My K98k

Hey all,
Just thought I'd share my K98. It was produced at the DOU factory (Waffenwerke Brunn, Bystrica in German occupied Czechoslovakia) in 1944. It's numbers matching with proper markings, however at some point, the stock was replaced being that it has a stock marking on it that was not used at the DOU factory (German eagle with an H for Heer). The stock is an original though produced in 1944 as well. Maybe the soldier it was issued to replaced it? The vet who brought it back maybe repaired it? Hard to tell...

I just shot it a couple of weekends ago and she fired like a dream! Has a nice kick to it too ;-) I also have an original 41 AVG bayonet to go along with it.

 

Sweet...would look good in a black velvet lined case...

 

I can see that haha.

 

I would love to shoot a K98 some day, I've shot and M1 carbine and Mosin Nagant, that's it in the WW2 rifle department for me.... Great looking gun you've got there zeppelin! Do you use non-corrosive ammo?

 

Thanks! You need to shoot one for sure! Oh yeah, non-corrosive. I use new 8mm ammo only!

 

Oh thank heavens, I was going to harp on you if you didn't . What ammo company do you purchase the 8mm from?

 

Nice looking rifle and bayonet, thanks for the photos.

 

The ammo I have now is Sellier & Bellot.

 

I've heard good reviews actually of that ammo, would you say it's good?

 

Fired great for me. I fired only 25 rounds through, but there were no issues at all.

 

Hmmmmm good to know....

 

There's nothing wrong with corrosive ammo, it just requires a few extra minutes when cleaning. Keep in mind that most of these old guns have had hundreds if not thousands of rounds of corrosive ammo through them with little ill-effect.

Of course, in almost every case new-production ammo is better than the old surplus stuff but corrosive ammo has an undeserved bad reputation.

 

Good points. I just tend to baby this rifle I guess lol. Only the best for it haha.

 

Windex, or just soap and water was always considered the easy way to clean/neutralize the residue after shooting corrosive primer ammo. Really though, you just don't see any of those old stocks of corrosive primer ammo any more. Even the old eastern European ammo for Mosins and AKs has pretty much disappeared, though it was everywhere in the 90s.
That's a pretty nice wartime Mauser. I used to know all this stuff by rote (and have mostly forgotten), but the desirability of Mausers was/is largely based on both maker, and year of manufacture. The pre-war (1940 and earlier) are the best, with no tooling marks visible at all. Early war is when you start to see tool marks and little manufacturing shortcuts. Mid-war were also very good, and yours seems to fall into that description - maybe early 44? The late 44 and 45 rifles start to get pretty rough, though still entirely functional.
A well broken in K Mauser is a joy to shoot. The action is as smooth as butter and the general heft and balance is (in my opinion) the best of any rifle of the era.

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I'm not totally positive what part of 1944 my rifle would have been produced, but I'm assuming mid 44 being that it is a bb block. You're right that eventually they took shortcuts in the late war examples. Resources were becoming scarce and they had to save. Parts were being stamped rather than milled, unnecessary metal parts were being done away with as seen in kriegsmodell varients. The bolt take down hole went away, cleaning rods and bayonet studs were taken out, band springs were replaced with wood screws. They never skimped though on the bolt and action assembly on these rifles. They were always made strong from day 1.

 

I shot my friends ZF41 scoped K98 at a military range a number of years ago and it was a joy to shoot, it also had a fair kick to it as well!

I'm now hoping for an invite to shoot his scoped Lee Enfield No4.

 

I'd like to shoot a Lee Enfield too. I'm thinking my future goal is to have a rifle from each major participant in the war.

 

Up in Canada we still have occasional shipments of Com-Bloc surplus x39 and x54R (the Bulgarian "silver tip" x54R is actually quite good), but increasingly the only surplus you find is Chinese. That stuff is real nasty ammo. Highly corrosive, poor quality control and it really smells. Another thing to watch for up here is re-packaged Chinese surplus ammo. Its the same as the regular "spam can" surplus stuff, but repackaged into nice clean 20rd packs with a marked up price and occasionally advertised as "non-corrosive" and "commercial" ammunition.

I don't believe that the PRC stuff is permitted in the US?

 

I don't recall ever seeing PRC ammo, though we had plenty of Soviet surplus stuff back in the day. Now we're seeing newly manufactured Russian/Eastern Europe ammo in plentiful quantities, Wolf, Tula, etc. It's all pretty good, though usually kind of dirty. The Sellier & Bellot ammunition mentioned above is as good as any American ammo (in my opinion) and quite a bit cheaper.

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