We've already discussed the German Gewehr 98 rifle, introduced by Paul
Mauser. But at nine pounds and over forty nine inches long,
it really wasn't the most portable gun. What Germany needed was a new carbine to
replace the Kar88 and standardize on the new 1898 action. It sounds easier than it would prove to be.
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Hi, I'm Othais, and this is the Karabiner 98 AZ short rifle. Let's take a look in that
lightbox. Weighing in at 8 pounds and 43.3 inches, it chambers the 7.92 x 57mm
cartridge, feeding five from a stripper clip into a fixed
staggered box magazine. The first thing some of you are probably wondering is
why I called this the AZ instead of the A and in that case which one is the A, or
which one's the AZ or who's wrong or who's right here. What were the Polish carrying
and... it gets a little confusing. Let's go ahead and get a little context history
just to sort of sort out where the name originally came from by the time we're in WW1
and then when we get a little further in the episode I'll reveal where the
change happened on us. Germany had already issued the Kar88 and Gewehr 91 rifles for
cavalry and artillery respectively.
These were simple shortenings of the Gewehr 88 and we will see them in more detail
in future episodes. Germany would repeat these patterns early on with the Gewehr 98,
introducing both the cavalry Kar98 and the artillery Kar98. Really the
difference being the inclusion of a stacking hook. Otherwise they're basically the
same model. Now these are true carbines and sit at 37.2 inches in length. Very handy. Next
up Germany would realize that producing two variant carbines, neither of which with
a bayonet mount, is confusing and sort of wasteful. So they consolidated on one
design featuring a cleaning rod and a bayonet mount. This terrifically awkward
looking gun is the Kar98A,
where "A" stands for... these German words,
meaning "with attachment for bayonet 98". By the way those are the best
representations we can give with those early models. A lot of them had more than one
pattern that's been found through history and there isn't a lot of paperwork left on
them. It's mostly through observation that we know a lot about them anyway.
The point being though is, there was still tinkering going on all the way up to
1905-1906 and finally the Germans said enough. When the Spitzer catridge came out, this
really pushed it over the edge though, because it really didn't perform in
those very short, very lite carbines. It was just excessive recoil, excessive muzzle blasts,
and you know, it might not be a big problem for you, the shooter, but remember
when we were talking about those Lebels earlier, the thought pattern is still to have
men firing in lines, with two lines minimum so they expect to have somebody's muzzle
sitting alongside of somebody else's head. And in those carbines, that really is
gonna shake your a aim. Now obviously we know, you know, with hindsight that that
line theory was gonna go right out the window by the time we get to WW1, but at
the time they didn't. So they made some decisions based off of the new cartridge and the
idea that they need just enough barrel to be able to have men line up and not
disturb each other. That's where we get into this guy. You see, they went with the
minimum possible barrel they could while still getting good performance out of that
without excessive recoil and muzzle blast. They even went so far as to try to shorten up the buttstock,
but that idea actually got abandoned. One thing they did keep
interestingly enough is they took a whole centimeter of the trigger system by
sort of changing the angle on it, and if you look - lemme get my head of the way for a
second - it actually kind of curves in up under the floor plate... let's just get a
picture in here that will be easier. There we go, nice comparison. So anyway
Germany's working their way through what is now going to be short rifle and
they're not blind to what's going on overseas. You see in Britain and the US,
you see things like the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield
and the Springfield 1903, both being adopted as a standard short rifles,
universal short rifles. Germany's not ready to get rid of the Gewehr 98 as an
infantry rifle but they are ready to combine cavalry, artillery, fortress
troops, communications troops, engineers.... everybody they can that is not frontline.
They're ready to combine them all on one rifle coming from, you know, one pattern
so that they can really focus down on efficient manufacturing and that's gonna
be this gun. Let's go ahead and get a closer look at some of these little
details though. We're sad to say that this example has been refinished as the
bolt should be in the white but otherwise it should serve us just fine for this
demonstration. Now in terms of the action, the gun's virtually identical to the Gewehr 98,
the only difference really is the outer diameter of the receiver has been
shaved down to lighten it up. The interior measurements are the same. I mean you can put
a Gewehr 98 bolt in this thing. Otherwise we're really looking at cosmetics and
configuration. So first while we're right here we have a nice undercut and a turned-down
bolt with a checkered underside for easier manipulation and grip. And most
notably this thing is side-slung. This makes it appropriate for cavalry and
anybody else it's actually working with their hands or riding, not just marching. Now,
special to this gun again is the regular tangent rear leaf sight. We'll actually see
the Gewehr 98 come around to this post-war. It's much better, honestly, in order to
see your target and less of the sight itself. Up at the front we have a hinged
front barrel band, we have our stacking hook, we have our bayonet lug which is
fitted way up the end of the muzzle because they were no longer using
muzzle rings that wrapped around the barrel. They just used the lug as the mounting point.
Also we have front sight protectors unique to this gun, but come
in later Mauser models because it proved to be so useful and this little
overhang here, right there, that guy that my fingernail's under? He's actually
there's so that you can fit a muzzle protector, and we
happen to have one. It goes on and it's a little hard to do one-handed for
the camera, but... twist right up under and it lips there.
Also...
Poot!
Now I know you guys
are getting kind of used to seeing an animation every single episode. Sorry I've spoiled you,
but this gun doesn't differ enough to be worth that effort. It's just a
slight angle change in the trigger and otherwise it's the Gewehr 98 all over again, so
if you want to you can flip back to that episode and relive it for a few moments but
otherwise let's just go ahead and hand this thing off to Mae and get it shot for everybody's enjoyment.
Just like the Gewehr 98, we'll load five rounds of 7.92 from a stripper clip
Bolt forward.
Boom.
A quick look at that target.
Alright back to the nerd stuff.
We do a lot of work to capture the full range of the rifle
sound and not blow out your speakers. Lemme assure you though: this is a very loud short rifle.
Alright, this thing served through WW1 which is what we most
remember it for, very fairly. It was given pretty widely to any troops that weren't considered
front line, and then it still made its way up to the front line on occasion.
Although still, if you're looking photos you're really not gonna see as many of
these as you will see the Gewehr 98 right up in the trenches. Doesn't mean it
wasn't important though. Served its role very, very well. These were also given to
the Ottomans, so it fought the British in that theater as well. Now, wartime
modifications did happen, just like the Gewehr 98. These guys received a stock
ferrule for take-down and some inletted finger grooves on the stock. Also,
they'd inspire a change in the bayonets. You see, starting with the Gewehr 98, the Germans
had ditched the muzzle ring and let the lug bear all the weight. On the carbine,
this placed the wood grips of the bayonet ahead of the muzzle and the excessive
blast began scorching 'em. So a steel backing known as a flash guard was introduced in
1915 to prevent additional damage. The service life for this gun of actually gonna be
fairly short though not for any fault of it's, but because of, really, the end of the war.
The Treaty of Versailles limited the German production and inventory for the
military, and so this thing sort of fell to the wayside. At the time, carbines, short rifles,
these are considered police weapons and second-line weapons. They're not
considered the crème de la crème of military maneuvering and power. So when Germany
was allotted a certain number of "carbines" for issuing, they
sort of did an end run around the rules. This gets into the naming convention
actually. You see, they took Gewehr 98 and modified them in order to fit under the
heading of a carbine. This was in name only and really the updates were a turned down
bolt handle and flat tangent sights. To differentiate these, the Karabiner 98b would
be the reworked Gewehr 98 and the AZ became, retroactively, the Karabiner 98a.
Not the same "A" we saw earlier. A lower case "a", hence the confusion. The now Kar98a
would continue to serve really through WW2. We see them in inventory
from time to time, but production stopped. A big reason for this is honestly
because the special configuration of the trigger and that milled receiver... it just
wasn't completely interchangeable with the Gewehr 98. And that caused, you know, planning
problems, manufacturing problems. Instead we see the creation & adoption of the Kar98k,
again in another episode. The 98az would go on to serve with Poland who
made their own copy with a slightly modified stacking hook and some other little features, but
again another episode. Now, these guns really did prove the concept of a short
right though, and led the way to a lot of other designs adopted both in Germany
and in other markets. If you wanna see that your Kar98AZ stayed in service with
the Germans postwar, check the receiver. You'll often find a 1920 stamped there.
That's actually an ownership mark. It's meant to differentiate this government inspected
and owned model from any that were privately "liberated" and held in
somebody's basement somewhere. Another great little factoid there. Plenty of
these also saw service in other theaters because they were given away to various
victors of the Entente, and they turn up all sorts of battlefields really into
the '40s. Alright let's go ahead and get Mae's opinion on actually shooting this thing though.
Alright, a little set shuffling and we have Mae with us again. You're the shooter.
Here you go.
Why don't you let us know how you really feel about this one and coming from the Gewehr 98
let's talk about that rear sight that you didn't really like on the long rifle.
How's it doing on the carbine?
This is actually a much better improvement for me.
These tangent leaf sights are so simple and easy to read. They're much
flatter compared to the Gewehr 98.
Yeah I've been trying to track down
the history of the tangent sight. It looks like it may come out of Norway. Anybody
that's watching: if you know the oldest possible gun that has that simple setup let me
know. So far it seems like Norway's got the record on this one. But anyway they
tend to get used on almost everything after this point. I mean they really are
the standard and it's interesting to note that they were originally offered
on that prototype Gewehr 98, they just went with the Lange Visier anyway. I don't
know why. Alright, back to this gun. What do you think about the overall action
compared to the Gewehr 98?
You know, don't get me wrong I don't miss the
Gewehr 98, but what I do miss is a straight bolt handle, and you can
obviously tell this one's been refinished. So this actually did make the action a little
stickier and the turn-bolt isn't quite easy to get enough leverage underneath it, but I
can see where they tried to make up for it. They carved out this little notch in the
wood and they put a little bit checkering underneath the bolt handle to
try to make it easier to function. So they tried, but this was... the action wasn't
that smooth to me.
You know a lot of us prefer a turned down handle because it
deposits our finger next to the trigger, but we also have a fair bit of upper
body strength that considering that most of you watching are male. When Mae got out
there and we had this thing trying to fire from the shoulder at first, we found that
our sort of inferior ammo combined with the refinished action was making it
stick real bad, and the usual response that is to just go ahead and give it a
nice slap. But turned down bolt: you can't exactly slap. You gotta get your hand in
there and... I don't know it's kinda like a Kill Bill moment with your way punching
out of a coffin. You just don't have the wind-up. So it took a little grunting.
Alright, back to the gun yet again. What do you think about this rifle as a short
rifle? So we're talking about like recoil and handling.
They did a lot to lighten this gun. It is shorter and the weight's easier to handle. What I wasn't
expecting though was the recoil of this thing. I mean I've handled Kar98's
before. We had the Berthiers and I thought those were gonna be the worst
but so far this is had some of the worst kick out of all the guns we shot to date.
Okay so it sounds like what you're saying is that this really is the Gewehr 98
action over again with some improved handling. You don't care for the turned
down both handle because hard for you to get leverage. You don't care for the recoil
as much even though realistically, you've seen just about as much recoil out of
other guns; it's just something about this one that I didn't feel right.
Um, I guess we're kind down to that last question.
Because there's not a lot of other differences here: would you take this into battle?
You know, compared to the Gewehr 98,
this is a better choice. I mean the overall weight of the gun is much easier to
handle. I could see myself running with this. The sights are cleaner. The few things
that I had issues with, the recoil and the turned down bolt, they're minor things on the
battlefield. I can see adrenaline pumping through me and this bolt not being a big
deal at all. So yeah I would take it into battle. It's just this wasn't my favorite
and I guess I was expecting more out of it. I guess I'm just waiting still
waiting for my WW1 sweetheart.
Alright well I guess that wraps up the 98AZ,
or "A" depending on what time you're sort of lookig at this from. We, again, just
to remind you guys one final time, we're not doing our wraps outs here anymore,
we're actually putting them at the end of the credits and otherwise thank you
for watching with us.
Yeah, thanks guys!
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Hey everyone, I'm sorry for the low quality on this one, I'm sort of doing it by myself.
The whole house was hit by a plague.
Luckily there's not a lot to announce this week. We have plenty of things in the fire but
nothing's quite tempered enough to be ready to talk about just yet. Just know we have
some things in the works.
There's probably going to be about two months where we're sort of sitting tight and holding on the Patreon
funds, try to build them up for something a little better.
They are currently sitting at 650-ish, which is great. Thank you for all that support.
We're still going to be making videos though. Don't panic. There's going to be an episode every other week. It's just
that we're sort of reaching for something bigger.
The other thing is: T-shirts. We partnered with a company. They're doing these hand
prints they're great. There's only a couple of designs out yet, but I just put across a
bunch of ideas last night, so we'll see if that grows. Other than that, nothing really moving from
our side, but I did want to make sure that I said thank you to everyone
because I think I received an update every hour so that somebody has commented
and it's always positive, it's always great and honestly where we're at with the project we're not
taking any kind of paycheck yet, so, you know, that encouragement is really all
that's fueling us. So we need it and we're very glad to have it. So if you want sort
of a fan challenge for this week,
go ahead and show the show to somebody else. Just get us out there. Thanks a lot!