Gewehr 98



"The Gewehr 98? Well, that's a German bolt-action rifle that's amde by Mauser firing cartridges from a five-round internal clip-loading magazine. That's a German service rifle which lasted from 1898 to 1935 when the Nazis replaced it with the KArabiner 98k, which is shorter than that using the same basic design. Now what? Have you noticed that it replaced the earlier Gewehr 1888 rifle before using it just in time for the Boxer Rebellion and World War I? Well, that's been adopted by many other countries including the UK, Japan and the good ol' US of A. But now I'm holdin' this..."

--Su Ji-Hoon, The Burning Fireplace

The Gewehr 98 (abbreviated G98, Gew 98 or M98) is a German bolt action rifle made by Mauser firing cartridges from a 5-round internal clip-loaded magazine. It was the German service rifle from 1898 to 1935, when it was replaced by the Karabiner 98k, a shorter weapon using the same basic design. The Gewehr 98 action, using a stripper clip loaded with the 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge, successfully combined and improved several bolt action engineering concepts which were soon adopted by many other countries including the UK, Japan, and the US. The Gewehr 98 replaced the earlier Gewehr 1888 rifle as the main German service rifle and first saw combat in the Chinese Boxer Rebellion and was the main German infantry service rifle of World War I. The Gewehr 98 saw further military use by the Ottoman Empire and Nationalist Spain.