Milsurp After Hours

I would be interested to know more about dismount disc's in the buttstock. When they started, their uses, how they developed and when the were phased out. A BIG question perhaps but interesting non the less I think

The unit disc in the gew98 buttstock was there from the beginning of the gew98 in german service. It was of course not always used. At the start of the first war it did not take long for the germans to realize unit marked equipment to include rifles gave away information to the enemy when captured , so alot of the unit marked discs were removed or surrupticiously flipped.

By early 1915 a general order was sent down the chain of command to cease and desist in unit marking small arms and bayonets for security reasons regarding captured equipment.

By and large this was often ignored by many german units as bayonets , rifles and pistols ( etc etc ) continued to be unit marked.

As the war dragged on longer than anyone had anticipate and the absolute harshness of the trenches showed some flaws in their rifle , the germans instituted some changes - product improvement if you will.

Starting in mid 1916 the unit disc was to be replaced with the takedown disc set in the buttstock ( to allow dismantling and cleaning of the bolt internal parts ). Fingergrooves were added to forend to help hands better grasp rifles in muddy conditions. And Beech was officially allowed as a substitute wood for use in rifle production.

The manufacturers and arsenals were allowed to use up remaining stock and even continue production of old patterns while they tooled up for these changes so as not to impede needed production of completed arms. This is how/why you can find rifles exhibitng a myriad of stock features from 1916 through to even some 1918 dated gew98's as old stoack was used at the factories and as spares at depot salvage of rifles from the field.

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