The Kar98 what? -1 reply

I am getting really confused as too what one is really the Kar98K. Just do a google image search for Kar98k, KAR98K, Karabiner 98K, or any other way of saying/spelling it and you'll get all sorts of Kar98k's. My question is what is the REAL one, i always thought it was this one (Notice the hooded sight) But the one ingame right now is this one and claims to be the Kar98k (Notice what appears to be a barrel cleaning attachment under the barrel) But to further deepen the mystery (dun-dun-dun) is this one: (Notice the absence of the barrel cleaning attachment under the barrel and lack of hooded sight, and no its not a one-off where the barrel cleaning attachment has just been removed.) Help please.

I assume those are all different production types or adapted by the owners. Maybe produced by different companies? (Didn't the Chinese also build some Karabiners under a different name?) I'm sure Mudra can tell us all about it :p

The hooded sight model was most commonly seen in the Western Front and Eastern Front. Though it was used in North Africa, I've seen more none-hooded sight k98s in Africa theatre.

The hooded sight came later in war.

Well, the barrel cleaning thingy could have just been lost/broken, my new K-98k didnt have it, but the hole to store it in is theire.

You forgot the variant with the flat plate on the end of the rifle butt tough :)

Theire where many variants in construction of the K98k, manny parts where changed/simplefied when the war evolved, most thing you can barely notice.

Also i have a smal question, I used to have 2 k98k's, a 1939 and 1943 production, the early one was without front sight cover, but had a larger seperate muzzlcover witch also fited over the front sight to protect it. The other had the late war cover over it, nothing special, but when i removed the protection i noticed my prewar muzzlecover didnt fit the late war rifle. the frontsight was to far back and the outside diameter of the barel was to big. So i wonder, was it comon for different factories making diferent versions of the same rifle?

Dude, they are all the same.... Lots of soldiers lost the cleaning rod, or just kept it in their rifle cleaning kit. The hood was also lost incredibly often, as it was only clipped to the sight.

And to answer siberro, yeah, different companies could make slightly different things. The german war industry was actually very much like a cottage industry. You were given the plans and the basic idea of how it should look, but minor things like outside barrel diameter could be different, depending on the tools you had and used. This was the same for german uniforms.

According to a man here in Norway, who lives of selling ww2 weapons. The bottom one is a late war model, it was built from 1944 on onwards, and was of lesser quality, didn't have a cleaning rod.(there were some more differences, but i can't remember.)

Okay so just to clarify: Am i to believe, based on what you have told me, that all of them are Kar98k's?

vMud is right on. It's the same with US weapons of the era, which is why experts can tell, say, a Remington Model 1911 made by Remington from one made by Ithaca or Rock Island Arsenal.

In addition there are an incredible number of variants and versions of the Mauser and many countries producing them. There have been several full-length books devoted simply to that one WWII-model rifle, and all the dozens of minor or not-so-minor differences in each variant.

LtJimmy;4597365Okay so just to clarify: Am i to believe, based on what you have told me, that all of them are Kar98k's?

Yes