Mauser 98K
German infantry rifle

Mauser 98K

Mauser 98K
Type: Rifle
History: The Mauser 98K was the last of the long line of Mauser rifles used by the German Army and based on the original Mauser Gewehr 98. This 1898 model was an improved version of that designed in 1895 for the Chilean Government and featured a third locking lug at the rear of the bolt, and a rather unusual tangent backsight in front of the chamber.

The German Mauser 98K rifle.

With Britain's adoption of the Short Lee-Enfield in 1903, and the American introduction of their 'short' Springfield, the German Army, seeing the sense of the idea, developed a short version of the Gewehr 98, calling it the Karabiner 98; this was slightly confusing, because they had already produced a 'proper' carbine version and called it the Karabiner 98, but since the new short lifte rapidly replaced the carbine, the anomaly did not last for long. The principal change was, of course, the logs of six inches from the barrel, but the bolt handle was also turned down and the wood of the stock beneath cut away to allow the holt to be grasped more easily. The real sight was also simplified. This became the standard infantry weapon during World War I and afterwards completely replaced the Gewehr 98 rilfe; in its postwar version it was re-Christened the Karabiner 98a.

German infantry, armed with 98K rifles as well as grenade throwers, take a position near Brest-Litovsk in the first stage of Operation Barbarossa.

During the early 1930s one or two small changes were made in the design, largely, as usual, to facilitate mass-production, and the resulting weapon was adopted as the standard rifle for the new Wehrmacht in 1935 as the Karabiner 98K. It was produced by the million in a number of factories, and production continued until the end of the war in 1945, since the development of automatic rifles, like the Assault rifle 44, never reached the point at where the production of the Mauser 98k rifles could be terminated.

Russian Cossacks in the German Wehrmacht.

Variants:
Kar 98K/42: This appears to be a production variation of the 98K and is rarely encountered. The principal differences are that the foresight is enclosed in a tunnel, and the butt-plate is of a cupped form which encloses the end of the butt for a depth of half an inch or so.
Kar 98B: This bears no resemblance to the 98K. It is, in fact, no more than a Gewehr 98 rifle with its holt handle turned down and with same improvements to the sights.
Users: Germany, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Rumania, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Lithunia and more.

A German infantry company, equipped with Karabiner 98k, is marching in the streets of Paris, autumn 1941.

Cleaning the Karabiner 98k.
A WW2 picture of the grandfather of the author of this websites during his service in the German Wehrmacht from 1939-1945.