Looks like Mauser 98 modified with about a 20-25 round box magazine. Soldier on far right.

http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/wwii/pho...3/kursk_143.jpg

The Germans developed a 20 round "trench magazine" for the Mauser in WWI - that may be what we're looking at.

That is interesting info, and something I did not know. Bad news is there is one pictured here* (purportedly) and it looks nothing like the one in the photo.

Which is not to say that maybe the Russkis didn't develop one of their own to retrofit to what they had layin' around.

http://www.keepshooting.com/firearmaccesso...-trench-mag.htm

I understand that even these had to be reloaded from 5-round clips.

Thoughts?


*It is a repro, made to spec of original.

Is there a Russian rifle or machine gun that used that mag? It's not for an SVT-40; those are curved.

If that picture hasn't been rather clumsily retouched, I'll eat it. Take a look at how the bolt handle is outlined, looking almost like it was done with pen.

The "magazine" looks like a Czech ZB-series one for 7.92mm, though. Not Soviet, at all--I don't think the Soviets *had* a magazine that looked like that, for any of their weapons.

Possibly a Zb-26 magazine.

This one is reported to be a Russian mod of one.

Now, that looks like a Soviet magazine, from like an SVT, or something.

The other one? I just don't know... Maybe they reworked a captured Czech magazine into it. I wonder at what level these mods were done? Down at unit level, or did they have an arsenal doing it?

IMO it is a home-made item - similar thing were common among eg. Yugo partisan forces, one of the interesting examples includes Carcano reworked to the SMG with a left side mounted magazine from a Beretta SMG.

Nevermind, it's apparently not an AVS-36 magazine

I'm not so sure. Here is a link to the page it appears on, and there are many others. This is not an isolated pic floating about in the ether.

I blew it way the heck up with a couple of photoeditors did not find usual signs of manipulation.

http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/wwii/pho...003/page_02.htm

It could have been a Czech factory modification.

The magazine looks exactly like that from a ZB-26 or German MG26(t) so I am guessing it such a magazine fitted to either a Polish Kbk wz.29 or the Gewehr 98. I don't know how a Russian solider would come across a G98, so I am guessing it is a Polish rifle. I am guessing this was some sort of field modification.

Detachable or charger-fed through the receiver? While a topped-up fixed mag would provide a degree of sustained firepower, it would be compromised by the time required to reload from the top. Still, 20 or so rounds on tap would be a comfort.

Either way, any guesses on how well it worked?

OT, but weren't some M1 Garands modified (field or armory) to use BAR mags?

I'm certainly no expert, but I have owned several M1s - you would really have to change the whole ammo feed to get them to work with a box magazine. I haven't ever disassembled an M14/M1A type to see how it was done. I the original Garand there is a magazine follower that pushes the rounds up to feed the action. I know imagazine feeding could be done as that was the basis for the M14 and the Beretta BM59 actions, it would take a lot of redesign for a field shop.

Gary

Some M1903 Springfields were modified to use BAR magazines but I have never heard of a M1 Garand being modified as such.

Yes, as development pieces. IIRC they eventually turned into the T25.
I think some were privately modified as well, many wierd and wonderful things were done in the 1950s.

Back to the Trench Rifle, I do not think the magazines were detachable, they just took the floorplate off and clipped the extended magazine in. The rifle in Doug's color photo is a Mauser Gew.98a, the long WW1 rifle, not the later Kar.98.

This is a puzzling photo.

I do not believe that this is a WW1 German 98. Please note the hand guard goes back to the front of the receiver. On the German rifle it stops just in front of the rear sight. Also, it does not have the distinctive German style rear sight, and the bayonet lug is on the front barrel band, and not attached to the front of the stock as does on the German rifle. It also lacks a German style front band spring.

Check out a photo of a German WW1 1898 rifle on Max's web site:

http://world.guns.ru/rifle/rfl02-e.htm

Instead I believe it is a Turkish Model 1903:

http://www.turkmauser.com/03/

Click on the rifle thumbnail for a full size photo. Where the magazine in the photo came from, who knows. The Germans might have sent some of these magazines to the Turks, or a collector could have come across the magazine, and stuck it on a Turkish rifle, FWIW, a lot of these guns flooded the surplus gun market about ten years ago.

Doug,

After WW1 the Armistice commission ordered that the Czechs were supplied with 100,000 Mauser and Manlicher rifles. These were all reconditioned at Brno. As part of the reparations they also got the blueprints for the Gew 98 Mauser and manufactured a further 42,000 rifles.

This and the the modified ZB 26 MG magazine would lead me to suspect that this is the rifle in your photo. The Germans used a lot of captured Czech weapons and the one in the photo could have been a battlefield pick up. I have not yet found any source of info on the use of ZB mags in rifles but that is clearly a ZB mag. Perhaps a Czech, or German, arsenal modification.

Here is a web page with the same information from Ball's Mauser Military Rifles of the World. This book was my source (FWIW, my copy is the earlier 1996 edition):

http://books.google.com/books?id=KlReVu0Hz...HXMGw#PPA114,M1