The rare 1920 S.28 code rifle

The 1920 stamp on a Gewehr 98 receiver is a Weimar property mark: the rifle remained in official hands after the First World War. Most G98s with the 1920 stamp are wartime rifles, built in 1914–18 and then retained. That is the ordinary 1920 rifle. It is not the whole story.

Newly manufactured rifles were also made after the war, and those too were stamped 1920. Under the Treaty of Versailles the Reichswehr was allowed a small number of “permission” arms. The 1920 date on those guns records that permission, not a leftover from the trenches.

The S28 is a newly manufactured rifle. It is not wartime Gewehr 98 production. That is the first fact a listing usually gets wrong.

The catalogue example on this site is serial 301 h, with 1920 on the ring, and 301 matching on barrel, receiver, bolt and stock channel. It has the new tangent rear sight, not a Lange leaf. Those tangent sights were made and supplied in numbers by Mauser Oberndorf for the 1920 permission G98s — the same Oberndorf plant later marked S/42 on K98k receivers. The sight pattern is a 1920s supply fact, not a reason to call this rifle an S/42 K98k.

Proofs: left side, then the right

What matters is to look at the proofs. A Weimar eagle and a later Nazi-era proof sit together on the left of the action ring and barrel. They are layers of German service, not a contradiction and not a reason to call the rifle a wartime leftover.

Then look at the right-hand side of the action. That is the biggest clue to the manufacturer of this rifle: a Weimar eagle with an S underneath it. Could this be the Simson mark? Simson was marking Lugers in this way, and Simson also made new G98s — which of course had to carry the Versailles 1920 permission date.

S28 on the parts

As is common with German manufacturing, the parts were marked with the maker’s code S28. Look through the photographs on this site: a matching G98 with S28 marks on the parts. A complete matching S28 Gewehr 98 is the holy grail of collectors. This example is a genuine matching-number gun. Because of that, and because of the proof marks observed, the conclusion must be that this rifle was made new by Simson while Germany was under the Treaty of Versailles restrictions.

It was made at Simson before the National Socialists muscled in and forced a takeover, changing the name to BSW — Berlin-Suhler Waffen- und Fahrzeugwerke. An S28 matching G98 is that earlier Simson rifle, not a BSW product and not a 1916 DWM with a later stamp.

Most 1920 G98s are wartime rifles kept on the books. An S28 is a new Simson rifle wearing the same permission date.