WWII German K43 in 8mm Mauser

[Music] hey guys welcome back so today we're out of the range to talk about one of my favorite World War two self-loading rifles and if you'll notice there's something that can pretty much do everything it's that's-- to say I want to show you that's something that's my favorite whatever can you see a pattern here yeah see this is the mindset of a gun collector every single gun you own is one of your favorites that's why you have so many and you can't get rid of them because you treat them like they're your children you love them and cherish them mostly for their history in my case so what I'm going to talk about is a very iconic self-loading rifle from World War two that some folks may not know about now most people that are history buffs and followed the Second World War will know of this rifle and I'm going to talk about the G 43 /k 43 but some folks may not and it shoots the 8 millimeter mauser but 1936 the United States military adopted this beautiful piece of hunk of steel and walnut and that is the m1 garand sometimes pronounced m1 garand the US military called it the grand and that's why I call it the grand but the m1 garand was one of the earliest self-loading rifles adopted by any major world military and this guys is absolutely a beautiful functioning weapon probably well as was once said by a great man the the best battle implement ever devised and I can see why the guns worked very very well they're fast to load they were accurate they handled the recoil of the 30.6 cartridge extremely well and these actually do feed from clips this is an end block clip and I have some 30.6 ammunition in here and to load the m1 garand which would have been our service rifle going right into the second world war of course 1903 Springfield's were still in common use but in 1936 we started to adopt and feel this rifle so by the time we got involved with the war we were using these rifles especially in the European theater quite extensively but to charge the weapon is super fast and easy and it works is good in my opinion as a magazine that you would stick in the bottom the unblock clip system for the m1 garand was you know very very cool now not first rifle to use such a clip but there are both actions that used it but still just how it was integrated into this weapon was phenomenal so we're gonna start off shooting the us in one garand then we're issued at k43 one of several rifles that I have this one I want to show you is well battle-worn and I think that gives it even more mystique and more history obviously all right so let's fire off four eight rounds at 30.6 and you hear that - Ching and she's empty extremely robust reliable accurate absolutely gorgeous one of the best military rifles of US history perhaps of history period alright maybe I'm going a little bit too far semi guards are gonna go oh no it's the m16 that's the m14 it's the Craig Jorgensen whatever but I think few would argue that the m1 garand is an American classic now let's take a look at the rifle that everybody calls Hitler's garand which is the k43 and g43 in my hands I have a k43 now some of you may know this rifle is the g43 and both is correct it just depends on the markings on the gun it went through a nomenclature change in during the war it started off as the g43 of the Gewehr 43 but then it was renamed the K 43 or carbine ER for carbine rifle because it's about the same length as the k98 rifle so they're gonna have pretty much the same features but as the guns went on into the war they would change they would evolve they would become more simplified and they would become more crude as the war effort ground on to the ultimate demise of Nazi Germany when it fell to the Allies so what we have here is a vaulter produced k43 and this one has some late-war features on it now most notably you're gonna find on many g43 Zieve another K 43 s there's a lever that would be included in the bolt carrier here that would be for manually locking the bolt to the rear this rifle lacks that okay so that was deleted this is an end of the war simplification here we have a simple dust cover that is manually pushed forward to protect the internals of the gun from the harsh conditions of the Eastern Front earlier versions would have had a a little system that was attached to the bolt carrier that would pull this closed after each shot so the gun remained sealed so a number of different evolutionary changes would take place with this rifle throughout the war now you'll also notice that the finish is really bad very common this one definitely has seen battle the finish is very bad you'll notice that all the forged parts are in the rough state they're not finally finished now all the internal parts would be properly finished and machine to very you know exacting tolerances because they were functionally necessary to be that way but externally anything that could be space in terms of cosmetics was because the Germans were losing the war and they were trying to get this rifle into the field now for my understanding of history and I'm by no means a historian these were primarily fielded on the Eastern Front now there's something you should know about these rifles if you pick one up at a gun store at a gun show off gun broker know that shooting modern 8 millimeter ammunition out of these you're going to break the rifle it's not a matter of if it's more likely when and that's because most of these rifles were way over gassed from the factory when the Germans manufactured them the gas system on this rifle was intended to make the gun operate with little to no maintenance in the extreme cold conditions of the Eastern Front fighting in Russia so the guns would beat themselves to death very quickly they will the spoke carrier will come back with such force that it will start to peen the rear of the receiver and peen the rear of the bolt itself and destroy it you also see peening of the gas rod and we'll talk a little bit about the gas system on this rifle as well take the top handguard off here in a little bit this is an evolutionary step from the k41 because the germans were messing around with self-loading rifles in the 30s and they just couldn't get them into the field by the time war broke out they just went with what they had which was the k98 but they were working on a self-loading rifle as were the French and many other nations but they just didn't get them into the field like the US did in the same numbers that we did so this rifle started off as the k41 which had this intricate gas trap system on the end of the barrel that was just not very reliable it reminds me of John Browning's early work when he was tinkering with gas systems and so that system was decided it was inferior to a short-stroke gas piston which is what this system now has so you have a gas piston in here a gas port comes back you have a rod come back tap this think of an FAL or an SKS or an svt40 which is what this gas system was pretty much stolen from from historic historical accounts that I've read not as stolen but the idea for the gases this rifle came from the Russians svt40 so anyway this rifle we're going to go ahead and load up this is the bolt and carrier and it seems like the springs a little bit weak but it has a brand new wolf spring in it this one has a shooters kit in it which you can find online and you must put that shooters kit in here and that replaces the gas system that you can tune it then to modern ammo so you don't destroy a classic rifle like this and take your original gas components gas system components put them in a bag and set them aside that way you have a functioning rifle that won't beat itself to death this one has the shooters kit in it I'll show it to you here momentarily alright so to load this weapon because I can't manually lock the bolt to the rear because this is a later war production gun I have a 10 round magazine the guns would have been issued I believe with three of these and they would be inserted like an 8k it's a rock and lock type of magazine so you have a toe in the front rocks back and you have your little release here that's knurled so you can grab it and quickly change magazines but as the war ground on and the Germans fought with production issues more than likely these rifles would have wound up with one magazine and soldiers would have loaded them via stripper clips and they use standard mauser k98 stripper clips alright so I have the magazine in the weapon it's definitely set up for a right-handed shooter charging handles right here pull it to the rear let it go and this is your safety okay that would be safe and then flipping this little lever to the other side would be fire alright so that's your safety mechanism very simple standard sights for military rifles of the era but these are sweet shooting little guns for 8 millimeter as you can see the gun locks open on the last shot fired now the locking mechanism of this rifle is also very interesting it uses a flapper locking system think of the DPM machine or the DP machine gun or maybe even the RPD it has flappers inside there that that lock it so it's not roller locked it's flapper locked but it's a very robust system even though it looks very crude now this one's missing most of its original finish because this one like I said probably saw a lot of combat ironically and luckily the receiver which you probably will be able to see the serial numbers match on the bolt and carrier and on the receiver so in that regard this rifle is cool now this one I consider to be a shooter and I have no intention of ever making this thing look brand new now the wood stocks are actually really good shape it's just the metal components show some pretty hard use in the battlefield so now I've stuck a stripper clip in there for k98 mauser and I can just push those rounds down into the ten round box magazine grab another five because it does hold ten just set that stripper clip in its little guide there and there you go and now charge the weapon and resume shooting surprisingly reliable rifle well not really the Germans are known for building quality stuff but if you would look at this thing externally you would swear uptown left right in sideways that there's no way it would work given how rough it looks but this old battle horse is still quite functional strong rifling and still shoots very very accurately so let's talk about the rear sight here really quick on the k43 and I did mention before it's very similar to other sights of the era which got a little push button here and you can slide it up it's graduated out to 1,200 meters the the rifle has its 10 round magazine loaded already someone to go ahead and charge it and right behind me I have the safety Sally ice hole and we're gonna go ahead and do some shooting at the ice too just to keep our friends and check that Lecter critique everything that we do shooting over waters bad shooting over ice is even worse with the exception of I actually know what's over there now you I talked about the safeties of the m1 garand and the svt-40 those safeties are very very quick into action with the garand just push forward and pull the trigger to fire with the svt40 just push and then pull the trigger and fire the controls are right inside the trigger guard with the g43 and the k43 you have to rotate this lever all the way over so it's not quite as fast into action now you'll notice I also disclosed that that dust cover which will open up on the first shot fired so the safety isn't quite as robust as the other rifles but still from a shooters perspective this thing really really tamed that 8 millimeter cartridge considerably just a little bit of close-up shots here it's like she's a little bit low try a little further out yeah she's low hmm know what I'll do I'll raise it up let's put it 300 and see a little closer now the bad thing is the front sights not adjustable for elevation other than you can grind it down this one does still have its protective hood many times you'll find them missing that protective hood no I'm not putting my finger in front of the muzzle for the safety Sally's out there they're gonna scream foul [Applause] Wow I love shooting this thing don't shoot it nearly enough now like I said I do have another one that has the scope on it and it's in much better condition all of them would have been manufactured that I know of with the scope rail right here on the side now the Germans were using them as DMR's not necessarily sniper rifles so you could quickly slap a scope on there and use it as a designated marksman rifle which would increase the hit probability in the combat environment in a lot of countries we're doing that at that time right and it wasn't the first time the Germans had done it either I have a k98 mauser that has a CF 41 scope on it I'll break that out for a future video and they even applied that concept to their both action rifles before they did it with the G&K 43 rifles but do you have one in much better condition now if you'd get online and you see a lot of the guys that that have these they're in almost perfect condition there's a hundred percent blue and the stocks look brand new those almost assuredly been refinished now some of them would have been found after the war in really good condition but anything that saw battle on the Eastern Front would have battle scars and so the either they're refinished or they got their hands on an extremely rare unissued rifle that didn't see any combat otherwise they're gonna just look as rough as this one maybe a little bit better this one's a little bit rougher than than most but the reason I bought this one is because it had a brand-new shiny bore so yeah I love it I really do I love them all I'm not gonna fully disassemble the rifle because there's plenty of other videos out there to show you how to disassemble the k43 or the g43 rifles mine's a little bit different this one anyway because it doesn't have that manual lock open back here which is part of the disassembly method for the most of the rifles you would lock this bolt to the rear then this whole assembly just lifts out very easily but because mine lacks that manual bolt Hope hold open the whole mechanism wants to come apart when you take the gun apart but I did promise to show you the gas system so I'm gonna do that here really quick we use the tip of a bullet release that spring take that end cap off and here you can see the gas system of the k43 now it's a 3-piece gas system you have one one piece here a middle piece and then this tap it now this tap it's still the original component now whoever had this rifle before me did shoot it without the shooters kit in it the shiny parts that you see here are the shooters kit they did shoot it with the original parts and they pinned the end of the the rod so it's flared out it's mushroomed out a little bit and that's what happens when you shoot these guns without a shooters kit in them so the shooters kit now allows me to not have to worry about Pina anymore and cause any more damage to the rifle but you can see how the gas system works on the gun it comes back quite a distance here but that acts on the bolt carrier and that's how that little tapping system works again very reminiscent of rifles like the SVD 40 or gosh the SKS or at they al things like that alright so there's the gas system now like I said before shooting these old guns you really do run the risk of breaking something and yeah I mean this this one has some battle scars on it it even has a crack a slight crack in the receiver here which could have happened you know in the manufacturing process you know it's just it's a it's a superficial crack that's really based around the sight tower but still very rigid but I mean this gun I mean who knows what kind of battle it's seen so you want to be very careful when you use these old guns and and hander them handle them very very gingerly so future generations can enjoy them as well guys if you'd like to support us here at the military arms channel we are consumer advocates we take know industry money we don't get guns in with paychecks to tell you how wonderful they are we are 100% viewer supported which means we are your advocate well so we want when we want however we want and you enable us to do that through patreon there is a link down below please consider following that link check out some of the perks and once you become part of the patreon family by clicking by clicking the become patreon button you'll see that we have extra content livestream videos every week and blog posts and direct access to me and Jason and all sorts of stuff in our lens posts like we posted today another great way to support us is to pick up a t-shirt from our forge from freedom t-shirt store we even have hoodies and sweaters we got some Christmas stuff coming up if you live in a cold area like we do it's 20 degrees today you may want to pick up a hoodie or sweater that directly supports us here at the channel as well and last but not least be sure to check us out at copper custom comm alright guys thanks for 10 years of support I'm gonna go ahead charge my last ten rounds of eight millimeter Mauser and we will see you guys very very soon thanks for the support I can shoot this thing all day long what a beautiful piece of history yeah in the end the American garand is probably the spirit the superior rifle but boy this thing's our dream to shoot bye guys this is one of my SVT 40s this rifle is a very robust self-loading 54 are semi-automatic rifle it's small lightweight very narrow very nimble it's it feels faster in the shoulder than the m1 garand which feels a little bit big and clumsy by comparison and the same thing with the KRG 43 it feels more like the m1 garand very big heavy and clumsy by comparison to this rifle this rifle is just so narrow and thin and lightweight but yet handles the recoil of the 54 are extremely well this is one of my favorite rifles from World War two I mean this gun is amazing in its design and again it's gas system is very similar to what the Germans wound up using in the g / k 43 now here is a 10 round magazine loaded up for the svt40 we're using some Red Army standard ammunition which is just standard 50 for our ball and it's a rimmed cartridge and that's why you see that steep curvature to the magazine locks into place and yeah these would have been issued with one magazine most likely and then fed via stripper clips all right pull the bolt to the rear let it go and the guns are ready to fire just a very very simple robust rifle sure my cleaning rod isn't gonna come out there but the safety mechanism is a little bit hard to see here here's your safety mechanism so you can see how it blocks the trigger very ingenious I thought the m1 garand had an ingenious safety lever this one is just as ingenious so it blocks the travel of the trigger and then when you want to knock it off you just poke your finger through then put your finger on the trigger the m1 garand requires you to put your finger on the trigger and push forward and then pull back to fire so either way six of one half a dozen the other but it's a very very well thought-out rifle just in general so let's do a little bit of shooting with this old warhorse now watch how flat this gun shoots

Channel: Military Arms Channel

Views: 445,037

Rating: 4.8852363 out of 5

Keywords: military, police, rifle, pistol, how to, hickok45, iraqveteran8888, jeep, action movie, outdoor, movies, video game, recreation, entertainment, german, wwii, k43, g43, 8mm mauser, mauser, gewehr 43, karabiner 43, semi auto

Id: RH1BaGyairM

Length: 22min 38sec (1358 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 11 2018