I picked this up a few years ago for $400 and recently tore it down for cleaning. Its a 1940 Sauer & Sohn that's all matching except for the bolt which is mismatched. I believe the S 32 40 DS barrel stamp means that is was produced by Steyr, steel lot 32, year 1940, blank code DS. The waffenamts are peened out and it is CAI import marked on the top of the barrel. I don't see a capture mark. The finish is more or less gone with some pitting and it has what appears to be trench art on the stock. The stock appears to have been sanded as the stamps are barely visible. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the peening and lack of metal finish was indicative of it being captured and reissued by a particular country but I can't seem to find it now. I want to say it was one of the Balkan countries. Feel free to correct me on anything I said. Anything else you can tell me about the rifle? Any idea what is carved into the stock?

Top of the receiver
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Stock stamps. They are very faint but there is an H and two waffenamts
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Barrel Bands
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K stamp next to the take down disk
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More pictures coming...

Right side of receiver
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Kill mark?
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Floorplate
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Trench art
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Barrel markings
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stock and handguard stamps
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I can take more pictures if anyone wants to see anything specific. Thanks in advance!

Yep.  These are commonly referred to as "Romanian capture" or "Balkan capture" rifles, and yours has all the hallmarks.  But there's no good way to know for sure from which country it was imported by Century.

147J.P. Sauer & Sohn, Suhl (superseded by 'ce'). Found on small arms
https://oldmilitarymarkings.com/codes_full_numeric.html

Yes old Century import from Romania. These came in around 1994-5 and were around $89.99 . Mismatch bolt, no sight hood and cleaning rod the norm, pinged out markings. Most had fried bores.

If the bore is ok 400 isn't a bad price today especially for more desirable manufacture.

I'm thinking it's a "Romanian capture".

I've been out of Mausers for a few years but IIRC calling these "captures" is a bit of a misnomer. They were actual Romanian Army issued rifles used during the immediate aftermath of WWII before they switched over to Soviet standard weapons sometime in the mid to late 1950's. The Romanians used Mausers before and during the war, so that's what they continued with afterwards due to familiarity.  Romania isn't the only country that did this, there's pictures online of E. Germans and Czechs carrying wartime weaponry with Soviet troops alongside them.

Awesome, thank you! I knew it was somewhere captured somewhere in that area but was having a hard time finding information. Now I've got a starting point to do some more research. I went back and looked and I bought this in April 2015 so almost 6 years ago already. The barrel is okay. I spent 20 minutes or so cleaning it and could use some more. The rifling is worn and dark but no pitting. I have not shot it or performed a bullet test on it yet. Looking online, it looks like what's on the stock could be Cyrillic but its hard to tell.

My dad has a vz 24 Romanian contract rifle he bought at Dunhams probably 2005 ish for under $100.

It looks the same with almost 100% finish wear and the wood  is the same color. The part of the receiver that the bolt hits to bottom it out  before turning Is actually peened in quite a bit from use. I kind of thought it was a rifle for training or something, just because it was worked over so hard.

Still shoots though.

I remember going through tables of these when they first came in and was told Albania , but I have a feeling they were from all over the area. Most were pretty well used and I remember one guy showing me a bore so bad that the pulled bullet he had slid down through it!  As stated above they were usually unmodified or refurbed like the Russian and Yugo examples.


I picked up a few of them back then that were fairly uncommon years and makes , but traded them away at some point.