German K98... Anybody have one?

I found a German K98 in the Cabelas gun library in excellent condition. Would have been a sin to NOT buy it, so I bought it. Any of you done any loading for a k98 before?

You knew that was coming.  

Congrats, Corn!

Ha ha, yeah, I will try to post a pic or two when I get a chance.

Rather iconic rifle, that. It's the basis of huge numbers of custom rifles. If it has a weakness, it's that if a shell blows the pressure is relieved along the left side and comes back towards the face. But shells don't blow often.

A friend of mine has a custom rifle he had made in .338 Lapua. It is one loud sucker. But the action holds solid. And you can actually hit what you aim at.

So congratulations on a great rifle addition to your collection. May you enjoy it for a lot of years.

Can't say I've ever even handled one. I know. Disgraceful. I'm trying to catch up, though.

ha ha, the gun fairy strikes again!!! I've been looking for a decent 6.5 jap arisaka rifle for the last 5-6 years without luck. Then, one of the local gun shop guys gives me a call and tells me they took one in and he put my name on it. I hurried to the shop to take a look and I like it. The bore is dark, but still has some sharp rifling. I told em I would take it (but I have to wait until friday for the pawn hold to be complete). Well, while I was there, I happened to take a look at the rack where they usually put the old surplus rifles and noticed that they had an m44 (shorty mosin) that had a nice shiny bore. And sitting next to it was a Steyr M95 that also looked awesome. I ended up putting both of those on layaway for now, but the Arisaka I will pick up on friday when it is available. I will be walking out of the store with all three rifles for under $800.

Always love a good deal, and 3 rifles for $800 is nice. Kind of reminds me of back when I did stuff like that. I got a Remington .22 on the Browning take-down specs, a Savage .22 target rifle and a Colt Lightening in nice shape (WORKS!) for that price. I figured the Lightening was worth it alone, so the rifles were freebies. Love that take-down.

Oh man, dev!  Do you still have that colt lightning?  Those are awesome!  I'm thinking about putting some money down on a Pedersoli lightning (colt lightning clone, but without the feature of holding down the trigger and pumping).

Also, I did end up taking the k98 out shooting a week ago. I was using some old surplus ammo and ended up getting some duds (bad primers I believe). The ammo was also not as good as some of the surplus ammo I have shot in the past. We were trying to hit the steel plate at 600 yards with the iron sights, but the ammo was not good enough to do so. I mean, we did hit the plate, but the ammo was not consistent enough to do it consistently. I did take my swiss k1911 long rifle out--and that was a hoot. I adjusted the rear sight for 500 meters (I figured I would start low, also there was a slight incline down towards the target). I hit low, surprise!--adjusted the rear sight to 550 meters~600 yards, and missed barely. I made hits on my next two shots and handed the guns to my friends. They proceeded to get hits on the first or second tries. That rifle can shoot!



I am going to have to try pulling the bullets on some of that k98 ammo and reload it myself, or maybe just get some new bullets and try them out. I'd like to see if that k98 can shoot with some decent ammo.

Corn, the Colt Lightening is a PISTOL - the first double action pistol Colt made. Allegedly Billy the Kid carried one. They come in .38. There is a .45 version but it's called the Thunder (I know - Colt was SO clever with that combination).



I still have the pistol.

Well, OK. I tried to insert a pic of the revolver, but obviously it failed. Not sure how to do this.

thought you were talking about the little pump action colt lightning carbine. They made one of those too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_Lightning_Carbine

Yeah, I know. And neither of them worked well. The pistol is now one of those antiques that is REALLY hard to find parts for, so if you have one that works, you don't work the action. Anyone who wants to work the action first has to put money down to buy it, then work it all they want.

The rifles have gone through several attempts at reproduction. Each was supposedly a huge hit - when they first came out. SASS went nuts over the possibilities. But so far none have proven reliable. Rather like the original.

I have a friend who has ordered one of the latest versions. He is hot to own it, though it is expensive. I will see just how good it is when he gets it (eventually). Or maybe I won't live long enough for that to happen.

I was looking at the Pedersoli version of that carbine--seems like Pedersoli only makes pretty good stuff that works.

Everyone gets sucked into a mistake sometimes.

Yeah, probably best to avoid them all eh?

I would wait for a number of years to see how they do. If the new stuff really is properly designed and built, you will hear it. My worry is that the inherent design is poor, so no matter who builds it, it won't be much good.

Yeah, probably a wise thing to do.