The Kar98k Sniper Rifle and the WW2 German Sniper

(German Accent) the following video is brought to you by slate black industries, for grip panels and M-lok accessories, please visit slateblackindustries.com aber bitte refrain from screwing M-Lok accessories onto your Klassiker Karabiner 98k Scharfschützengewehr! welcome back to 9 hole reviews, in this episode we explore the very iconic sniper variant of the Car 98k and we also attempt to find out how well a newly accurized kar 98k sniper rifle can shoot, and push its limits as far as we can The Karabiner 98k Scharfschützengewehr has a very complicated lineage to dissect... for research, we drew very heavily on technical data from Peters Senich's "the German sniper 1914 to 1945" an Albrecht Wacker's biography on Josef "Sepp" Allerberger, " the sniper one the Eastern Front" as primary accounts military doctrine typically has the most influence on the development of weapons Germany emerged from World War One as one of the pioneers of employing snipers but as World War 2 started the German Wehrmacht had abandoned a lot of its sniper doctrine and placed greater importance towards mechanization it was actually the Waffen SS that had placed a large order on high powered rifles with telescopic sights... even in 1939 the SS did not get along with the Heer, or German army, and was unable to use official procurement channels these early SS sniper rifles ranged anything from reworked World War 1 era Gewehr 98 to Polish Radom Mausers. It was not until 1943 when the Wehrmacht had massive sufferings from Soviet snipers, that more importance was placed upon the German Army sniper and as such the German Kar 98k sniper rifle configurations changed along with the wartime development of the car 98 rifle itself typically the ZF39 style scopes were the most popular and frequently seen on sniper variant Kar98k these came in the 4x Zielvier the 6x Zielsechs and the rare 8x Zielacht It is well noted that the scope clarity was one of the main reasons why german snipers prefer the 98k sniper rifles over Mosin Nagant sniper variants however there are some cases where unit armorer's did manage to use captured soviet equipment on hand to make field sniper rifles... some smaller ZF41 1.5x scopes were also used, although typically snipers did not prefer the decreased field of view... the ZF 39 style scope mounting systems also changed throughout the progression of the war typical Wehrmacht snipers had short side rails turret mounts, claw mounts or long side rails whereas the SS also used a double claw mounts and others since they did not share the procurement channels with the Wehrmacht unlike other nations of the era German snipers were actually issued precision loaded sniper ammunition the 196 grain boat-tailed Schweres Spitzgeschoß sniper projectile has up to 5.94 G1 ballistic coefficient traveling at about 2550fps... as a comparison the current U.S. issued M118LR sniper cartridge uses a 175 grain sierra matchking projectile with a 5.05 g1 ballistic coefficient at 2850fps this means that the world war 2 german sniper projectile is actually significantly more aerodynamic than the modern U.S. standard sniper projectile in fact sniper Mattäus Hetzenauer cleared the longest confirmed kill of World War two at 1.1km with his Kar 98K and a 6x Zeiss scope Eastern Front marksman also used the infamous Beobachtung, or B-Patronen a high explosive aircraft observation round... there are recorded accounts of snipers sending high-explosive rounds into wooden shacks to set fire, flush out enemy combatants and subsequently pick them off as a flee the Germans even had developed suppressed kar 98k sniper rifles with subsonic ammunition Our objective is to see how a newly produced kar 98k Sniper of the era with a comparable scope in stock betting would do, so we set out to find a nearly unissued early post-war Czech kar 98k... these early post-war examples were wartime production German standard Wehrmacht kar 98k rifles with a "DOU" code which stood for Waffenwerke Brünn AG what we know today as the Czech Brno factory however all German markings were scrubbed off after World War two the rifle was manufactured to their marks specs and had pristine bores but do not have collectible as true World War 2 issued rifles making it a perfect donor rifle an I also found Opticotechna ZF 39 copy with a short side rail mount although the preferred mid to late war method for the ZF39 scope is a closed ring turret mount... we paired the early war short side rail with a late war kar 98k with a stamped barrel bands because I was unsure if the grounded-down receiver would affect the mounting geometry we sent the rifle and part off to a U.S. Cavalry officer turned gunsmith Mike Cramer to complete the bedding and conversion of the rifle So i'm fitting the new butt plate to the stock the old butt plate was a lot taller and larger so wood had to be removed from the sides all the way around as well as the back face of the stock, and to do that (so you're not just cutting wherever) we use inletting black... this black colored ink... on the inside of art remove the part and cut away the black it's tedious, but it's the right way to do it. and it returned with a full sniper conversion we now have a rifle that would give us a very good idea on what a German sniper would have been freshly issued to March after the Eastern Front with we loaded up some Nosler 200grain boat tail hollow-point projectiles to meet the 2550 FPS mark and set off to see what this rifle could do at 100 yards we observe 2 9 shots groupings from this rifle measuring at 1.6 MOA in 1.53 MOA for the second grouping we cut the target into a 140mmx80mm rectangle roughly the size of an iPhone this rectangle represented the maximum grip size for any Kar 98k to enter the sniper rifle program once a rifle was accurized the German army required the sniper rifles to group 5 shots into a 105mm or 4.1 MOA circle of which, 3 out of 5 shots must lie within a 17mm or 2.8 MOA center of the grouping the Wehrmacht infantry school noted in a report on March 1945 that tested kar98k sniper rifles put out groupings measuring from 2.5 to 6.6 MOA when shot at 1km with 12 shot groups... this means that our sniper rifle and ammunition combination shooting 9 shots at 1.5 MOA would have been an exceptionally accurate sniper variant from the world warII era We believe that the recoil coupled with the worsened ergonomics of a scoped kar 98k were points that decreased the rifle's combat effectiveness one of the Werhmacht's most successful snipers with 257 confirmed kills Josef "Sepp" Allerberger also explains at the Kar 98 K's recoil meant that most Wehrmacht conscripts actually scored very few combat hits with it, and even seasoned veterans would shy away from shooting more than 30-40 full-powered 7.92mm cartridges out of the bolt-action rifle in one sitting The extra weight of the ZF39 sniper scope in mounts did dampen the recoil but there is still significantly more than our contemporary rifles of the era the Wehrmacht required high scope mounting to accommodate the usage of iron sights this was a common practice for rifles of the era as iron sights tended to be more reliable than 1910 to 1940 s optics... later war issued Kar 98k rifles also used laminate wood stocks which were actually better for accuracy since there was less stock warping from the elements these stocks however were fitted with a cuped butt plate that had a collarbone cut out the iron sight rifle, when I shoot out of it my shoulder is on the proper position and it has a relief cut for my collarbone to sit into to where it doesn't jostle me around with the full power 8mm cartridge... if you look at what they did with the sniper variant it still has a sloped cup butt plate towards the later war variants the problem is when I raise my head the rifle requires me to reposition my shoulder a little bit my shoulder rolls a little bit farther forward because I'm in a higher position now when it recoils you see instead of biting right underneath the collarbone with a solid 90 degree bite with my shoulder my shoulder is arch farther forward to allow my eyes to look through the scope that gives it a slope to when it recoils it comes down a lot more and the problem with that is that the scope comes close to biting my eyes with the full power 8mm cartridge transitioning from the mauser to a more modern precision rifle you can see that there an extra space on the cheek weld to make sure that I'm able to pin the rifle down but then also the stock itself lends itself for me to absorb that recall a whole lot better when I'm shooting prone this rifle does not slip underneath my shoulder and go into my armpit that becomes less of an issue say if you're firing this from a shooting position because all of a sudden you see the butt plate rest firmly against my shoulder and has nowhere to slide down it does not slide down or from a standing position which is largely similar to this that being said if they had the option of the German Kar 98k sniper variant Allerberger and many eastern front Wehrmact snipers still do not prefer to pick up the Soviet Mosin Nagant sniper rifles simply because the premium quality Zeiss and Hendzoldt or equivalent glass outperforming Soviet scopes... it was rather the semi-automatic Soviet svt-40 Tokarev snipers that intrigued the Germans in 1942 even though these semi-automatic sniper rifles were less accurate than their bolt-action counterparts the lessened recoil and faster follow-up shots meant a single sniper was even deadlier in sub 200 meter ranges which constituted a bulk of a sniper's activities when supporting an infantry unit on the Eastern Front Allerberger himself scored 21 kills in one sitting wiping out more than half of a Soviet company with a g43 at sub 150 meter ranges in our practical accuracy test, we demonstrated the Kar98k's effectiveness to clear targets one kilometer away while this is an impressive feat for a rifle of this era, snipers in World War 2 usually engaged their targets under 400 meters and did not shoot on overly windy days... remember that world war ii was an era when the concept of sniper was still being developed through combat the Kar98k sniper rifle and ammunition may be a superb long-range rifle system of the day but the heavy recoil sub-par economics and slow cyclic speeds meant that it was not exactly the most ideal tool for sub 400-meter engagements authentic German sniper variant 98k rifles are much rarer than some other captured World War 2 weapons in today's antique collector market harsh retribution from Soviet and Allied troops or local partisans meant that any identified sniper would soonerr destroy or ditch sniper rifles than they would be surrendered with them... under no circumstances did German snipers want to be captured carrying a sniper rifle... this is why we were particularly curious in documenting the equivalent of a newly issued kar 98k sniper rifle well there you have it a decent idea of what a freshly issued kar 98k sniper would do in a field with sniper ammunition we hope to see you for the next episode of nine hole reviews... Auf Wiedersehen I would like to say thanks to our friend Mike Kramer who did the work for this spectacular looking rifle without him we wouldn't have been able to attempt the Mattäus Hetzenaur shot... which ... Mike actually kind of looks like Matthäus Hetzenauer he actually held on to that rifle for a while for some " field testing" he said Hallo wie gehts Mike Kramer's German, isn't it? have you been to Russia? I think we have a Facebook for an incoming look him up Hetzenauer... Het-zen... I like Enfields more than Mausers anyways

Channel: 9-Hole Reviews

Views: 1,117,111

Rating: 4.8960462 out of 5

Keywords: kar98k, karabiner, mauser, 98k, sniper, scharfschützengewehr, designated, marksman, reicht, german, ww2, rifle, bolt action, C&Rsenal, InRange, Forgotten Weapons, Precision, long range, band of brothers, saving private ryan, enemy at the gates, 8mm, 7.92x57mm, pubg, shroud, dr disrespect, call of duty, battlefield, 1943, medal of honor, stalingrad, eastern front, normandy, d-day, france, springfield, mosin nagant, m91/30, 03a4, m1903a4, carbine, gewehr, STG44, enfield, smle, AWP, accuracy, international, zf39, zf41

Id: UeXZEheGeik

Length: 15min 35sec (935 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 20 2019