Value detractors

[Firebugs]

Originally Posted by gunbugs

The bolts on '98s are mismatched because the rifles were thrown into large piles upon surrender/capture, and the bolts were usually removed and thrown into a different pile. A GI that wanted a '98 would grab a rifle and grab a bolt, not knowing or caring that they weren't numbered to each other. U.S. GI's were trained on our stuff, that wasn't numbered and was dimensionally interchangeable. Same with Lugers and magazines.

I've heard various reason for why this happened from (German) unit armorers at the field level because of failed/worn parts (or whatever else), from GI's being told to toss all of the bolts in a barrel for the ship ride home, then grabbing them at home port, post-war imports without bolts to avoid taxes/tarrifs, and the reason you mentioned. I tend to think it's some combination of all of them, though I don't know how much of each to attribute it all to. There seems to be evidence for all of them.

If German pistol marksmanship training was anything like my USMC pistol training, it's no wonder. It was commonplace for us to load a stack of every magazine we had on the ammo table before conducting training, then just grab 3 magazines when we're done. The original Beretta mags were mixed in with aftermarket and I think I was the only one in my unit that noticed the difference and/or cared.