Saturday, February 4, 2017

The Gewehr 1898

Continuing on at looking at weapons of this time period, perhaps this is where we should have started:



The German G98.

The 98 is one of the greatest weapons designs of all time, and it remains in production today.  Indeed, arguably it is the single greatest military rifle of all time.  Maybe the greatest rifle of all time.

The G98 was the last bolt action rifle designed by Peter Paul Mauser, one of the Mauser brothers that worked their entire lives in the arms industry.  By the time Peter Paul Mauser designed this amazing design, he'd basically perfected the bolt action rifle.



The fact that this design was so well made impacted not only militaries around the globe but also bolt action rifles down to this very day.  98 actions are still made for hunting rifles and even old actions continue to be used for construction of hunting rifles.  The design's influence has been enormous.




And its part of the story we've been telling here, and more directly than  the other rifles featured in the videos we've been linking in.  The 98 had been adopted by Mexico prior to the Mexican Revolution in 7x57 and, together with the 94 variant that had been adopted before that, made up a large number of the rifles used by all sides in the contest.

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