I always wanted one of these but it's a mine field out there when it comes to the Nazi stuff being original. A collector I have dealt with before put this one up for sale out of his personal collection.
It's a Nazi Mauser K-98 built byf44 that was chosen to wear one of the Zf41 sniper scopes. The scope is still clear and I have clover leafed shots on my 100 yard range.
The way the sniper rifle were chosen was, when test fired at the factory, the ones that grouped into a certain criteria requirement were put on the side to become sniper rifles. The Zf41 scope was the Nazi's first attempt and did not work out as well as they wanted. One of the complaints was the very long eye relief. Turned out that the Nazi Sniper rifles were not as good as the Russian Mosin Nagants.

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	BYF44 Zf41 scoped K-98 Nazi sniper rifle 007.jpg (135.1 KB, 440 views)
	BYF44 Zf41 scoped K-98 Nazi sniper rifle 003.jpg (177.2 KB, 420 views)
	BYF44 Zf41 scoped K-98 Nazi sniper rifle 006.jpg (124.6 KB, 344 views)

Wow,that IS some long eye relief! What is the field of view at 100 with that thing?

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Maybe being out numbered as much as 4 to 1 had a little more to do with it. I don't own a sniper rifle but I do own K98ks and a Mosin and the Mauser is the superior firearm IMHO.

I'd kill for yours, Thanks for sharing it with us.

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An early "Scout scope"! When forward-mounted optics were "the new thing" on bolt action rifles I tried one on a M70 Lightweight .308 and found the concept nice for carrying but not that great for shooting.

Thanks for posting that and congrats on your new rifle.

Wow. Excellent! A museum piece, in my opinion. Congrats!!

Nice stock, too. I have a 'Russian captured' K98, still with Nazi waffenamps (manufacturer marks). All Russian captured K98s were disassembled, cleaned and re-blacked, and reassembled with whatever mismatched parts were at hand and would fit. So it is a great shooting gun, but with mismatched parts. Considering the price, not a bad thing. My stock has a Russian number stamped into the wood and was sanded at some point.

Very nice looking and indeed a treasure to own these days. Yes these K98s can be a real minefield these days. Even R/Cs are starting to command better prices these days and all-matching bringbacks are often going for way north of a grand depending on condition. Thanks for sharing.

A orginal German k98 sniper rifle complete with matching numbers, scope, sling, were $1,100 decades ago. There once was tables full of the '41 Johnsons, German G43's along with the 98k snipers at the gun shows.
Shop smart.

I have a excellent yugo captured German 98k with a laminated stock, I paid $79 for it with a Finnish VKT m39 for $89, the good old days.

quote " I don't own a sniper rifle but I do own K98ks and a Mosin and the Mauser is the superior firearm IMHO."

I agree sheepdawg, when you compare the standard (non sniper) versions on quality itself. As a standard military used sniper rifle back then no.
The conclusion that the German K-98 sniper rifle was not performing as well as the Nagants comes from a WWII German study of them as covered on pages 180-181 of Richard Laws book Sniper Variations. The main problem seems to be the Russians picked a good working scope/rifle combo and standardized it.
The Nazi's on the other hand started out with an inferior design and then kept trying to improve it and made too many variations of it. Then ran out of time to standardize it.

The Zf41 is only 1.5 power and has a very narrow field of view. If I recall several weeks ago shooting it, just about 2 to 3 feet at 100 yards.

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	p 180 - 181 Sniper Variations 004.JPG (265.0 KB, 45 views)
	p 180 - 181 Sniper Variations 005.JPG (275.3 KB, 45 views)
	p 180 - 181 Sniper Variations 001.JPG (265.7 KB, 42 views)

The Russians at there armory would test fie the mosins with the orginal iron sights. The ones that grouped better were put aside for sniper rifles.
Being I was into the surplus military rifles for thirty years I believe they had an over flow of sniper quality mosins and some were passed threw as standard rifles. This is why some mosins are more accurate than the others.

Now in the forgotten winter war of 1939 the Finnish people captured the Russian mosins and there armory shimmed the stocks, changes some stocks to fatty mosins stocks, and made there m24, m27, m28 and m39 mosins using the Russian receivers. These weren't released into the war till they shot 1" MOA.

THE STORY goes that 4,000 Russian soldiers attacked 32 Finnish soldiers. Only 3,600 Russians retreated with five Finns still alive.
Rifles of the white Death the story is called on the net.

A lot of Russian snipers during WWII were women, something like 2,000 of them. Many thought that women were better suited to be snipers than men. The top female Russian sniper put 309 Germans into the ground.

And add on for Big Bill, White Death was one man. See the attachment scroll up to #1. Top 10 Snipers in History - Listverse

Snipers. German. My Dad knew them well. He was the best shot in his company and was converted when needed to one of our anti snipers.

Scoped Springfield. He relayed his 1st time to me, the German got the 1st 2 men his battalion sent out to neutralize the sniper. Dad went way out of the way and came in from the side.

I always thought Dad being color blind may have had an advantage in the monotone desert. I know Dad figured out how to use cover on his 1st time out. But If the German scope had 2-3 feet field of vision at 100 yards would this extrapolate to 12 to 15 feet at 600 yards?

Not much field of view when someone is approaching from the side and pulls up at 600 yards.

Now I see another advantage and it probably was not known to the foot soldier in North Africa. Per Dad, when the German snipers engaged, one needed to keep under cover as they were excellent shots.

Seems I have read that some German snipers used high-quality German commercial sporting rifles and scopes. Actually, not much different than U. S. snipers using Winchester Model 70s during the Vietnam War.

That's beautiful - nice photos too!

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S&WCA Life Member

The world famous Finnish sniper used no scope he was called the white death. But there is a true story called "the rifles of the white death" this is about the winter war of 1939 when the Russians attacked the Finnish because they needed another seaport.

Now when hitler seen that the Russians had a tough time fighting the Finnish he thought Russia would be a push ove for his crack battle proven troops. He didn't count on the wicked Russian winter. Hitler thought he could beat the approaching Russian winter. The rest is history.

I believe the toughest army here was the Finnish army.

I purchased a k98 karabiner German Mauser with a sewer pipe bore for $20. I purchased a Czech 8mm barrel in excellent condition for $37. I installed the barrel in the German receiver and the headspace was dead on. I refinished the orginal stock and added a scope. I had to use the Czech hand guard. But I built a hunting rifle for under $150.

There were Waffen SS soldiers fighting together with the Suomis and they regarded them as fine fighting men and respected them. That is where the SS also found out that the German stalk handle grenade did not work well in forests.

Maybe 10 years ago there was an extensive article done on the Mosin vs Mauser. I wish I could remember where I read it. It delta with everything from quality of wood to sights to ammo...metallurgy. ..etc...etc. The end result was that some things were similar while things like bolt placement and speed went to the Mauser but overall rifle to rifle in the war that they fought Mosin was the more robust of the two.

Perhaps these pictures of my father will help explain why I prefer the Mauser. The man in the middle in the second picture. Both pictures taken in June 1944.

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	my father.jpg (54.2 KB, 128 views)
	Father in German uniform.jpg (79.9 KB, 170 views)

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There has been a lot of studies done on the winter both by American and Russian military. The general consensus is that the weather itself played a very small role if any. German winters were no better so they knew what to expect. What failed was common sense in cold weather. Troops sent in with no winter clothes, suply lines stretched to thin and with constant interruptions.

There is a video, probably done about a year ago, on the 8mm Mauser and 7.62x54 exploding ammo. Since the ammo was being tested on gel blocks and not people there were some errors in the beginning but once they dialed in the correct distance and size of the gel blocks .....WOW......those rounds were devastating

It is quite possible that someone actually did.

Did read a comparison quite a few years back in Shooting Times Magazine myself. Wish I would have kept it.

There WAS an article in the American Rifleman several years ago on this German rifle/scope combo. According to the article, this setup was not originally designed as a sniper rifle as the scope had insufficient magnification, rather as an aid to standard rifle shooting. I'm sure there's an AR index somewhere that can turn up this article.

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103

The famous number one sniper in the world was Finnish and he used a reworked captured Russian mosin with no scope I believe it was a m27 mosin.

The Russians test fired the Mosins and the most accurate ones became sniper rifles. But some accurate rifles were passed on. This is why we see some of the surplus Kosinski are very accurate.

That Finn would be Simo Hayha, I believe. The OP's rifle is very nice. I would post it on the Firearms forum. There's a boat load of knowledge about Mausers. They can tell you tiny details only a strong Mauser fanatic would know.

Perhaps the best sniper rifle of the WW2 era was a Mauser, the Swedish m/41 and m/41B.

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	1912 m41 IIII.jpg (94.0 KB, 52 views)
	1918 m41b sniper (2).jpg (161.5 KB, 47 views)

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Home | Kollaa ja Simo H"ayh"a -museo

The father of one of my running buddies brought a K98 sniper home from WWII and used it to deer hunt until his death in 1992. I remember shooting it and remember how impressed I was with the German workmanship. I believe it was dated 1937 or so and in 1975 he was offered $600.00 for it and laughed it off because money was not a problem for him. When he passed I assume my buddy, who I have lost contact with, is in possession of it. He was a gun guy and I am sure he is taking good care of it.

Actually, if you look through the literature, it's hard to find pictures of the style of scope shown by the OP.

Pretty much all photos show rifles with standard-sized hunting scopes using a commercial mount.

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	sniper2.jpg (69.7 KB, 82 views)
	sniper4.jpg (109.3 KB, 81 views)

I think it's more of a designated marksman rifle rather than a full sniper rifle.

That long eye relief scope was actually envisioned as a standard issue optic.

Think of the Corps today with their ARs rocking ACOGs in the sandbox.

It was supposed to be on every rifle but was not.