Kar98 Iron Sights are awful.

T

TrunkLid

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Why use an inverted triangle rear sight and pointed front sight? Am I missing something?

They are absolutely awful and I cannot conceive as to why they went with this it's a terrible sight picture.

I have no idea how any poor German soldier hit anything with sights this bad. :confused:
 
A man goes to the doctor and says, "Doctor, wherever I touch, it hurts."
The doctor asks, "What do you mean?"
The man says, "When I touch my shoulder, it really hurts.When I touch my knee - OUCH! When I touch my forehead, it really, really hurts."
Then doctor says, "Well, your finger is broken"
 
BeaverMeat said:
That was the sight picture that lost the war...
Click to expand...

It’s also basically the sight picture which won it, as the soviets did most the work to win the war. And even then many of the other allies used it, France, UK, Australia, India, even some of the US...

Overall I prefer the Inverted Triangle sights myself, I tend to favour the Swiss style of it though.
 
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I dislike them as well. Aperture/post is great for both speed and accuracy, notch/post is useable, but the v/^ is pretty useless for speed or accuracy IMHO.
 
They are a touch primitive compared many...LE had surprisingle good irons for what it's denigrator's would have you believe.
But I've thrown down on a trotting MD with a 1935 Peruvian and put him in the freezer, they are a touch primitive...but they perform none the less. Short radius and all.
Garand M1's seem like an outstanding example. Never played with any Swiss rifles...no need. I've got a straight pull tack driver in a Ross MK 3. I can respect Diopter and Eaglelord in owning a Swiss as it's their heritage ( if I'm wrong, begging your pardon ), that's why I own a Ross. Two-fer...heritage and tackdriver.
The one rifle that makes me shake my head is Swede M96's...they could do sooooo much better with better irons. Outstanding cartridge and beautiful rifles...average sights.
 
It definitely is not a pleasant sight to use, but it is accurate when you are accustomed to it, and it is better than some other sights of the period namely the No.1 Mk.III*.

I have a Kar98k myself and I greatly dislike the iron sights... Which is why my Christmas gift to myself was a scope and no drill mount.
 
The V sights are ok.......For young eyes. They weren't drafting "more elderly" men into service until later in the war.
I was able to shoot the K98K sights very well indeed, until my lens prescription change and I needed bifocals or graduated lens.
Sight height is good from a prone position, not as good from a sitting at a bench position.

Not Swiss myself, Portuguese heritage with a lot of Swiss friends who accept me as one of their own.
I have shot the Swiss programs once with the basic Swiss K31 iron sight and did very well, But the the Scoring for the military programs is more forgiving.
In the ISSF targets the ten ring is 10cm/4 inch in diameter and each other ring is 10cm further out.
In the 300m military scoring on the round A10/A5 targets, an X(5cm diameter), 10 & 9 hit gives you 5pts. 8 & 7 = 4 pts

German Military target shooting:
targets-page-3.jpg

schutzen-1.jpg
 
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Flame away, but I dislike the sights on every mauser I own, and not a huge fan of the K31 either. Russian surplus rifles I can get behind. Maybe a tad chunky, but more natural to me. BTW eyesight has definitely gotten worse the last few years.
T
 
I dont know, K98 sights are not greatest but they do the job just fine. I know at least 30 guys who own a K98, mainly from WW2 reenactment community. We all shoot live ammo out of them too, most of our guys hit targets no problem.
 
I’m not Swiss, I’m Canadian from a Scottish/English background. That being said I admire the Swiss and the craftsmanship they put into their arms (very few can claim anywhere near the same level of quality).

Personally I prefer notch sights because I tend to do better with them, and it’s what I mainly learned on. I can use apertures though and they can be very effective. At one point in time I was third in a rifle competition at 100m with my K31, when everyone else was using scoped rifles. So it’s not that you can’t be accurate with notches, it just takes some practice.
 
I've been shooting military rifles with open sites for more than 40 yrs. ( Lee Enfield #1's, various mausers, Carcanos, SKS, various Moisant Nagants, K31 etc) Best accuracy was with a couple Swedish Mausers. Both a 96 and 38. Contributing factors would have been excellent cartridge in quality built rifles. I give a lot of credit to the sighting picture. -flat blade front site and square notched rear site with just the right amount of light showing on each side of blade in rear notch. The 38 was my go to turkey shoot gun when such events were popular in rural Ontario. Heard a few less than flattering remarks about my "old army rifle". Usually had a limit of 3 turkeys per shooter. I never took home anymore than 3 even if there wasn't a limit. That rifle gained a lot of respect in the turkey shoot circuit very quickly. I still have it. My first military rifle purchase.
 
Mauser sights are great, if you have 20 year old eyes and perfect vision.

I love Mausers, and have a nice collection, but I prefer shooting my Enfield P14 and M17 instead, they have a much easier (on old eyes) sight pictures.
 
Don't forget that K98, No 1 Mk III, Mosin-Nagant, Lebel, etc etc etc, sights weren't designed for pinpoint accuracy. They were designed for use in battle, where just hitting your man is going to take him out of the fight - especially given the size of the cartridges used in those rifles.......

They were also designed for use as "poor man's artillery", where the troops would set their sights at impossible (for accuracy) ranges, then fire on command of their officer. The idea was to use rifles in place of (much more expensive) machine guns for barrage fire. Like most concepts thought up by staff officers, it didn't work well.....
 
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