By Jim
A rare rifle came into the shop today for cleaning and a functions check. It's a Walther made K43 in 8mm Mauser caliber. A brief note about the G and K 43. These were meant to be the replacement for the G41 semiautomatic rifles. These used a gas port on the barrel to drive a piston and operating rod instead of using a muzzle device that trapped gasses to activate the mechanism. Approximately 400,000 thousand of these guns were produced by Mauser and Walther for the German Army in WW2.
The rifle is readied for disassembly by removing the magazine and clearing the chamber.
Next, you lock the bolt to the rear using the detent lever on the receiver, as circle in the above picture.
You turn the safety to the ON position (circled in yellow), and push in the take down button (circled in red)
Lift the entire subassembly and dust cover as one unit by tilting it up from the rear and remove it by lifting it out of the receiver. In later production guns, the dust cover is removed first by itself before removing the recoil spring and finally the bolt assembly
Unlock the bolt hold open latch and carefully let the bolt slip forward and take the dust cover off. The bolt assembly is broken down into its major components. The recoil springs are removed by slipping the rear plate off.
The bolt is further taken apart by slipping the firing pin subassembly out of the rear of the bolt. A small captive detention pin is slipped out of place so the firing pin and extension can be removed. (Circled in yellow). The bolt is tipped up and the locking lugs can be dumped out of the back. (Circled in red). Putting it back together is not much different. The locking lugs are placed in the cut outs on the bolt body and the firing pin and extension is slid in through the rear of the body. Once pushed all the way into the bolt body, it holds the lugs in place.
For field stripping, it's not recommended to remove any of the fire control components. Assembly is the opposite of disassembly. You lock the bolt and dust cover back together as one whole unit and tip everything back in place. Press the take down button again everything back into the receiver and release the bolt hold down lever. Reinsert the magazine into the rifle.
Do a function check and test fire the rifle.
As with most military weapons, there are no tools required to take apart the gun for servicing under field conditions.
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