Mod. 98 is the normal and common designation on the K98k German infantry rifle. Yugoslavia retained a large number of K98k after WW2 and rebuilt them. Preduzece 44 is the gov't workshop, or one of the gov't workshops that did this type of work. No matter how many times I see that word, Preduzece, I still see
"prejudice" .
Your rifle was made in Germany. The K98k was manufactured from about 1933 to 1945. I think 17,000,000 were made (17 million). A whole lot of them didn't survive the war.
My Yugo'fied, de-nazi'fied K98k. Has the same crest and Prejudice 44 on the receiver.
If you look real close you can see a 1 underneath the crest on the left-hand side. On the other end you can barely see a 0. That can mean only one thing. 1940. That's when it was manufactured. The WaA655 appears on the stock but more importantly it appears on the metal. This Waffenampt (inspector/acceptance) 655 was located at Mauser, Oberndorf. You're not going to get that lucky with most of these Yugo'fied K98k. Most you'll never figure out where or when it was made.
This rifle also has a witness mark on the rear sight base and barrel. And next to this witness mark (a line-up mark so the rear sight is put on in the same location) is a Czechoslovakian Waffenampt. This highly suggests it was rebarreled in Czechoslovakia post-war and ended up in Yugoland.
There were some K98k that were rebuilt into the Yugoslavian m/48 model. The m/48 differs from the K98k mostly in the handguard configuration. The m/48 handguard is a full handguard that extends back to the receiver and forward to the lower barrel band. The K98k handguard is just an abbreviated little thing from the lower band to the front of the rear sight base.
Your new rifle could be configured any number of ways with a myriad of features. If you can take some clear photos and post them it'll save this forum from continually looking at pictures of mine
.
Dutch