Gewehr 98
The Gewehr 98 is a bolt-action rifle made by Mauser for the German Empire as its service rifle from 1898 to 1935.
The Gewehr 98 action, using a 5-round stripper clip loaded with the 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge, successfully combined and improved several bolt-action engineering concepts which were soon adopted by many other countries, including the United Kingdom, United States, and Japan. The Gewehr 98 replaced the earlier Gewehr 1888 as the main German service rifle. It first saw combat in the Chinese Boxer Rebellion and was the main German infantry service rifle of World War I. The Gewehr 98 saw further military use by the Ottoman Empire and Nationalist Spain.
It was eventually replaced by the Karabiner 98k, a carbine version using the same design, for the Wehrmacht under Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945.
History
The Gewehr 98 was introduced into German military service in 1898, replacing the Gewehr 1888. The bolt-action design was the latest refinement of the 1895 design patented by Paul Mauser on 9 September 1895. Mauser was already selling the similar Mauser Model 1895 to many other countries and had supplied less advanced Mauser rifles to the German Army from 1871 to 1888. The 1888 replacement for the Mauser was an internal design from the army but failed through an impractical design. In the interim decade, Mauser rifles became recognized as the world standard, and the German Army became outclassed by a German-made product in the hands of others.The German Gewehr-Prüfungskommission adopted the Gewehr 98 on 5 April 1898. The action was derived from the experimental Gewehr 96 rifle. In 1901, the first troop issues of the Gewehr 98 rifles were made to the East Asian Expeditionary Force, the Imperial German Navy, and three premier Prussian army corps. The first combat use of the Gewehr 98 was during the Boxer Rebellion. In 1904, contracts were placed with Waffenfabrik Mauser for 290,000 rifles and Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken for 210,000 rifles. At the outbreak of WWI in 1914, the German Army had 2,273,080 Mauser 98-rifles of all types; an additional 7,000,000 were produced during the war.
The 8 mm M/88 cartridge which was introduced in 1888 and loaded with an 8.08 mm 14.6 g round-nose bullet was replaced on 3 April 1903, by the 7.92×57mm Mauser S Patrone which was loaded with a new 8.20 mm 9.9 g spitzer bullet. The ammunition conversion was indicated by a small S stamped above the chamber and on the barrel at the back of the rear sight base. This was done since the 1888 pattern M/88 cartridge and 1903 S-bore pattern cartridge are two different non-interchangeable chamberings. Since the new IS bullet had a flatter trajectory the Lange Visier rear sight had to be changed with an "S"-adapted Lange Visier.
Design details
The Gewehr 98 or model 98 rifle is a manually operated, magazine-fed, controlled-feed bolt-action rifle, in length and in weight. It has a long rifled barrel and carries 5 rounds of ammunition in an internal magazine. The Gewehr 98 has two sling swivels, open front sights, and a curved tangent-type rear sight, known as the Lange Visier.The controlled-feed bolt-action of the Gewehr 98 is a distinct feature and is regarded as one of the major bolt-action system designs.
M98 controlled-feed bolt-action system
The controlled-feed Mauser M98 bolt-action system is based on previous 19th-century Mauser bolt-action rifle designs and is a simple, strong, safe, and well-thought-out design intended to negate as many failure modes as possible and which inspired other military and hunting/sporting rifle designs that became available during the 20th century. A drawback of the M98 system is that it cannot be cheaply mass-produced very easily.Features
The M98 system consists of a receiver that serves as the system's shroud and a bolt group of which the bolt body has three locking lugs, two large main lugs - of which the left is slotted - at the bolt head and a third safety lug at the rear of the bolt, which serves as a backup in case the primary locking lugs failed. This third lug is a distinctive feature and was not present on previous Mauser bolt-action designs. The two main locking lugs are positioned opposed to each other and display a locking surface of, whilst the third safety lug normally plays no part in locking the action to avoid asymmetric and hence unbalanced bolt thrust forces. The diameter of the M98 system receiver ring was also enlarged to diameter compared to previous Mauser "small ring" bolt-action designs that had diameter receiver rings for additional strength and safety. Accordingly, the barrel shank was enlarged to diameter with of threaded area at 12 threads per inch compared to previous Mauser "small shank" bolt-action designs that had diameter with of threaded area at 12 threads per inch barrel shanks for additional strength. The bolt handle is permanently attached to the bolt and, on the Gewehr 98, is straight and protrudes out for optimal leverage.Another distinctive feature of the M98 system is the controlled-feed mechanism, consisting of a large, non-rotating claw extractor that engages the cartridge case rim as soon as the round leaves the magazine and firmly holds the cartridge case until the round is ejected by the ejector, mounted inside the receiver. Combined with a slight bolt retraction at the first stage of the bolt opening cycle, caused by the cammed surface on the rear receiver bridge, this results in a positive cartridge case extraction. The M98 bolt-action will cycle correctly, irrespective of the way the rifle is moved or positioned during the bolt cycling action or if the cartridge has been fired or not. Only if the bolt is not brought back far enough, sharply enough, in a controlled round feed bolt-action the cartridge case may not be cleanly ejected and a jam may result.
The bolt houses the firing pin mechanism that cocks when the bolt is opened, and the cocking piece protrudes visually and tactilely from the rear of the bolt to indicate the action is cocked. A cocking shroud lock that was not present on previous Mauser bolt-action designs was added. The distance the firing pin needs to travel was decreased to reduce and hence improve lock time – the amount of time between initiating the firing sequence by releasing the trigger and the firing pin striking the primer that ignites the propellant contained in the 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge.
The M98 action features two large oval shaped gas relief holes on the bottom of the bolt, which when catastrophic failures like a primer, cartridge rupture or detonation occur relieve high pressure gases into the magazine, and a gas shield on the bolt sleeve. Military M98 systems feature a secondary gas relief where gas is routed down the locking lug raceway to a thumb hole cutout exit on left side of receiver. Civilian M98 systems often lack the thumb hole cut out, as the ammunition feeding is generally simplified to single round feeding only. These safety features are designed to route escaping gas out of the bolt and eventual debris away from the operator's face.
The M98 bolt group can be easily removed from the receiver simply by rotating the safety lever to the 12 o'clock position and pulling out the bolt stop lever, located at the rear left wall of the receiver, and then operate the action and continue rearward bolt travel past the bolt stop. The metal disc inlay in the stock functions as a bolt disassembly tool.
Many metal parts of the Gewehr 98 were blued, a process in which steel is partially protected against rust by a layer of magnetite. Such a thin black oxide layer provides minimal protection against rust or corrosion, unless also treated with a water-displacing oil to reduce wetting and galvanic corrosion. From 1905 until 1945 the German military used Ballistol intended for cleaning, lubricating, and protecting metallic, wooden and leather firearms parts.
Safety
A three-position flag style safety attached at the rear of the bolt which operating lever can be flicked from right to middle, to left, but only when the rifle is cocked; otherwise, the safety will not move. In the right most position, the safety blocks the firing pin and when the trigger is pulled, the firing pin will not be released due to the safety. Additionally, a protruding piece prevents the bolt handle from being lifted and thus prevents the bolt from being pulled back as the locking lugs are still engaged. When the safety is in the middle position, the sights are obstructed and the firing pin is still blocked and thus the trigger is still dead. However, the aforementioned protruding piece is absent, and the bolt can be cycled, allowing for loading and removal of the bolt for cleaning. The left most position is the fire position and a cut out permits movement of the firing pin and the bolt can be cycled. The safety catch lever is quite large, making it easy to operate, but posing a problem for mounting telescopic sights low above the receiver whilst retaining good operability of the safety catch lever.Ammunition feeding
The internal magazine of the M98 system consists of an integral box machined to match the cartridge for which the rifle was being chambered, with a detachable floorplate, that can hold up to 5 rifle cartridges. The German military M98 system internal magazine boxes feature an internal magazine length of to store maximal overall length 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridges without dimensional issues. The cartridges are stored in the magazine box in a staggered column at a stacking angle of 30 degrees, so viewed from the end, three cartridges touching each other form the points of an equilateral triangle. The magazine can be loaded with single rounds by pushing the cartridges into the receiver top opening or via stripper clips. Each stripper clip can hold 5 rounds to fill the magazine and is inserted into clip guides machined into the rear receiver bridge. After loading, the empty clip is ejected when the bolt is closed. The clip is ejected because it has two small protrusions on either side, which are the only points of contact with the clip guide. These protrusions rest at the top of the guide, while the lower part of the clip is narrower than the guide itself. As the bolt moves forward, it pushes the bottom of the clip out, causing the clip to rotate around the protrusions until it is fully ejected. For easier loading a crescent shaped thumb hole cutout is present at the left rear of the receiver top. The magazine can be unloaded by operating the bolt or, in case of mechanical problems, by opening the magazine floorplate, which is flush with the stock, with the help of a cartridge tip.Alternatively cartridges can be loaded singly directly into the chamber, as is standard on military rifles of the period, since the extractor is spring-loaded and designed so the extractor claw "pops" over the rim of the cartridge on closing.
The Gewehr 98 had no magazine cut-off mechanism, which when engaged permits the feeding and extraction of single cartridges only while keeping the cartridges in the magazine in reserve. Like the M98 system Mauser magazine fed bolt-action systems were generally not manufactured with magazine cut-offs, the Ottoman Mauser Model 1893 variant being the exception.