I recently picked up another old gun in a trade to go along with my FG42, a mid-1944 dated duv coded G43 rifle. I've owned at least a half dozen of them over the past 15 years but for one reason or another I ended up selling them, and I regretted every sale. I used to have a decent sized German WW2 collection but was priced out of the hobby a number of years ago and didn't want to deal with the mountain of fakes that goes along with the hobby.
I've been trying to pick up another G/K43 for quite some time but was either way too poor to buy a rifle that was way over priced or had every trade fall through or not even considered. Even original parts have gotten out of control so building up a rifle from parts is cost prohibitive. I was lucky enough to come across a fellow trying to sell his mismatched G43 but surprisingly no takers despite asking a lot less than what the average shooter is going for. I made a trade offer that he accepted and 5 days later I finally had a G43 in my possession.
Overall the condition is typical...metal in good shape, stock has been sanded w/stampings barely visible, mismatched parts (duv barreled receiver w/Walther complete bolt group), common coded magazine & somewhat decent bore. I've been smart enough to have kept my restricted gas piston so that I can safely shoot the rifle. Every G/K43 is over-gassed to the point that the rifles will self-destruct eventually, some sooner than later, and will damage/break expensive parts along the way. This rifle does have some small cracks on the back of the action cover that will need to be welded/filed/finished/blued and luckily that is the only damage to the whole rifle.
I did get to put 20 rounds through it yesterday morning along with the FG42 and in typical fashion it mangles brass like nobody's business. I don't have that much 8x57 brass and unfortunately what I do have will end up getting destroyed and I'm not exactly happy about that. At one time 8mm was the cheapest surplus ammo but that is far from the case today. I'll have to put some more rounds through it and see what kind of accuracy I can get and if it's good enough it might even go into my Vintage Military rifle rotation.