(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
