Scoped K98k and Mosin Nagant at the range

Hello Renrich,
Lookup Billy Dixon at Adobe Walls. Now THAT was a long range shot. I know this is getting a bit off topic, but there are some that believe that a Schuetzen type muzzle loader with a false muzzle using Black Powder is potentially one of the most accurate kinds of rifle though entirely impractical for anything other than target shooting. The reason I believe some of these are minorly relevant to the discussion is that bullets of this type that aren't pointy and sleek and don't have a wonderful ballistic coefficient are still capable of quite excellent long range accuracy. The midrange trajectory will take them over a multi story house, but they still tend to come down in fairly tight clusters with most of the velocity they were launched at.

Regarding rifle actions and extreme accuracy, The Mosin Nagant is most certainly obsolete, The Mauser 98 is also though perhaps not as bad. Even the ubiquitous Remington 700 is not competitive. Multi lug actions such as the Stolle "Bears" and the AR-15/AR-10 type are the current state of the art.

Pardon me if I have offended anyone. It really was not my intent.
- Ivan.

Ivan, your posts are enjoyable, informative and show a lot of practical experience. Many thanks. Being a native Texan I am quite aware of Dixon's famous shot but could not remember tha alleged distance so did not quote it. In the movie, "Lonesome Dove" Gus and the girl camped at Adobe Walls and the scene where Gus dueled with his Henry against the bad guy's Sharps was quite graphic. Gus had to really point that Henry up into the air to make the shot.

Ivan,

While flat based Spitzers might do best in benchrest shooutouts, it must be noted that these often occur at ranges no longer than 200 m. At long range a flat based spitzer is at a distinct disadvantage in stability and energy retention compared to boat tailed spitzers.

As for the video, the reason he is able to hit so consistantly is because he carefully made sure that the same amount of powder was used in each cartridge and that the seating of the projectile was identical and finally that he used a FMJ-BT projectile with a high BC. Had he handloaded old German surplus projectiles he would've achieved the same or maybe even better accuracy, the design of the s.S. bullet being more stable at supersonic subsonic speeds than most projectiles avalable today, and with a BC of .584 at supersonic velocities and .557 at subsonic velocities it retains energy better than most similar caliber bullets as-well.

As for the Glass Bedding, well it is very limited how much that helped, I'm pretty sure the action was quite securely fitted on the originals. The reason he glass bedded his rifle is because it's generally a good idea on very old rifle because of the wear and tear of time.

Hi Soren,
The reason that benchrest competitions are held at relatively short ranges is that at longer ranges, wind has such a great effect that the mechanical accuracy of the gun/ammunition combinations is pretty much masked. A fair benchrest rifle should shoot about 0.2 MOA or 0.20 inch groups (typically 5 shots) at 100 yards. At 300 yards, you might figure 0.6 inch groups center to center, but a slight gust of wind can blow your bullet off by several feet. In real life, even angular dispersion tends to increase with distance but not to the extent that wind affects things.

I agree with you that Boat Tail Spitzers will retain their velocity better, but they are NOT more stable with all other factors being equal. A bullet with greater rotational inertia is more stable than one with less. A boat tail spitzer has more of its mass close to the centerline of the bullet than a flat base bullet and thus less rotational inertia than the same weight and diameter bullet with a flat base. Note that the .357 Magnum can fire a 158 grain bullet with a typical rifling twist of about 1 turn in 18 inches. A .30-06 fires a 150 grain bullet with a typical rifling twist of 1 turn in 10 inches. For folks who might be interested, check out the Greenhill formula for estimating the necessary rifling twist with various bullets and velocities. It is a little conservative but still useful.

Regarding Glass-Bedding: The reason for glass bedding is not to reinforce a deteriorated stock with questionable integrity. The idea is to get a PERFECT fit between the barrel and receiver of your rifle and the wooden stock. This can not be achieved even by the best gunsmith inletting a stock by hand. If this is done properly, the stock and receiver can only fit together one way. It won't bounce around between shots. Also, the "Glass-Bedding" material (I typically use Brownell's Acraglas Steel) is much more stable and stronger than wood. It is also not compressible. There are some that believe an aluminum bedding block such as on a H&S Precision stock is as good, but the bottom line is that epoxy and metal particles or just plain metal beats the heck out of wood for stability.

Regarding reloaded ammunition: The bullets today are more consistently made and accurate than any in history IMHO. Perhaps the German sS bullets are a bit more aerodynamic, but that doesn't mean they are more accurate. Retained velocity and angular dispersion are two different and pretty much unrelated things. If you really want retained velocity, check out the modern VLD (very low drag) or sintered Tungsten bullets.

Here are some practices I follow in reloading target ammunition:
1. Resize for consistent headspace as checked with a RCBS Precision Mic
2. Trim case neck and deburr
3. Uniform primer pockets with tungsten carbide tool
4. Deburr the flash hole
4.5. Cull any cases with inconsistent weight - Sometimes I do it. Sometimes I don't.
5. Seat primers to consistent depth (not by feel)
6. Measure powder charges to 0.1 grain.
7. Seat bullets to consistent depth as measured off the ogive (not by overall length)

The exact powder charge is determined by experimentation, but I have found that loading to the same velocity as a known good load (or a good factory load) seems to work pretty well.... sometimes.
The exact seating depth is also determined by experimentation, but 0.015 to 0.025 inch off the rifling is a pretty good starting point.

Another aspect of the quoted ballistics tables I noticed was that the diameters of the bullets may be incorrect. I usta reload for 7.92 x 57mm. The bullets are actually .0323 inch diameter which works out to 8.20 mm. Likewise, a .50 cal bullet is really 0.510 inch and a 7.62 x 54R Russian round uses a .310 inch diameter bullet.

My apologies in advance for such a long-winded post.
- Ivan.

renrich said:

Ivan, your posts are enjoyable, informative and show a lot of practical experience. Many thanks. Being a native Texan I am quite aware of Dixon's famous shot but could not remember tha alleged distance so did not quote it. In the movie, "Lonesome Dove" Gus and the girl camped at Adobe Walls and the scene where Gus dueled with his Henry against the bad guy's Sharps was quite graphic. Gus had to really point that Henry up into the air to make the shot.

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Thanks Renrich,
Given a choice between a Henry and a Sharps, I prefer the Sharps, especially a 1874. I just think the 1874 Sharps is a beautiful rifle. The Henry basically shoots a big pistol cartridge.

When reloading for a .45-70, I typically use a Lee 450 grain flat base bullet. Everything is cast from just plain wheel weights and tend to run a bit heavy. The Lee bullets run about 460 grain. I also use the Lyman Schmitzer500 grain bullet which does look very much like a mini Krupp standard bullet. I have also tried a 535 grain Postell bullet but haven't had much luck yet with that monster cruise missile. I use a Lyman heated lubrisizer and Alox bullet lube. Powder is typically IMR 3031 and chronograph velocities at about 7 feet from the muzzle are 1450-1480 fps with the Lee 460 grain bullets. I don't think I have ever shot under 1 MOA with these loads, but 1.5 inch 5 shot groups at 100 yards are quite common and IMHO that isn't too bad with iron sights.

With this kind of gun, I tend to have more fun than with my more serious target guns because the ammunition is about half the price and because I don't feel the need to try for a 1/2 MOA group.

- Ivan.

A question I have never had satisfactorily answered is the following; Modern smokeless powder has progressive burning characteristics which means that up to a point, longer barrels give higher velocities. It is my understanding that black powder used in the 18th and 19th century burnt all at once so it would seem that longer barrels would not help give higher velocity. If that is true, why did rifle makers use such long barrels instead of handier carbine length barrels. The same question on cannon barrel lengths, such as the 24 pounders on the gun deck of the USS Constitution. Dueling at ranges of much over 100 yards with a Henry which I think was a 44 Rimfire against a Sharps Rifle was a sure way to get punctured. I thought what showed the realism in the "Lonesome Dove" example was that Gus had to really elevate the barrel of his Henry using a ladder sight, I think, and the bullet took a long time to get there and when it did just barely penetrated the opponents stomach. Good research for Hollywood for a change. An aside. It has been 20 years since "Lonesome Dove" was released and there is a celebration scheduled in San Antonio in June, I think.

Ivan,

You obviously have great knowledge on the issue of guns, ammunition and ballistics. So when talking about the stability of a bullet you must also note that it is not just determined by its' gyroscopic stability, but also how much wind affects it. And a heavier and much better streamlined bullet, which the s.S. projectile is compared to any allied rifle bullet of the war, will be less affected by the wind. That is why very long range shots are made with heavy boattailed bullets, because of their inherent advantage in stability and energy retention at range.

And while what you explained about the required twist rate for light vs heavy bullets is true, you will also need to note that this was a very well understood science back then, and the K98k was designed specifically to fire heavy bullets of 12 grams or heavier.

And regarding glass bedding, there is again nothing wrong with your explanation, but you must also understand that this has a questionable effect on a rifle where the action is as well fitted with the stock as on some of these old rifles. Free floating the barrel will yield much more noticable results.

Hello Renrich,
Pardon me if I am describing what you already know, but here goes: Black powder tends to burn at very nearly the same rate regardless of whether it is enclosed or out in the open. Pressure may increase its burning rate a little, but not much. Smokeless powder burns fairly slowly out in the open, but when enclosed, its burn rate increases TREMENDOUSLY. As pressure increases, the burn rate increases.

Black powder properly made is pretty much uniform. The burning rate is controlled by its granulation. For black powder rifles, FFg (also called "2 F") is often used. For Pistols, a finer granulation FFFg ("3 F") is often used. FFFFg is typically used as priming for a Flintlock. I tend to use a lot of FFFg in both Rifles and Pistols. In Rifles, the fact that I use FFFg rather than FFg means that I can't run full loads because the pressure would be too high. I typically use about 65 to 75 grains volume measured (as opposed to weight measured) behind a 400-something grain Minie ball or cantilever bullet. With FFg, I have gone up to about 120 grains behind the same bullet.

Smokeless powder today is either single base or double base meaning Nitrocellulose with or without Nitroglycerine. The "powder" is basically a very flammable plastic whose burning rate is controlled by the shape of the grains or the addition of a burning deterrent to coat the grains. Smokeless powder doesn't really explode, it burns very quickly. Solid items as they burn will get smaller and with less surface area, the burning rate slows down until the grain breaks apart. The decreasing surface area combined with the fact that the volume is increasing as the bullet moves down the barrel means that the peak chamber pressure happens fairly close to when the bullet starts moving. One solution to this is to shape or coat the powder so that its burning rate actually increases slightly from the initial rate. One way to do this is to extrude a grain of powder so that it isn't just a simple cylinder but rather a cylinder with a bunch of little holes in it. Think of short cut licorice candy. Each grain burns from both the inside and outside and the surface area and burning rate increase as it burns. This is what is called "Progressive Burning Powder".

Black powder guns' peak pressure isn't very high, about 15,000 LUP or PSI IIRC, and the burning rate is fairly slow, so the guns need long barrels to generate reasonable velocities. A typical smokeless rifle has a much higher peak pressure 55,000 CUP or PSI is fairly reasonable, but the pressure also drops quickly. The pressure at the gas port on a M14 should be around 8,000 - 16,000 PSI. The pressure at the gas port on a M1 Garand near the muzzle should be around 4,000 - 8,000 PSI. You can see where the gas ports are, so you can figure out how fast the pressure drops.

FWIW, my opinion on Henry versus Sharps is that the Henry has an advantage out to about 150-200 yards or so. 150 yards is "point blank" range (no elevation needed) for either gun, and I would imagine the Henry is much handier.

Longwinded yet again.
- Ivan.

Hi Soren,
Thanks for the compliment.
I would not be overly concerned with resistance to wind deflection when comparing rifle cartridges. ANY rifle caliber bullet will get blown all over the place with any significant wind. Folks in gun magazines like to make academic discussions about those differences, but the bottom line is that having a bullet blown 3 feet instead of 3.5 feet isn't all that different. IMHO, the difference between being blown 3 inches instead of 4 inches is important only when shooting rifle matches. Look at some wind tables that folks use for target shooting and you will see what I mean. Basically, if the wind is blowing, you call it and compensate for it or you don't shoot. Wind bucking ability and sheer target accuracy is pretty much irrelevant as I see it.

Besides a long streamlined (High BC) bullet, another way to reduce wind deflection is to increase the velocity. In that area, the 7.92 is rather limited with the heavier bullets.

I believe the Kar 98 had a rifling twist of around 1 turn in 9 inches which isn't that much faster than the standard 1 in 10 inch twist on a .30-06. Some folks say that an overly fast twist will limit accuracy, but I believe that is only important if you are concerned with 1/10 MOA or less to win a benchrest match. I did have one case where rifling twist was obviously too high. I goosed up the velocity with one load slightly and found that I had only 3 rounds out of 20 hit the target at 100 yards. I was using thin jacket varmint bullets and I believe the others just disintegrated before reaching the target.

Regarding Glass bedding, there are a lot of folks out there who spend a lot of money to glass bed guns. I am sure that folks back in WW2 would have done it also if the materials existed at the time. Look at the John Garand matches with M1 rifles: These guns are hand inletted with the best known methods and aren't shot against fully match prepared and glass bedded guns.

Regarding free floated barrels, I believe it works pretty well with fairly heavy barrels but doesn't work nearly as well with lightweight stuff. A pressure point usually works better. Also, it is pretty darn difficult to free float a barrel with all the wood you find on a full stocked military rifle. Putting in a known pressure point is more reliable method here as well and doesn't get screwed up as badly when the stock warps a little.

BTW, I also realise that sometimes these guns shoot a whole lot better than any analysis would predict. The Swedish Mauser seems to do VERY well. I personally have shot a 5 shot 1.02 inch group at 100 yards with an iron sighted Mauser derivative while getting up and moving around between shots.

- Ivan.

Ivan,

I can't say I agree with everything you say but we're not far from agreeing. But you're absolutely correct when you say that sometimes guns perform much better than any simple analysis would have predicted.

As for the twist rate, small differences make a big difference in this department and with the chosen rifling depth the 1 in 9.45 inch twist rate was found to be by far the best configuration for the K98k when firing the s.S. round.

Hello Soren,

Glad we are mostly in agreement. The Mauser derivative that shot the 1.02 inch group actually has a barrel that was shot with corrosive ammunition and the bore looks like a sewer pipe. It is fully stocked and the quality of the piece except for the bore is museum quality. Looking at the bore, one would never figure this to be an accurate rifle, but it is. I have thrown away barrels with better looking bores than this one. In fact, one of those discarded barrels has been sitting for the last several years in a flower pot in front of my house awaiting its turn as a tomato stake for the next time I grow tomatos.

I personally don't believe that small differences in rifling twist really make much of a difference, but here we are talking about not only a slightly faster twist but a MUCH fatter bullet as well, so the two together may have a greater effect. FWIW, the 1-10" twist in a .30-06 is capable of stabilising a 220 grain bullet which is what the .30-03 round used.

In the US we use a .323 inch bullet for reloading 7.92 Mauser to match groove diameter, but I understand that Europeans tend to use a bullet between bore and groove diameter. Do you happen to know what the German standard diameter bullet was?

Pity we can't find .310 diameter for the 7.62 x 54R over here. (AK bullets don't count!)

- Ivan.

Ivan,

Haha the flowerpot theory I believe very much explains your results

Regarding the diameter of the European 7.92x57mm ammunition, it's 8.23mm, so 0.03mm wider than the US commercial stuff.

Here's a great little schematic on the 7.92mm 12.8 gram s.S. projectile from my archive:

Hi Soren,

If you ever read the benchrest publications, the typical comment about a barrel that won't shoot well is to use it for a tomato stake. I am planning to do just that.

Regarding your drawing, the aft end of major diameter portion of the bullet is larger than the metric conversion of 0.323 inch (8.2042 mm), but the forward end of this section is only 8.15 mm which is well under the diameter of the US standard for this round.

- Ivan.

Thanks Ivan, so I gather that the long barrel of a "Kentucky" rifle was needed for maximum velocity just like a 26 inch barrel on a #1 Ruger will give higher velocity than a 22 inch barrel on a Model 77 Ruger but for different technical reasons. A Henry with its big magazine capacity and fast lever action would indeed be an advantage at fairly short ranges over a Sharps, although the Sharps packed a lot more energy. The difference in performance between the smoothbore musket used by most infantry in the 1700s and early to mid 1800s and that of the rifled musket with minie ball used later and the impact it had on infantry and artillery tactics and how long it took generals to recognise the new tactics is fascinating.

Hi Renrich,
I believe that a couple extra inches on a BP gun will give it a larger percentage of increase than a couple inches extra barrel on a modern rifle. A pretty good estimate is that an inch of barrel on a modern rifle should give it around 25 fps extra velocity which is well under 1 percent.

The ideal propellant would be one that would hit a plateau in velocity and gain very little extra pressure or velocity with a slight increase in powder charge. Very few powder charges are truly identical. We tend to put faith in mass and try to weigh each charge down to 0.1 grain with smokeless powder. Perhaps volume also contributes to variations in the burn rate. I have heard theories along those lines. Consider that Black Powder is measured by volume only. BP pressures are closer to a linear increase with powder charges than smokeless which is why I believe there may be more accuracy potential there.

Regarding Henry versus Sharps, you CAN have both with a 1886 Winchester! I would love to get an example of a Siamese Mauser rebarreled to .45-70 to see what this cartridge can do with a fairly modern action. I've seen them, but not at a price I felt good about.

- Ivan.

Ivan1GFP said:

Hi Soren,

If you ever read the benchrest publications, the typical comment about a barrel that won't shoot well is to use it for a tomato stake. I am planning to do just that.

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Get a good gunsmith to make you a new barrel Ivan. It might be expensive as heck, but the result is a great looking rifle that shoots sub moa groups (Providing the gunsmith knows what he's doing ofcourse )

Regarding your drawing, the aft end of major diameter portion of the bullet is larger than the metric conversion of 0.323 inch (8.2042 mm), but the forward end of this section is only 8.15 mm which is well under the diameter of the US standard for this round.

- Ivan.

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Yes that's right, that's how it usually is. The widest part on 8mm european projectiles is 8.23mm, so 0.0258 mm wider than the US commercial stuff.

Hello Soren,

The barrel that is sitting in the flower pot was replaced years ago. This is a full stocked military gun with a really light weight barrel and receiver so I don't think it is worth turning down a match grade barrel for it. The barrel it currently wears is actually the best I have ever seen on this type of rifle and the headspace is very tight. With iron sights, I am hitting in the 1.5 MOA range for 5 shot groups which is much better than one typically expects for this kind of gun. As for good looks, this is a Frankenstein rifle with parts from many veterans. I think it looks good, but the gun has no real value except to me.

I have actually done a fair amount of rebarreling work and finished chambered a few guns with quite good results in the past.

I don't know if the same practice applies to smokeless projectiles, but with BP projectiles, I have seen bullets cast with a narrower front end and wider rear used when the bore diameter of the guns is somewhat indeterminate. Perhaps the manufacturing standard over 50 years of M98 Mausers had a lot of variation?

- Ivan.

The manufacturing standard was identical for the rifle made through the 30's 40's, and the tolerances were very tight, so that wasn't the reason behind the design. But most rifle bullets are wider to the rear, and that includes for example the Sierra MatchKing projectile which is world renowned for its accuracy.

Soren said:

Only really the German sharpshooters were capable of extremely accurate long range fire, fielding far better scopes and far more accurate projectiles. On top of that Germany was one of the few countries to have actual sniping schools and a dedicated sniper arm. The basic training program of the Scharfschütze is still used today by the German, US, British Canadian sniper arm.

The German Scharfschütze had available to him a an extremely accurate rifle and the most accurate efficient projectile out there, the 12.8 g (198 gr) FMJ-BT Schwere SpitzGeschoss, which featuring a ballistic coefficient (BC) of .584, was a good deal more efficient than both the military .308 cal M118 match .308win Sierra MatchKing projectiles, both of which have BCs ranging from .490 - .515.

According to veteran German ScharfSchützen headshots could easily be made out to 600m without fail, and the chest was easily hit at 800m without fail, while a standing man was vulnerable even at 1200m if the German sniper knew what he was doing. (And this is with a 6x scope, 8x scopes were available as-well)

Zielacht (8X) scope by Zeiss

8X scope by Dialytan

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Hye Soren, sorry to drag this up I liked your videos, and upon looking at your comments I have noticed that you are the bloke to talk to.

I noticed your post on the german scopes particulary the Zielacht 8x power and the pictures. I have the same scope Zielacht 8x power which was made in 1922 (1 out of 101) My question is that you mentioned that these were available to the german sniper, do you have any pictures or any refernce to this, as I am going to put it on my K98 but dont want folk to say o they never usd 8 power blah blah blah, there is a blakc and white picture as well, is this an image of an 8 power ?

cheers DB

Just a small question on the sights that have been posted. Can I ask how the sights are adjusted for horizontal adjustment as I can only see one dial.