Scrubbed Brazilian Mauser

[Calfed]

Last fall I glommed a Brazilian Mauser at an on-line auction. It looked and sounded good...


When it arrived I discovered that it had been completely refinished and that the receiver crest and bolt had been scrubbed. It is in great shape, and all of the parts that still have numbers on them match the receiver and the bore is spectacularly good...but I can't figure out why the crest and bolt flat was scrubbed.

I've heard of Argentine Mausers being scrubbed, but not Brazilian. Anyone have any ideas?

[kcw]

I have a Spanish M44 that has been scrubbed and arsenal refinshed, parkerized barreled action with all the rest VERY nicely blued, to like new, including brand new wood. I've seen a few of them just like it at gun shows. Obviously somebody wanted to buy them, but the Spanish government didn't want their "letterhead" on them. Some time ago somebody here posted that they had an M48 Yugo done up the same way and in the same condition. At the time we speculated that somebody was buying up guns in the late 40's-early 50's , but the selling countries wanted "plausible deniabilty" as to their origin; likely for purposes related to neutrality. My hunch, and that's all it is, was that the buyer(s) was possibly an agent for Isreal. Of course it might very well have been a buyer for any number of anti colonial bush wars that were starting up at the time too. Maybe some "cold war" stuff? I have an American Rifleman magazine from 1959 with an add in it offering "excellent to new condition" M44 Spanish Mausers; a likely source for the one I've got? If those rifles could only talk. JFK had the last of the U.S M1917's that the government still had, scrubbed and sent over to Pakistan. I'm certain that the Indian government had absolutely no idea where they came from! :-)

[dave]

When refinished it is possible the rifle was in such bad condition it took that amount of polishing to clean it up or enough to partially remove crest it and they just completely removed it. Those crests were not deeply struck like the side letters. Or they may have sold them to another So.Amer. country and wanted to remain 'neutral' in a border war. The stock disk and cross bolt were originally polished also.
As for the M-48's a whole batch was made 'without markings' (Bo). Many of these were sold in the US right after Isreals war with Egypt and other arab counties. They were said to have been captured, but why Isreal would sell them at that time when short of rifles, I don't know! Many of these came in with recent imports also. They were not scrubbed but made that way, and mentioned in Bogdanovic's book.