I picked up a "Preduzece 44" Mauser recently. Not that I'm an expert but my understanding is that this is a rifle that started life as a German Kar98k (and some original German markings such as the factory code do remain visible), which then would have been captured in Yugoslavia (or abandoned there) in the wake of the Axis Powers' collapse on eastern front. It was then refurbished in Yugoslavia some time before 1950, and then somehow afterwards ended up in Ethiopia where it remained for decades before importation into the US (to be purchased shortly afterwards by me).
The Ethiopians apparently did some slight changes to it and I'm wondering if I should undo them to make the rifle look like it did after the Yugo refurbish, or leave it exactly as is because the Ethiopian changes are part of its story now?
So what did they do? Only 3 things that I could find. They changed the front sling mount from being on the side to being on the bottom (from what I could tell, this piece is the only one with a mismatched serial number, though I'm thinking the rest of the matching ones are Yugo-assigned, and not original German). They also wound some cord through the rear sling mount slot as a sort of crude conversion to a bottom-mounted sling to match the front, and lastly they painted some sort of giant rack number onto the stock.
I realize this is all fairly easy, minor stuff and mostly reversible anyways, but still seems odd to delete a chapter in the story of a historic item.
Pics:
The Ethiopians apparently did some slight changes to it and I'm wondering if I should undo them to make the rifle look like it did after the Yugo refurbish, or leave it exactly as is because the Ethiopian changes are part of its story now?
So what did they do? Only 3 things that I could find. They changed the front sling mount from being on the side to being on the bottom (from what I could tell, this piece is the only one with a mismatched serial number, though I'm thinking the rest of the matching ones are Yugo-assigned, and not original German). They also wound some cord through the rear sling mount slot as a sort of crude conversion to a bottom-mounted sling to match the front, and lastly they painted some sort of giant rack number onto the stock.
I realize this is all fairly easy, minor stuff and mostly reversible anyways, but still seems odd to delete a chapter in the story of a historic item.
Pics:
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