stock and chromed steel was the work of bubba.

The Standard Modell was inspired by the success of the FN model 24 'short rifle'. FN was hammering Mauser on export sales with their improved shorter rifle.
Those banner mauser receivers that were defective were usually diverted to contracts with the chinese up to and including those in 98k trim. Late in WW2 when shortages were acute and production standards lowered all manner of stockpiled previously rejected parts were brought out of store and used in assembling 98k 's.
The german HzA district Depot system did utilize 'new old stock' gew98 receivers in assembling them into 98k's using armorer's parts and salvaged spares - mainly in the 1940-1941 years when there was a rifle shortage. And of course there are those oddballs of salvaged VZ24 and polish W98 rifle receivers being utilized to assemble 98k's when they were available as such.
While the fit and finish of the standard modell metal and wood is just astonishingly beautiful I have found that they were rather hand fitted making parts interchange no small problem to include bolts. One standard modell I had was a flat mint bolt mismatch and I could not find a banner bolt or 98k bolt that would close properly and headspace. I finally found a sterne gewehr bolt in my box of bolts and it worked and headspaced with it.
The germans overall did very few "conversions" of the gew98 to 98k. The vast majority of these 'conversions' were done by commercial entities for the SS in the 1930's up to 1942. The german military did not have any "ceremonial" rifles , no chromed or nickeled rifles etc etc. I've seen more than a couple WW2 german pistols and rifles that were nickeled/chromed with all manner of goofy stories attributed to them ... all fake of course.
Many many such mall arms were so plated by soldiers whom had european shops do the plating work for that bling bling effect. I have also seen former VFW post rifles to include gew98's that were chromed/nickled back in the day for parades...nothing gov't issued just the VFW/Legion guys going for the bling bling look on parades.
Oh and mitchells mausers...a bit of a joke . The thought of buying a totally rebuilt rifle matched after scrubbing of old serials and 'cleaning' of wood for what a real collector 98 can be had for is rather silly.

[dualsport]

Ya have to admit Mitchell's business strategy works. They sell a lot of guns, probably most of their customers are happy with what they get, not knowing any better. Probably thousands of guys showing off their 'collector' to the family and proud as heck! What is the best book on Mausers if a guy wanted to read up? You guys have my interest in the history fired up. As far as old ammo- my huge stash of 1940's Turkish 8mm still goes bang, kicks hard too. Most of the necks split, many are split before firing. Accuracy is surprisingly good in several 8mms. But the clean up takes Days.

[TNsailorman]

I have a copy of "Mauser Military Rifles of the World" by Robert W.D. Ball that has a lot of information on the mauser rifle listed by country. I don't know whether it is the best reference book on mauser rifles or not but it does have a lot of information and pictures to illustrate the differences that existed between the nations. Might be a good place for the mauser collector to start. James

[Multigunner]

The german military did not have any "ceremonial" rifles , no chromed or nickeled rifles etc etc. I've seen more than a couple WW2 german pistols and rifles that were nickeled/chromed with all manner of goofy stories attributed to them ... all fake of course.

I've seen photos of the chromed rifles with black painted stock in use at burials and other functions during WW2.

There are a number of chromed or nickel plated souvenier weapons around that were plated by the new owners.
There are also a few that were captured weapons plated by their german owners.
A cousing had a nickel plated Polish Radom autopistol he took from a German sargent along with a copy of a U S tanker shoulder holster handmade from what looked to be pigskin salvaged from saddle bags or similar leather equipment.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I had a few 8mm Mausers some years ago, I bought them cheap as they were Treaty of Versailles confiscated rifles I think, old long barrelled jobs or surrendered rifles, they still had traces of mud on the wood.

I was going to make a series of custom mausers. I gave one to a friend who is still shooting it and used one for awhile before selling it. The one I still have has serious pitting under the reciever ring, D'Oh! I won't sell it like that.

I bought some surplus ammo around 1987and it looked real pretty, very shiny cases and bullets. However one in every ten or fifteen failed to fire. I would wait 30 seconds or so, then turn my face away, tilt the rifle and eject it smartly. It was a shame as it was really accurate ammo. I still have 2/3rds f a box downstairs. I might run it through my Turk to get rid of it.

[gew98]

I've seen photos of the chromed rifles with black painted stock in use at burials and other functions during WW2.

There are a number of chromed or nickel plated souvenier weapons around that were plated by the new owners.
There are also a few that were captured weapons plated by their german owners.
A cousing had a nickel plated Polish Radom autopistol he took from a German sargent along with a copy of a U S tanker shoulder holster handmade from what looked to be pigskin salvaged from saddle bags or similar leather equipment.

Multi... I have collected german small arms for almost 30 years...there is no damn chromed/nickeled german issue arms...period. I have had vets show me their pimped out P38/P08 with stories of grandeur of how it came off a dead SS/officer etc etc. All bunk.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

A fellow shooter/collector used to show up at the range with his latest Mitchel purchase. I could tell at a distance of several feet that they were fakes. The last one he brought was a reworked Winchester model '97. It was made up to look like a trench gun from WWI. It was so obvious a fake I didn't have the heart to tell him. He had earlier brought in an artilliry Luger which had been rebarrled. The rear sight was mounted out on the barrel which was too for from the receiver to be correct. On a real artilliry Luger a small cut was made in the front of the receiver to allow adjustment of sight elevation. This Mitchel treasure didn't have said notch. I see in ads that he is still offering these collecting treasures. I hate what they are doing with these old Lugers because they have to destroy an original to offer their collectors items. I would much rather have a common run of the mill BYF '41 Luger than a newly made collector item. I recently watched a TV show that went inside a plant in, I believe Alabama. They were taking M1'S apart and creating new rifles. It is allright I guess as long as you know what you are buying. By they way, that fellow shooter has passed on so there is no chance he can read this. Who knows what will happen to all those treasures he put so much money in.