K98K sniper with Voigtlander scope for Krag.

[BMF]

Hi

I was browsing pictures at the Digitalmuseum.no. It's a database were norwegian museums publish pics. of their items. This time I found something new. The army museum have posted pics. of two k98k's with the Voigtlander scope the norwegian army bought for their sniper Krags in 1910. First I thought these were put together in Norway shortly after the war, but then I remembered this photo, so they are obviously of ww2 period. See post # 10:
http://www.k98kforum.com/showthread.php?4896-Norwegian-Krag-period-picture&highlight=krag
The landscape in the pic. looks very norwegian.

Theres not much description of the rifles. Just K98K's with Voigtlander scopes bought for the armys Krags. Note that the mounts have been numbered to the rifles.
So, who made these? German armorers in Norway? I would love to hear the experts opinions.

http://www.digitaltmuseum.no/things...48?query=k98k&search_context=1&count=22&pos=0
http://www.digitaltmuseum.no/things...91?query=k98k&search_context=1&count=22&pos=1

This must be the scopecan: http://www.digitaltmuseum.no/things...ikkertfutteral&search_context=1&count=1&pos=0

The sniper Krag look like this:
http://www.digitaltmuseum.no/things...krag&search_context=1&page=5&count=784&pos=98

The man who initiated the trials with scoped Krags was Johan Enger. He was one of the frontmen of the norwegian shooters movement, and with two brothers he started "Norma projektilfabrik" in Oslo in 1894. With the introduction of the Krag, and jacketed bullets, the shooters couldn't cast their own anymore, so a bullet manufacturer was needed. In 1902 the second factory was founded at Åmotfors in Sweden (and still going strong). Around 1905 Enger was experimenting with various scopes and mounts. He also sent rifles to the USA to have scopes attached. His scoped Krags were used both for hunting and for developing ammo at Norma. After the trials the army finaly decided on the setup in the link above. 1000 Krags had scopes mounted, all manufactured in 1910. Norma also made several experimental bullets for the army, and in 1925 a boattailed spitzer was adopted.

 

[Amberg]

GREAT! Thanks!
Have one more photo showing the Norwegian Voigtlaender scope on a K98.
Have to dig it out.
Thanks again for showing!
Wolf

 

[Amberg]

There is a very similar mount shown on a Zeiss Zielklein in Senich's "The German Sniper" pg. 432.

 

[Amberg]

Sorry, I was wrong. I do not have another photo showing the Norwegian Voigtlaender scope on a K98. The Photo shows a Zeiss Zielklein on a K98. The photo was taken on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rybachy_Peninsula in 1943.

 

[Amberg]

Did anybody download the photos from the "digitalmuseum" page? and would be willing to share?
Thanks!

 

[Dave Roberts]

Sorry, I was wrong. I do not have another photo showing the Norwegian Voigtlaender scope on a K98. The Photo shows a Zeiss Zielklein on a K98. The photo was taken on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rybachy_Peninsula in 1943.

Wolf , have You been able to determine what type/kind of mounts & rings these are ?.

Do You know what theater/country the photo was photographed in ?.

Best Regards

 

[Absolut]

To bring up this thread once more, I found this Zielklein scope on eBay and after re-consulting this thread I thought I need to buy it...

Vaughn was so nice as to date the scope to early 1939. The Zielklein scope with the same mount pictured in Senichs "The German Sniper" (see last pic) comes with wooden carrying case which appears to have pencil marking "Zielf 77.???" for "Zielfernrohr" and the serial of the scope, plus additionally "Gew 7?11" below for "Gewehr 7?11" on it. Mine is lacking this wooden carrying case, but comes with the original Zielklein marked leather caps, plus my scope being serial 77.836 is pretty closeby in serial range.

Interesting to point out how this scope mount works: it is a simple pivot both at the front and the rear. The rear one is adjusted by the threading and the pivot locking in the scope base, the front pivot locked on one axle so it allows the movement for windage adjustment in the rear mount.

 

[Absolut]

Addendum: the rifle in the Norwegian Army Museum (?) bears the last two digits (67) of the rifle serial number (2867) on the scope bases, see the attached pictures. So I would assume the "84" on my scope ring base would indicate my scope was originally on a rifle which had a serial number ending at "..84".

From looking at the pictures, the shape of the pivots and having the scope in hand I am pretty sure the bases both had holes drilled from bottom down and from top to the rear. In the holes drilled from the front to the rear springs were placed with pins/covers in front which match the shape of the pivots on the scope rings. These then were fully compressed and from the left and right side small holes were additionally drilled where pins were inserted so the spring with the pin/cover are stuck inside the bases exactly in the position where the spring can be compressed by a downward pushed scope ring. So basically the scope was locked in place only by a spring held pin/cover.

PS: Since English is not my native language and this being very technically I hope everyone was able to understand how I described the bases to work - if not, I will do a drawing which hopefully should show what I exactly meant...

Edit: did a quick drawing of how I expect the front base to be .. it is "cutaway style" drawn, hope you get how I imagine it to be.

 

[Dave Roberts]

Great Buy Georg , Now too find a Rifle . Its is very nice of You to share these pics with everyone . I have been actively searching for such a rifle for many years . No luck as of yet . But as You have shown with this scope & rings buy/find nothing is impossible . It would be interesting to know how many of this type Sniper Rifle were built .

A friend once told me that I would have better luck hitting the Lottery than to find a Belgian Fusil Sniper Rifle , well I beat the odds on that one
so just maybe a Rifle needed for this type Scope & Rings can also be found . Again Great Info and Thank You for sharing it .

 

[Absolut]

Pulling this thread again: yesterday ended an eBay auction for a picture showing a great closeup of a K98k rifle in Norway equipped with a Zeiss Zielklein on this mount - unfortunately it went way too expensive for someone who is not a sniper pic collector (it sold at € 804,50). So attached "only" the eBay auction picture which has some markings in it, but well enough as a reference in here. For what I'm able to tell it shows zeroing of the scope - note the rifle is sitting in a kind of rest and the elevation is set at a larger distance. Backside caption reads "Herbert mit Mitarbeiter Hugo Dörn" ("Herbert with staff member Hugo Dörn").

Edit: adding a few better pictures of my Zeiss Zielklein in Norwegian mounts. Sorry the forum put the pics out of order, can't change that.

 

[Absolut]

One more update - to my surprise when looking at the Norwegian Army Museum website again on bottom it recommended a scope pouch for the Voigtländer scope that was different from the one I know for the Krag. The pictures of it clearly show the carrying case is of the same style as the case pictured in "The German Sniper" by Senich with a Zielvier in it.

Link to the website: https://digitaltmuseum.no/021028898032/kikkertfutteral-voigtlander

Pictures are attached, in case link breaks. In the background to this picture is shown the particular page from Senich's book:

These are extremely similar to the cases used for the Krag 1894 sniper rifles with Voigtländer scopes. Notice the inside of this scope case is marked "919" (twice), what I suppose is the serial number of the scope (the contract for those scopes was a total of 1000).

 

[Absolut]

I know I'm doing a bit of a soliloquy in here, but trying to amass all data and pictures for future reference, since I'm sure one day such a rifle will turn up. It might also be a huge coincidence that just a very few days after that closeup picture was on eBay another picture showing such a sniper rifle by another eBay seller got listed.

Notice this rifle features the Zielklein scope as well, the scope has elevation adjustment which remained unused. I used to sharpen the eBay pictures a bit to make the details better visible. If anyone was wondering, this picture sold at € 431.

 

[Absolut]

To keep pictures posted in here, attached a photo of one of these sniper rifles that was recently auctioned on eBay Germany. The caption on the backside reads "In Stellung 1942" ("in position 1942").