"Radom didn't make 98 barrels, I'm sure you're right. But they did seem to go overboard with heiroglyphic-like marks on what they did produce. Maybe this was some sort of Polish thing?"
Yes, on the undersiide of bolt handles and bottom of receivers from Radom - marked E77 - you will find a wide variety of odd marks. Won't find them on anything else that I remember. This practice gradually decreased as the war progresed, but didn't stop.
"I understood that Styer 623/77 marked rifles got the 77 marked parts from Radom, a location in Poland. Mightn't this 623 barrel come from other Polish mfg. source?"
NO. 623 was Steyr in Austria. Steyr was given oversight controll of Radom in late 39 and supervised everything that went on there. That is why Radom shipped 98k parts to Steyr for assembly - going to the parent company so to speak.
Yes Mauser - byf/135 - supplied parts to other mfrgs, including Steyr/bnz and yes they had one 135 proof on them. Some also had byf on them. Anything with 2 135 proofs - like trigger guards or floor plates were items that were assembled at Oberndorff.
The 358 is definately 359, but is Walther - NOT Sauer! Walther supplied a variety of parts to many of the mfgrs/assemblers of K98k rifles - All of the rear sight assembly(6 parts), Receivers and other parts. All were E359 proofed.
The bnz bbl on a ce rifle example with non matching fonts is probably a rebarrel at some depot or field repair point so the numbers would not match.
Again - ALL of the rifle/parts makers sent parts into the repair/replacement pools for future use so it is possible to find any mfg part on any other makers rifles. In the case of bbls you can easily find a 1937 bbl on a 1941 rifle.
Sarge
