Sniper Rifle

Lore & Background

The Karabiner 98k was derived from earlier rifles, namely the Mauser Standardmodell of 1924 and the Karabiner 98b, which in turn had both been developed from the Gewehr 98. Since the Karabiner 98k rifle was shorter than the earlier Karabiner 98b, the new rifle was given the designation Karabiner 98 kurz, meaning 'Carbine 98 Short'. Just like its predecessor, the rifle was noted for its reliability, safety and an effective range of up to 500 metres with iron sights and 1,000 metres with an 8× telescopic sight.

The desire for adopting new shorter barreled rifles and the introduction of the Karabiner 98k, featuring a 600 mm long barrel, were reasons for changing the standard German service ball rifle cartridge. The 1903 pattern 7.92×57mm Mauser S Patrone produced excessive muzzle flash when fired from arms that did not have a long barrel like the Gewehr 98. It was found that the s.S. Patrone, originally designed for long range machine gun use, produced less muzzle flash out of rifles that had a shorter barrel and also provided better accuracy.

Because of this, the s.S. Patrone became the standard German service ball cartridge after the Karabiner 98k's adoption in 1935, replacing the S Patrone.

Reader's Guide

The impractical Langevisier or 'rollercoaster' rear sight of the Mauser Gewehr 1898 was replaced with a conventional tangent leaf sight. The Karabiner 98k rear tangent sight was comparatively flatter and did not obstruct the view to the sides during aiming as the Langevisier. Originally, the Karabiner 98k iron sight line had an open-pointed-post-type front sight, and a tangent-type rear sight with a V-shaped rear notch. From 1939 onwards the post front sight was hooded to reduce glare under unfavourable light conditions and add protection for the post.

These standard sight lines consisted of somewhat coarse aiming elements, making it suitable for rough field handling, aiming at distant area fire targets and low-light usage, but less suitable for precise aiming at distant or small point targets. It is graduated for 7.92×57mm Mauser s.S. Patrone cartridges loaded with 12.8 g s.S. ball bullets from 100 to 2,000 m in 100 m increments. The sight line of early productions rifles have the ranging scale copied at the bottom of the tangent aiming element for setting the range whilst lying down.

The Karabiner 98k has a 500 mm sight radius. The sight lines were factory zeroed as part of the acceptance process before issue. The non user adjustable windage was factory set by horizontally drifting the front sight in a dovetail. It was discouraged to zero the iron sight line by non-armorers.

Did You Know?

• From 1944 onwards phosphating/Parkerizing was introduced as a more effective metal surface treatment for the rifle's metal parts.
• The Karabiner 98k was designed to be used with an S84/98 III bayonet, which had a blade length of 252 mm and an overall length of 385 mm.
• By the end of the war in 1945, more than 100,000 ZF41 sights had been produced, the largest production of German optical sights during the war.