IT IS generally accepted by collectors that approximately 127 000 original sporting rifles featuring the famous M98 action were manufactured by Mauser at their Oberndorf plant, and this figure is often quoted in the literature. Production of these Oberndorf Mauser sporters began in 1898, and continued until April1945, when the factory was occupied by French troops in the late stages of WW2. Some ‘occupation’ rifles were produced during 1945 and 1946, but these were assembled from leftover parts and are not generally considered to be genuine factory-built Oberndorf Mausers. After the Mauser factory had been completely stripped and all the machinery shipped off to various countries as ‘war reparations’, in July 1948 the French blew up the empty buildings, bringing all further production to a rather final halt.
Since Mauser serial-numbered their sporting rifles in a sequential order, this production total can be verified. For by Jon Speed, the lowest recorded serial number is 10 (from 1898) and the highest number is 126 417 (from 1944). It should be noted that, in this serial number sequence, no distinction was made between complete rifles, actions, and barrelled actions; these were all lumped together and numbered sequentially in the same ensemble. Hence when I refer to ‘rifles’ during the remainder of this article, I include actions and barrelled actions.
