Ah, the Mauser 98. This is one of my personal all time favorites and I was happy to finally take it to the run and gun course. The Mauser’s action is still in production, and if you own a bolt action rifle (no matter how modern) it is most likely a derivative of the 98. This gun was Mauser’s masterpiece, but lets see her in action!

For more on the 98: C&Rsenal Video on the Gewehr 98.

Transcript …

– [Voiceover] Hey guys, this is Alex C with TFBTV, and for today’s Run and Gun we’re going to be featuring a Gewehr 98, produced in 1901.

This is a very old Mauser 98, and I must say I’ve been looking forward to this Run and Gun for a long time.

This is actually one of my favorite, if not my favorite rifle of all time, but don’t just take my word for it.

Ian Hogg, who you might recognize as being one of the greatest firearm historians of all time said it was Mauser’s masterpiece.

Every little impovement that Mauser could think of, all sorts of little tiny details, were added together and they formed what you may call the ultimate bolt action system.

And even today, companies are still making rifles with that bolt action.

There’s just something about the Mauser.

When ammo was cheap back in the day, Well, 762 by 54 R today is kind of the cheap surplus round, but when I was younger, it was eight milimeter.

Everyone was buying surplus Mausers out of big barrels at surplus shops and all that, and it’s just hard not to like these.

They’re very smooth cycling.

So many countries made them, about 100 million were actually made, and if you count sporting models and variants of the Mauser, that number is much higher.

Loading them is also very fast and simple.

Paul Mauser invented the stripper clip, and it was introduced in the ’89 model Belgian Mauser, but you can see how quickly you can throw five rounds in it, as opposed to the Lebel, where you have to painstakingly insert each round, which is a real pain.

Of course a famous derivative seen here is a Karabiner 98 kurz, employed by the Germans in World War Two, but we’re taking a look at a World War One model here.

And I did mention that sporting rifles today are basically Mauser derivatives.

This Kimber 8400, you can see the influence here.

It’s a bridged rifle.

Obviously they amended the stripper clip guide, but it’s easy to see where Mauser has influenced everything in the way of bolt action rifles today, but let’s load up and take it to the Run and Gun course.

We’re going to shoot 25 shots with a total of four reloads.

So let’s see how it performs.

All right guys, here we go with the Imperial Gewehr 98 rifle.

Let’s see how it does on the course.

(clicking) (gun fires) (clicking) (gun fires) All right, guys, so let’s go down range and talk about it a little bit.

All right guys, so that run went okay.

I did miss one.

I pulled one pretty hard.

I could definitely feel it when I was doing it.

I guess I got a little jumpy when I was standing up, but everything on the Gewehr 98 just really works well.

From the way it shoulders all the way up to, there’s simple things like the safety, and even the way I was manipulating the stripper clips as you’ve seen in past Run and Guns where I used stripper clips, everything on this is just so well thought out and very smooth, very easy to operate.

But I’ll put the total hits versus misses here, and let’s go talk about it a little bit more in the room.

So 24 hits, one miss.

I just said this was the perfect rifle and then I had a miss, but I guess hey, that happens to everybody every now and then.

But still, to most people, these will just kind of be a bolt action rifle, but to me they represent the best of what a bolt action rifle can be.

I don’t like the Gewehr 98 sights, I like the later improved sights without the rollercoaster on them.

The rollercoaster sights do a great job kind of blocking what’s to the left and right of your target with those large protrusions, and then the front’s just a simple front sight post that’s not hooded.

The K98ks have a better sight setup.

But if you want to learn more about the Mauser 98, CN Arsenal has done a video where they really do a great job telling about the history of the rifle, the development, the designer Paul Mauser and everything.

I’ll link to that in the description, but at this point I’d like to thank you guys for watching and I’d like to thank Ventura Munitions, our ammunition sponsor, for helping us out with the cost of ammo.

Hope you enjoyed the video, guys, and we’ll see you next time.

(gun fires)