Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we're going to take
a look at the Austrian Army's first,
mostly first, post-World War Two sniper rifle.
Now at the end of World War Two the Austrian Army,
like the German Army, was essentially completely disbanded by the Allies.
Allied forces occupied Austria and Germany both, they were not allowed to have a military.
Although they were permitted to have a small government security force essentially,
for internal civil control, for border guarding, that sort of thing.
And those forces in Austria of course needed a few sniper rifles, a couple of hundred sniper rifles.
So what did they decide to use? Well they ended up picking a
German K98k in 7.92x57 Mauser calibre, with a German ZF 4 in a German scope mount.
They were in fact just using surplus German World War Two Mauser sniper rifles.
Makes sense, they were around.
The problem was there weren't really enough of them around in suitably good condition
that were uniform enough ... for the Austrian Army to keep using.
Because come the mid-1950s Allied occupation ends, the troops (most of them) go home,
and the Austrian Army is allowed to be recreated.
And now it's going to need substantially more sniper rifles.
And so ultimately in 1958 they adopt this, which is the SSG-98k.
SSG is
So what they did with this was essentially re-barrel the guns.
This was just after 7.62 NATO had been adopted,
and so the Austrian Army adopted that calibre as well.
So they pulled off the 8mm barrels of their original German sniper rifles,
as well as additional standard Mausers that they were converting to ... SSG-98k pattern.
Pulled off the barrels, replaced them with new 7.62x51mm barrels.
They then cut the stocks down, so this looks an awful lot like a generic sporterised Mauser.
Well, it's essentially the same thing being done for the same reason,
but done officially by the Austrian Army.
You don't really need the handguard out here, you can free float the barrel.
And then they put commercial recoil pads on the guns.
And then they outfitted them with Kahles 4x31mm ZF 58 scopes.
So let's go ahead and take a closer look at exactly all the modifications they made there,
and what the scope mount is like.
So there is our rifle, we'll go ahead and take off the black leather scope caps.
Notice we have a 1967 Army Purchasing Administration (HBA) stamp inside the scope cap.
The scope here is Kahles, made in Vienna.
It's a ZF 58 4x31mm, that's the serial number of the scope.
This has a BDC dial, and the alignment notch is over here so it's not hidden behind the ring.
And that goes out to 1,000 metres, 800, 900 and 1,000.
If we take a look through the reticle you can see it's almost a simple German post,
but it does have that fine upper crosshair in there as well.
And if I turn the BDC,
you can see that that is going to adjust the height of the reticle in your field of view. So.
It wouldn't be until later that typical military scopes
would have that adjustment move the whole ... internal optic instead of just the reticle.
This is getting a bit more modern than the World War Two scopes.
We now have our windage adjustment as another dial on there under a protective cap.
So there's your windage adjustment.
To remove the scope you just flip both of these levers all the way back.
And then the scope slides backwards off of its mounts.
Really a pretty simple mounting setup, these levers are just half-round pins.
So in this position they can slide free,
when locked like this they lock into that cross slot and that slot.
The mounts were just welded onto the receiver.
And these rifles are simply surplus World War Two K98k rifles,
so in theory, if we took these off we would see a variety of manufacturer marks under there.
There is the rear mount.
The bases are serialised to the rifle, these rifles all got new serial numbers.
There were a grand total of 350 of these made, so this is one of the last ones.
And this scope mounting system is actually very similar to what would be used on the later SSG-69,
they essentially copied and slightly improved this system and used it some more.
Now there's our calibre marking, 7.62x51 because these were re-barrelled.
And you'll notice right here this is actually a commercial proof from 1969.
When the SSG-69 was adopted, by coincidence right about that same time
... military policy was changed to require all Austrian military arms
to actually go through the formal proofing process.
So these rifles were being replaced in front-line service,
but they would continue to be used by the military for a while.
And since they were staying in service, they had to be proofed.
And so we have a proof mark and a 1969 date on the barrel, and the receiver,
and up here on the bolt stem.
Now the barrels, when they were re-barrelled, were left the same length.
We have the same front sights put on them.
The stock has then been cut off just in front of the front sling swivel, so that stays on there.
You can see there is space around the barrel, it's essentially floated.
Essentially the same rear sight put back on,
so you do have iron sights on the rifle, if you need them.
And then commercial Pachmayr White Line
(referencing that little white line) recoil pads were put on them.
And there are actually ... just a couple of pictures of them in service
and they in fact show these commercial Pachmayr recoil pads being on there.
Kind of funny, this would be easily mistaken
for a generic sporterised rifle if one didn't know better.
To go along with these of course, having a quick detachable scope
means you're not going to be carrying the scope on the rifle all the time,
you're going to be carrying the scope in its separate case.
There we go. So these were issued with a scope case with a shoulder strap.
And you can see another HBA 1967 purchasing stamp there.
These were made by a company called Stola in Vienna.
Because these were made from surplus rifles, you can actually find a lot of different features on them.
Things like solid stocks, really nice ... good quality early stocks,
laminated stocks, and kind of humorously,
you'll actually find a bunch of French stocks used on these.
Because when the French occupation forces left, they left all of their weapons behind
and Austria ... took possession of them, the ones that were in Austria.
And the French stocks are identifiable because they have a
French style sling bar inletted into the side of the stock.
And so you'll actually find a decent number of SSG-98ks with that French sling bar attachment.
It wasn't just Mauser sniper rifles that the Austrian military used
as leftovers from World War Two German stocks.
These for example, are a set of binoculars that would be used by a sniper or a spotter.
And they are World War Two German production binoculars,
but marked right here with an Austrian Army property stamp.
One of the kind of funny things is that these rifles are made from surplus available Mausers,
and so you can find a variety of different components from different periods.
So laminated stocks for example, solid stocks or in the case of this one,
a rifle that was originally a French occupation captured rifle.
The French added this cutout and sling bar so that they could use slings
in the same configuration that they had on their own MAS 36 rifles.
Well, when the French occupation forces left in the '50s they left behind all their weapons.
And actually a significant number of SSG-98ks were built on what had been
French occupation Mausers, and they're distinctive for having that sling attachment.
These rifles would serve as the Austrian Army's standard sniper for about 10 years.
In 1969 they were formally replaced with the Steyr SSG-69
which is a much more well-known and notable deliberate production sniper rifle,
instead of essentially just modified surplus World War Two Mausers.
... It's interesting, at that point (well, I already told you)
the guns all had to be ... fire proofed, so that was done.
These would stay in service, at least some of them, into the 1980s.
They were gradually surplused and released from service as they were no longer needed.
Anyway, the SSG-69 is pretty well known, but the SSG-98k not so much.
So hopefully you guys enjoyed getting a chance to take a look at this.
Thanks for watching.