Hi all - I finally pulled the trigger on purchasing a WWII era Mauser Kar 98k. It's a Yugo, but not post war production...it has the German markings removed and replaced with Yugo ones, but you can still see some cartouches in certain areas. Idk, I'm not a Mauser expert but it seemed identical to a German one when I compared them side by side in the gun store, but without the original markings and matching serial numbers etc so probably not a ton of collectible value, but I plan to use it as a shooter and possibly hunting rifle. It seems like it's in very good condition for it's age (nice tight action, decent blueing, smooth bore, etc). This is my first old rifle so my question is does anyone have any tips for prepping this rifle for shooting before I take it to the range? As I mentioned I plan to shoot it, but I would like to preserve its condition as much as possible and limit the wear and tear to the extent I can. My plan is to remove the barreled action and bolt. Clean the receiver and external barrel with some gun cleaner. I typically use either Ballistol or Rem Oil but open to recommendations. Clean the bore. I typically use Bore Tech Eliminator with cloth patches and maybe 5 or 6 passes with a nylon brush followed by more patches. Disassemble and clean the bolt assembly. Anything else special or different I should do with an older rifle like this? Thoughts for cleaning/preserving the stock? For ammo I would like to shoot 200 gr Partitions around 2500 fps. I'll probably start out milder and work my way up. Thanks.
Advice for a used Mauser 98k shooter
- Thread starter Tom3006
- Start date
NZ_Fclass
Silver $$ Contributor
Sounds about right ro me. Ihave a couple of Mausers, one German manufacture, converted by Parker Hale in the 1950's. It's 30/06. Shoots really well with factory Norma or 165g handlods. 59.6 4350 with Hornady freedom pill. The other is a commercial Spanish acction with a PacNor barrel in 243 AI.
I suggest fitting a Timney sprtsman trigger and a decent scope mount if you want to shoot it well.
I suggest fitting a Timney sprtsman trigger and a decent scope mount if you want to shoot it well.
jds holler
Gold $$ Contributor
I love these rifles. They are built like tanks, and the 8mm is a great cartridge for ringing steel, which is what my grand daughter is doing here. I picked this one up for a song, and it's basically matching numbers except for replacement stock. Dirty bird swastika stamps all over it. BYF 43 jd
hoz53
Gold $$ Contributor
Ive got two small rings and a 98 I’m starting to shoot. These are all sporterized with original barrels. They are never gonna be target guns and I just want to shoot them so I am sticking with starting loads. Even though the 98 is known to be plenty strong and mine is a matching number one, no sense to me to push it with these old guns.
I accidentally won a Spanish (i think) Mauser at auction last year.
Figured i'd raise my hand to get bidding started. $65.
Was really surprised when i heard "SOLD for $65"!
Got it home & took it apart.
Stock was Bubba sporterized, and is in the burn pile.
While inside of barrel seemed decent, under the forestock was another story!
So i ended up with a decent Mauser action for $65.
Still gathering pieces & slowly working on it to make a 7X57 Mauser hunting rifle for my daughter.
Her & wife ordered a Boyds AT One stock in purple laminate for it.
A purple Mauser.....
Great Googly!!
Figured i'd raise my hand to get bidding started. $65.
Was really surprised when i heard "SOLD for $65"!
Got it home & took it apart.
Stock was Bubba sporterized, and is in the burn pile.
While inside of barrel seemed decent, under the forestock was another story!
So i ended up with a decent Mauser action for $65.
Still gathering pieces & slowly working on it to make a 7X57 Mauser hunting rifle for my daughter.
Her & wife ordered a Boyds AT One stock in purple laminate for it.
A purple Mauser.....
Great Googly!!
In all my shooting with the german 98 , round nose 180-200 gr bullets are by far the most accurate. Barrels have long thruats and darn near impossible to toych , so the round nose works best . If the bore is in good shape you should get 2-3” with open sights and good eyes and rest .
As i worked up the powder charge, the fired brass neck didnt expand much. Accuracy ok. As i increased the powder charge, the neck expanded fully to the chamber. Accuracy became worse.
This may help? The more bullet bearing surface in contact with the barrel, the better? Better bullet alignment?
2,500 fps with a 200gn bullet is a really heavy load for 8X57mm. It is a tad higher than the nominal performance of the 7.92 sS (schwerer Spitzgeschoss = heavy pointed bullet) service loading originally developed in WW1 as a long-range machinegun cartridge and adopted as a universal cartridge by the Wehrmacht in the 1920s. (The sS is nominally 197.53gn at 2,493 fps, but IIRC that is in the inter-war 29.3" barrel KAR98b long rifle, so the 600mm barrel KAR98k sees 100fps less with it.)
The rifle will probably take 200/2,500 but you're pushing it and why do so in a 70 year old rifle with a possibly mismatched bolt?
More to the point will your shoulder take it? The K98k stock design is primitive by today's standards and does little to ease recoil effects. I find this rifle very unpleasant to shoot with surplus military heavy ball ammo.
There is a lengthy thread somewhere on the forum started by a Canadian member IIRC from a few years back about heavy match loads for the 8X57 in a custom rifle which it would be well worth your while searching for to see what actually works at what pressures and MVs in this cartridge.
The rifle will probably take 200/2,500 but you're pushing it and why do so in a 70 year old rifle with a possibly mismatched bolt?
More to the point will your shoulder take it? The K98k stock design is primitive by today's standards and does little to ease recoil effects. I find this rifle very unpleasant to shoot with surplus military heavy ball ammo.
There is a lengthy thread somewhere on the forum started by a Canadian member IIRC from a few years back about heavy match loads for the 8X57 in a custom rifle which it would be well worth your while searching for to see what actually works at what pressures and MVs in this cartridge.
Does it say "Preduzece 44" on the receiver ring?
Captured German K98k's were scrubbed and remarked this way.
It is ALWAYS prudent to verify headspace on any milsurp of unknown condition.
I would get a no-go gauge at minimum (or take it to a local smith for a quick check) to make sure the rifle is safe to fire.
Mauser receivers are case-hardened only a few thousandths deep. Excessive wear (from use) can set the lug abutments back to the point where they're into soft steel- resulting in very rapid setback resulting in an unsafe rifle.
Captured German K98k's were scrubbed and remarked this way.
It is ALWAYS prudent to verify headspace on any milsurp of unknown condition.
I would get a no-go gauge at minimum (or take it to a local smith for a quick check) to make sure the rifle is safe to fire.
Mauser receivers are case-hardened only a few thousandths deep. Excessive wear (from use) can set the lug abutments back to the point where they're into soft steel- resulting in very rapid setback resulting in an unsafe rifle.
With the adoption of the very heavily loaded sS heavy ball round as the universal service round, done for purely logistics reasons, the WW1 period service rifles, G98 and KAR98A plus the post-war KAR98b couldn't cope with its pressures in the 1903 iS chamber. The answer was a modified chamber with an exceptionally long and (unusually) heavily tapered throat. This makes all later models rather finicky and of several 7.92 service rifles I owned over the years (albeit a long time ago now and with a lot fewer and poorer components available) I couldn't get any to better 3-inch 100 yard 5-shot groups. In fact with most I've have been ecstatic to achieve that size!
This included a 1930s Czech manufactured Persian M98/29 long rifle which had obviously never been fired apart from proof. It really was the most beautiful of 20 plus surplus service rifles I owned over as many years and would have been an excellent investment given current prices in the UK - if you can find one, that is. I thought at the time that if I couldn't make this example shoot well, I might as well forget 7.92X57, but again nothing anywhere near as small as 3-inches so I didn't keep it long.
By contrast, I now have two 7X57 Chilean long Mausers as my sole historic arms collection, an M1895 by DWM and M1912 by Steyr. Both will better three inches easily and the M1912 has given me groups as small as 1.5 to 2-inches off the bench with handloads. This is astonishing considering how poor the sight-picture is through my 70 plus year old eyes. As well as shooting superbly, the Steyr made '98 action in the M1912 is the smoothest nicest Mauser action I've owned including several commercial variants. With modest pressure loads it is an index finger only operation to lift the (straight-out) bolt, re-cock, extract and eject the fired case.
Riesel
Gold $$ Contributor
Is this the Yugo Model 48? These are nice actions and as I recollect they are a bit shorter than a 98 Mauser.
IMPO, I think the Yugo action is strong and I used one as the basis for a .257 Roberts build, One of my first forays into building such things and I used an Adams and Bennet barrel and but it into a Boyds stock. Made
a nice rifle and would shoot under an inch at 100 with out much trouble. Drilling for scope bases was a
bit tough because of the carb hardening. Gave it to what I thought at the time was a nice fellow that was added to the family but in the long run became worthless. He still has that rifle.
If you want to keep it as original as possible, the previous post have a lot of good information. Don't
hot rod this old action, it's not a 300 Weatherby, but if the barrel is any good should make a fun two to
three inch shooter. Can't remember who, but somebody out there was building a red dot scope that attached to the ladder sights. Was very helpful as I recall.
Regards,
Robert
IMPO, I think the Yugo action is strong and I used one as the basis for a .257 Roberts build, One of my first forays into building such things and I used an Adams and Bennet barrel and but it into a Boyds stock. Made
a nice rifle and would shoot under an inch at 100 with out much trouble. Drilling for scope bases was a
bit tough because of the carb hardening. Gave it to what I thought at the time was a nice fellow that was added to the family but in the long run became worthless. He still has that rifle.
If you want to keep it as original as possible, the previous post have a lot of good information. Don't
hot rod this old action, it's not a 300 Weatherby, but if the barrel is any good should make a fun two to
three inch shooter. Can't remember who, but somebody out there was building a red dot scope that attached to the ladder sights. Was very helpful as I recall.
Regards,
Robert
Good advice. I forgot to take barrel length into account. Thank you
Yes it sure does. Ok good to know and will do.
No it was before the Model 48's. It's an actual captured 98k. Looking forward to seeing how she shoots. Thanks.
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