The Evolution of the German RG34 Cleaning Kit

The Reinigungsgerät 34 (RG34, also written Rg 34) was the Wehrmacht’s standard small-arms cleaning kit from September 1934 until 1945. It was not a K98k-only item. The same tin served the Karabiner 98k, Gewehr 98, MG 34/42 barrels, MP 38/40, P.08 and almost every other issued small arm. The design was patented by Gustav Appel, Maschinenfabrik, Berlin-Spandau, and adopted by order of the Chef der Heeresleitung on 4 September 1934 (Wehrmacht requisition number J 29032).

The case is a flat sheet-steel box roughly 85 × 135 mm with two hinged lids: a large compartment for the chain, brushes and oiler, and a smaller compartment for tow (Watte / Docht). A soldier carried it on his person, not in the rifle stock. That is why late-war Kriegsmodell K98ks could drop the under-barrel cleaning rod: the RG34 had already replaced it.

How the kit evolved

The internal layout barely changed. What changed was metal, paint, latches, oilers and markings — all driven by cost and shortages.

Reinforcing grooves appeared from about 1940 on Hawig and Mundlos cans to lock the internal divider. Early grooves were one long stamp; from early 1942 they were split into an “I” and a short “L”. Gustav Appel cans generally never used this fin.

Dual-coded cans exist where a factory used leftover lids or assembled another firm’s unfinished stock. Documented combinations include G. Appel/64, 64/cnx, Mundlos 1940/ab40, ab43/CNX, ab44/CNX and arr4/rco44. After Mundlos in Magdeburg was heavily bombed in January 1945, uppercase CNX Appel kits appear with Mundlos-style divided fins — collectors generally read these as Appel assembling leftover Mundlos parts.

Marking practice shifted with the rest of German industry: firm name and year → numeric code (1938–39) → three-letter Fertigungskennzeichen (from 1940–41). Late kits often have no Waffenamt and sometimes no maker mark at all.

Manufacturers of complete kits

Chain subcontractors also exist. Vereinigte Kettenfabriken GmbH, Stolberg used code kcy on pull-throughs only.

What is in the tin — and how each piece was used

German manuals distinguished gewöhnliche Reinigung (ordinary clean after drill, no firing) from Hauptreinigung (main clean after live fire, or before long storage). The same six items did both jobs.

1. Behälter (the tin)

Two lids. Large side: oiler, tool, brushes, coiled chain. Small side: tow. Early lids are tin; wartime lids are painted. Pre-war and early military kits sometimes carry a weapon serial on the lid — G (Gewehr) or K (Karabiner) plus number, later also P for pistol. Unit stamps on the hinge side largely stopped by 1938–39. Behörden (police, Reichspost, SA) kits can carry district or service stamps instead of a full WaA suite.

2. Öltropfer (oiler)

A small syringe. Press the top plunger and the bottom button together and oil comes out around the nose. Early steel oilers unscrew at both ends and use a leather washer. Bakelite oilers (from about 1942) usually unscrew only at the base. Colours run black, dark brown and reddish-brown; wartime bakelite has a wood-chip / grain texture. Post-war plastic copies are smoother and often have a brass cap screw.

Use: oil the Ölbürste before a pull-through; oil the bore after a dry wipe; oil the bolt, trigger and exterior. Waffenreinigungsöl TL 6007 was standard. TL 6024 frost-proof oil was specified to about −40 °C. After firing, the bore was oiled while still lukewarm, not ice-cold.

Rarest oiler: the late-war stamped sheet-steel Kriegsmodell oiler. These are seldom seen outside advanced collections.

3. Hülsenkopfwischer (the “spoon”)

A flattened steel tool with a serrated bar, an eye for tow, and a pin at the tail.

Two official jobs. First: drop the K98k magazine floorplate. The pin presses the latch in the trigger guard. Period instruction: use a bullet tip (or a drill cartridge in peacetime) if you have no tool; the Hülsenkopfwischer is the proper implement. Second: clean the receiver head. Wrap tow through the eye, knot it on the serrated bar, and wipe the locking-lug recesses immediately behind the chamber. That is what the name means — receiver-head wiper — not “bolt recocking tool,” though a cartridge rim can recock a Mauser bolt if needed.

This is the piece Allied troops most often threw away when they reused captured tins. It only makes sense on a Mauser floorplate.

4. Reinigungskette (pull-through chain)

About a metre long (roughly 60–66 links). One end is weighted to drop down the bore from the chamber; the other has a loop or rotating head for a brush or a knot of tow. Early chains have a rotating head and maker + year + WaA on the patch loop. From about 1942 markings fade. Late “Kriegsmodell” chains use a folded-wire or welded loop instead of a machined rotating head. Some late Hawig, Braunschweig and Mundlos chains have zinc-coated links.

Use (from the service sequence): after firing, oil the cleaning brush, pull it through from the chamber twice. Hang tow in the double hooks / loop, pull dry until the last patch comes out clean (Hauptreinigung called for several dry pulls). Finish with the oiled oiling brush.

Never start from the muzzle if you can help it — that is how crowns get ruined. The under-barrel rod on the rifle was too short to do this job alone; two rods had to be joined, which is why the chain existed.

5. Reinigungsbürste (cleaning brush)

Brass or mixed bristles, often brass in the middle and fibre at the ends on early sets. Screws or clips onto the chain. Used oiled for the first pass after firing, then followed by dry tow.

6. Ölbürste (oiling brush)

All-fibre, slightly wider than the cleaning brush. Oiled from the Öltropfer and pulled through last to leave a thin film in the bore and to dress the bolt and exterior.

7. Reinigungsdocht / Watte (tow)

Short lengths of flax or similar fibre in the small compartment. Knotted on the chain for dry patches, or wrapped on the Hülsenkopfwischer for the lug recesses. Not cotton cut patches in the modern sense.

Field sequence in brief

Rare versions and rare contents

Rarest complete wartime tins

Ordnance tan / sandgelb 1944–45 cans. rco 44 examples from Braunschweigische Blechwarenfabrik are among the most sought-after. arr 44 is reported but extremely scarce. rco4 (short 1944 transition code before rco44). ftd (Peter Schlesinger) complete kits. rbl marked kits (maker still unidentified). Early unpainted tin Appel / Mundlos / KH kits with brass latches. Behörden issues: police starburst, Reichspost, SA. Some early Appel lids carry a rifle serial (G 9930 t style). EPE over-stamped early Appel tins (meaning still debated; possibly a police or depot mark). Uppercase CNX cans with Mundlos-type divided fins (1945 assembly hypothesis). Unmarked late Braunschweig construction.

Rarest contents

Stamped-sheet Kriegsmodell oiler. Early brass-latch kits with matching dated chain, tool and steel oiler. Bakelite oilers with an external cmr body stamp. Early mixed-bristle brush sets still together and unissued. Chains with a full early rotating head plus maker, year and WaA on the loop. Mundlos chains with an inverted early M stamp.

Related official variants (not the standard infantry tin)

Post-war traps for collectors

West German production resumed about 1957–1963 as Rg. f. Gew. (Reinigungsgerät für Gewehr) in Bundeswehr / BGS green. Makers include Appel, Geco, P&E and the common unidentified WBC. These cans can look “right” at a glance. Tells: green paint rather than wartime blue-grey, Rg. f. Gew. instead of RG34, plastic oilers with brass screws, flatter unmarked tools, and chains without wartime WaA. Original wartime bakelite has a chippy phenolic texture; smooth chocolate plastic is later.

Why the RG34 outlasted the cleaning rod

The K98k’s short stacking rod was a 19th-century leftover. The RG34 put a chamber-to-muzzle pull-through, a floorplate tool, an oiler and patches into a tin that fitted a bread-bag or tunic pocket and worked on rifles, machine guns and pistols. That is why the same pattern was still being copied in the 1960s, why GIs emptied captured tins and restuffed them with .30-calibre kit, and why a complete matching wartime set — especially a tan rco or an ftd — is now harder to find than many of the rifles it was issued to clean.