A Gun a Week: Mauser K98, 30-06 Springfield

K98 Mauser, 30-06 Springfield 

This "gun a week" is a proven hunter, but it didn't start out life as mild-mannered wall-hanger. Nope, it was meant for something much more bellicose.

The Mauser 98K was built for killing people, and that's it. It was designed by the Mauser company in Germany which had come up with the basic design around 1898 which means of course, that it served them in the two World Wars they started.

The earlier models aren't much different from the design I have which was adopted in or around 1934, you know, right before the Second World War. And even though the German army had other, semi and fully automatic rifles, machine guns, and sub-machine guns, this bolt action rifle from the turn of the century was still the arm of choice for most of the German Army.

They look like this before "sporterizing".

The Model 98K was different from its predecessors in that it was shorter--the K is for Kurz--and had a turned down bolt handle. Variations on the sights as well made it different from the older models though my rifle's original sights and barrel are long gone.

The Mauser 98, it has to be said, is the grandfather of practically all two-lugged bolt-action rifles. Sure, variations on the theme exist, but the principle, a bolt gun with two opposing locking lugs on the bolt shaft can be found on practically all mainstream, affordable hunting rifles to this day. Even after hostilities broke out between the United States and Germany during World War One, the US had to pay for patent infringements on the German patents because our service rifles and cartridges had stolen patented ideas the Mauser company had incorporated into their design.

Traits of the old Mauser design can be seen in modern sporting rifles right in your own safe. The example I have handy is a Winchester Model 70 which incorporates the Mauser "controlled round feed" extractor, giant claw extractor. Very big and very reliable, it has served rifle design well for 120 years. Winchester kind of moved away from the design, but in recent years has come back to the claw.

You can see the lineage! L. 1903 Springfield, C. The Mauser K98,
R. Winchester Model 70. Been a decent design.

I have no idea when my Mauser was made as all the pertinent info was buffed off when it was sporterized into a hunting rifle. Which is OK by me. There might be some identifying stampings under the scope mounts on the receiver, but I ain't taking the scope and everything off to look. The one stamping that remains easily seen is a serial number and the telling "Mod. 98" which is still factory fresh. Other more sinister icons are barely legible but undeniable and therefore telling of the rifle's origin.

The Nazi Eagle is just before the serial number, center...also
the terrible stamping Greensboro Gunworks, Inc is famous for.

Another one of the Nazi Eagles that's been mostly buffed off. Ugly origin.

My Mauser came to me through my buddy's old gun store. One of the guys who worked there had resurrected it from a student of Roxboro's Community College who had started it but gave up, or dropped out, or dies or something. It sported a pencil-thin, and very light 22" barrel chambered in 30-06 Springfield. It was stocked into a hideous, whittled-down stick not well suited for shooting nor picking your teeth. Trust me when I say it was butt-ugly. I looked for an image on the web, but couldn't find one even close, but it was a style back then when people brought their war trophies home and wanted to make them into respectable hunting rifles.

Brownells will get you started on any project. The
replacement magazine door is one of theirs. 

So the first order of business was to get a stock for it and since I was in a hurry, I just got something affordable and semi-finished from Brownells which was pretty wafer-thin and lightweight in its own right. Coupled with the lightweight barrel and action, I ended up with a "mountain rifle" configuration--something with alot of punch yet easy to carry all day. I finished it with polyurethane without any stain and ended up with an ugly, two-color stock! Like I said, I was in a hurry. An inch thick Pachmayr Decelerator pad finished it out to hopefully tame the recoil which, frankly, is brutal.

The pad jig leaves marks if you aren't careful, or if'n you're in a hurry like I was.

The scope mounts, I noticed, weren't exactly on the same plane as each other, so I got some Burris Posi-Align inserts to protect the scope from damage, and for the scope, I bought an FX2 Leupold 4 power scope with about 4 inches of eye-relief which is still barely enough for me! Did I mention the recoil from this rifle was a bit stout. After it was all assembled, scoped and loaded, it weighed on the low side of eight pounds. And when I shoot it from the bench, I have to remove the Butler Creek Flip-up scope cap from the eyepiece so it doesn't touch my forehead when I fire it. When I hunt, I'm in a more natural position and don't have to worry much about being crouched over a scoped cannon.

Posi-Align plastic ring inserts will hopefully keep the scope tube from
being damaged. 

And speaking of hunting, the last time this rifle went afield was on the last day of hunting season on the first day of 2010. After finding a cartridge load it liked at the bench I finally got up into a stand to wait and watch--hunting has always been a pretty strong word, but calling it "sitting" ain't very sexy-sounding.

Not the same day I harvested the two deer, but in a stand the same season, 2009-10.

 I sat there and heard off in the distance my buddy take a shot, and then another (which usually means we'll spend some time looking and tracking a wounded, walking-dead deer) and waited some more. And as is the case very often, I had to wait until almost dark before I got a chance to use the rifle for something other than killing Allied Soldiers and Marines. Close to the end of legal shooting light, a big momma doe and her yearling fawn came out of the thick brush along a fence just about 60-70 yards away to my left.

Tailor-made position for a right-handed shooter, it didn't take long for her to present the classic broadside shot, which of course, I dug into the rifle, stopped breathing, and took. The recoil knocks me back but both eyes are open and I see her flip and fall and kick trying to run but unable, dying. I don't remember working the bolt and reloading the chamber but I did. I know I did, because something instinctive inside me--modern greed? ancient hunters' instinct?--had me looking for the yearling and drawing down on it too. Amazingly, bewildered by the shot and shocked into immobility, the smaller deer was nervously stepping around where its mother had dropped.

And again, it didn't take long for it to present the classic broadside in the waning light to me and again, I took the shot. Both eyes open I could see the smaller deer run away but then curiously circle back right towards me where I sat above in the stand. This has rarely happened to me before, and I must say it was shocking. The most noticeable effect of my shot, as the little deer turned its body in the arc of the circle it was running was that when it stopped, the exit wound on the opposite side was to me, and I could see cupfulls of blood pumping out every step it too in front of me, less than twenty feet away.

I'd never seen the effects of a 30-06 like that, up close as it's happening in real time. Up until then, I'd only seen the blood and gore after the fact, like a forensic scientist while tracking a deer that had been shot but then ran away, seeing the trail and knowing it must have looked awful. And seeing it happen, the life pouring out of this little deer, was a sight I'll never forget. I watched as the deer stood for its last few moments alive and then lay down to die. I felt terrible.

Much later, turns out the two shots by my friend off in the distance weren't well-placed and he and I ended up tracking his deer through thick brush, sometimes on our hands and knees--in fact, the briars were so thick that some of the scratches on the stock at picture time were from that ordeal. Midway through, I begged off with some others from our little party to help search and I took off to collect the deer I had shot and another from another friend before it got much much later. Their ordeal is probably worth a whole other blog post, but it's not my story to tell! Suffice to say, when you're tracking a wounded deer, there's a chance that when you find it, it won't be dead and somebody better have a firearm to dispatch it or things could get uglier.

Anyway, we were putting deer in the back of my truck, and the momma doe and her yearling were reunited. Turns out he was a little buck, unbeknownst to me in the fading light and four power scope. It was a shame a future trophy buck was taken so soon, but it was a clean kill even if it were horrifying to see in person. And that's how hunting is sometimes. It's a rush, but it's also a terrible thing all at the same time.

With no stain, the stock is brown and blonde at the same time. Unique...
a polite word for ugly.

Even if the ending spectacle was hard to watch, it reminds me that hunting isn't always pretty. The big momma doe was a textbook, clean kill, and I wish every time I pull the trigger on a deer its death would be just as quick, but that's not always the case. The little buck's death wasn't a bad shot or a super horrendous death, it just happened right in front of me, seven yards away so it was a little hard to experience, but it too was a quick kill. In the end, no matter how difficult, a hunter owes it to his quarry to see it to the bitter end.

And again, it was nice to take a rifle which started out as a weapon of war up into a tree stand and use it to feed my family and friends and help control North Carolina's burgeoning (at the time) deer population. As always, holding a piece of history that's much older than yourself yet still functional is rewarding in its own right. Taking two deer as well is just an added, edible bonus.