The best rifle in this world :D[/quote]
Say that after you’ve fired one. They’re dissapointingly awful.[/quote]
haha i agree man of stoat, the mauser K98K wasn’t my favourite. 8)[/quote]
whats bad about it? its the most reproduced rifle in the world.
whats bad about it? its the most reproduced rifle in the world.
I think you’ll find that the AK holds that title.
I’ve dealt with the Kar 98k elsewhere on the forum, but a brief summary follows:
Recoil - punishing, and unnecessarily so.
Action - slow to operate, cocks on opening (makes opening the bolt harder but does reduce the lock time), and can be dirt-sensitive (too many bearing surfaces in the cocking piece mechanism). Bolt handle too far forward.
Magazine - only 5 round capacity.
Sights - Miserable - the blade is too coarse, and are designed in such a way that under stress you’ll shoot high (when the sights are lowered, the little U-notch sits at the bottom of a big, square notch. The temptation is to line the front post up with this big notch, not the little one, and therefore shoot high).
Heating - 3 rounds in rapid fire & the heat haze coming off the barrel starts to obscure the target and sights. 10rds & it’s getting really wobbly.
Safety catch - awkwardly placed, awkward to use.
Forward locking - although theoretically much stronger (this is only an issue if you want to make a hunting rifle using a high-pressure cartridge though), the breech face is shrouded by the front of the action - makes cleaning difficult & checking clear harder.
Does that answer your question?
I’ll finish with a WW1 quote:
In WW1 the Germans had the best hunting rifle, the Americans the best match rifle, and the British the best battle rifle.
gewehr 98 variants have been around since 1898 and two world wars. there were more 98s made then ak-47s.
i’ve heard from a shooter that the k98 has negligible recoil. he says it depends if you have a good stance or not.
so the other rifles don’t have those problems>?
why is the k98 often referred to as a great "hunting"rifle, and better then the enfield in that respect?
There were 10M+ k98’s produced, and 100M+ AK’s. Sorry, but there were about 10x more AK’s produced than 98s.
I’m a shooter, I’ve fired the K98 a lot, and the recoil is punishing - my wife won’t shoot it, and she loves shooting the Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine, which has a fairly stiff recoil. I have a good stance, and can shoot many different types of centrefire military rifles all day without any bruising at all. Anyone who says that the recoil on a K98k is negligable is lying, or is used to shooting .600NE :lol:
No, many of the other rifles don’t have those listed problems - they are better designed. Some, however, are even worse!
The Mauser action is better suited to producing hunting rifles than the Lee-Enfield action (the Mauser can handle higher pressures), whilst the Lee-Enfield action is better for a battle rifle (faster, far less dirt-sensitive).
There were 10M+ k98’s produced, and 100M+ AK’s. Sorry, but there were about 10x more AK’s produced than 98s.
I’m a shooter, I’ve fired the K98 a lot, and the recoil is punishing - my wife won’t shoot it, and she loves shooting the Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine, which has a fairly stiff recoil. I have a good stance, and can shoot many different types of centrefire military rifles all day without any bruising at all. Anyone who says that the recoil on a K98k is negligable is lying, or is used to shooting .600NE :lol:
No, many of the other rifles don’t have those listed problems - they are better designed. Some, however, are even worse!
The Mauser action is better suited to producing hunting rifles than the Lee-Enfield action (the Mauser can handle higher pressures), whilst the Lee-Enfield action is better for a battle rifle (faster, far less dirt-sensitive).[/quote]
what do you mean by higher pressures? btw, check your 98 figures. i believe 15 million were made in ww2 alone.
what is a “match” rifle? isn’t the springfield a modified 98 clone? springfield armory had to pay mauser for every rifle made,
btw, this shooter is 5 10 around 150 pounds, below average weight.
Higher pressures - e.g the sort of pressures developed in a big game hunting cartridge, which is beyond what is generated in a military cartridge of that era. My figures for the 98 are from our friend wikipedia - I’ll check SAOTW & Jane’s when I get home.
A match rifle is a rifle optimised for shooting at targets in competition. Springfield only had to pay royalties until WW1, since there are large chunks of the design ripped off the Mauser 98. IMHO, the Springfield is the best of the cocks-on-opening Mauser-type rifles.
The criticisms levelled at the SMLE by people schooled in the “Bisley school of thought” proved to be the exact reasons why it was a great battle rifle! If you want to see what satisfies the Bisley school of thought, you need look no further than the Ross and the Pattern 14, which were heavy, unwieldy, more dirt-sensitive, had smaller magazines, & were slower to operate, although more accurate than the SMLE. But, you only need a rifle which is inherently accurate enough to hit a person out to realistic combat ranges, and the SMLE can do this admirably, and can be fired faster than any other bolt-action rifle (the record is 38 rounds in 1 minute, all being hits at 200 yds by a Pte Snoxall). My personal record is 25 rds in about 50-55 secs (I ran out of ammo!), starting with only 5 in the rifle (rather than 10, due to competition rules).
Jane’s says 11.5M Kar98k made.
so higher pressures mean more knockdown power?
i think the best “match” rifle would be a better choice
i heard that about the enfield too. but is a bolt-action rifle, it should be perfectly accurate at 300-400m.
… i found my figure on a website a while back.
Here’s a video of Yours Truly shooting an MG3 (re-chambered MG42 with a heavier bolt, so a ROF of 800-900 rpm instead of 1200-1500). Also, in the background is a Garand. Enjoy:
Just been corrected - said MG3 was apparently chattering along at 1200rpm…
nice video stoat! 
I have a Mauser, and I’ve tried all sorts of stances. The two best are standing and crouching/sitting. If you go prone, the recoil seems to intensify. And to be quite honest, I am quite used to the Mauser recoil.
Also, a Mosin '44 Carbine has more recoil and is louder than the K98. My friend has one, so I know the difference.
When you’re prone your body has less opportunity to ‘roll with the punch,’ so enhancing felt recoil.
What rounds are you using with these wpns ? Not WWII issuse I hope.
Can you explain what you mean by ‘knockdown power’ please ?
Do you have a place nearby where you can rent these out ?
I thought that two of them were made illegal in Oz about nine years ago and two others must be really difficult to get a licence for.
Can you explain what you mean by ‘knockdown power’ please ?[/quote]
well, i’m a gun noob, i don’t really shoot. Is the mauser better then the enfield for hunting large animals? The bullet has higher velocity?
Can you explain what you mean by ‘knockdown power’ please ?[/quote]
well, i’m a gun noob, i don’t really shoot. Is the mauser better then the enfield for hunting large animals? The bullet has higher velocity?[/quote]
Not necessarily - the point is that you can use a mauser action with high-pressure big-game hunting cartridges that would be unsafe in an Enfield action. In terms of the “knockdown power” of the Enfields and Mausers in the original calibres, the difference is marginal.
And higher velocity does not necessarily mean higher power (that’s a trap that Ironscam fell into when trying to compare the Stg44 to the M1 carbine).
1: Why would the best match rifle be better for battle than the best battle rifle? That’s illogical, captain!
2: The SMLE and No.4 are perfectly accurate to 600+ yards, and gave the Russians a bit of a surprise in Afghanistan
Can you explain what you mean by ‘knockdown power’ please ?[/quote]
well, i’m a gun noob, i don’t really shoot. Is the mauser better then the enfield for hunting large animals? The bullet has higher velocity?[/quote]
Not necessarily - the point is that you can use a mauser action with high-pressure big-game hunting cartridges that would be unsafe in an Enfield action. In terms of the “knockdown power” of the Enfields and Mausers in the original calibres, the difference is marginal.
And higher velocity does not necessarily mean higher power (that’s a trap that Ironscam fell into when trying to compare the Stg44 to the M1 carbine).[/quote]
THe STG44 has a significantly larger bullet then the m1. Was he trying to say that the 2 weapons were comparable?
To be honest Hosenfield, I don’t think he knew what he was trying to say.
Yes, the mong was saying that they were comparable because the muzzle-velocities were about the same, even though one has a bullet weight of 125gn at 2250fps, the other a 110gn bullet at 1975fps.