The semi-pistol grip laminate stock is attractively finished with boiled linseed oil and perfectly proportionate to its 24 inch barrel. The Kar98k’s meticulous, quality construction betrays its old-world heritage.
If your Kar98K rifle includes a bayonet with these characters on it, return it if you can – it’s a Yugoslavian copy. Today several nations including Germany and Chile use the 98k for ceremonial purposes, though veteran models still find their way into global conflicts, not unlike the ubiquitous AK47. Eventually they rechambered them to 7.62x51mm to conform to NATO standards, but not before burning up millions of surplus rounds bought from the previously occupied countries of Europe. Newly formed Israel wound up sanitizing their rifles by removing old Nazi-era markings stamping over them with a defiant Star of David. Ironically, the very rifle design that Axis forces had used to invade barely a decade earlier, now safeguarded against it. War-torn countries like Yugoslavia saw the vital importance of an armed resistance after partisans helped oust Axis invaders in 1944. Many nations who were victims of horrendous Nazi war crimes sought out these weapons as a form of both restitution and insurance they would never fall prey to such barbarity again. Many of these nations chose to stay with these rifles for many years after the war, like France, who even built new 98k rifles with captured German machinery for their occupation forces. While others were used by the Allies to re-arm European nations like Norway and France, whose military-industrial infrastructures were shattered by the war.
Many rifles were taken home by American servicemen, cut down and turned into sporting rifles. Battlefield pickup rifles captured by Soviet troops were refurbished, stored away and later sent overseas to communist groups and socialist revolutions as war aid. The hard-hitting Karabiner rifles saw service in countless conflicts including World War II, the Spanish Civil War and the 1948 Israeli-Arab War, among others. Modern hunting rifles heritage evidence by this Yugoslavian Mauser’s hinged floor-plate and disassembly lever. The Kar98k rifle went on to become the standard infantry rifle for the German military from 1935 to 1945, though it never fully replaced the full-sized Gewehr during the war, especially during the final days when the Volkssturm equipped themselves with anything that slung lead. Prior to World War I, the German Empire fielded the "Mauser 98 (Gewehr 98)", or rifle of 1898 until the harsh lessons of trench warfare lead them to develop a short or ‘kurz’ mode, hence its primogeniture, the Kar98k. I investigated the matter only to discovered my beloved Mauser Karabiner 98 Kurz cursing up a storm, determined to prove me wrong.įor the uninitiated, the Kar98k is a Mauser-made bolt-action, controlled-feed infantry rifle chambered in 8x57mm and is the basis for most bolt-action rifles in use today. After I wrote that article, I noticed a string of angry German profanity coming from my gun collection. I once wrote an article on the Finnish M39 Mosin rifle’s supremacy among front line bolt action rifles. Both weapons saw extensive use during and after the Second World War (Photo: Francis Borek) The German 98K shown above its English Rival, the Lee Enfield.