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PPS Kar98K Review by Dadio

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  • PPS Kar98K Review by Dadio

    Time to finally write a review of the new PPS Kar98k , i've now had this new rifle for a few month's and she's been used for a day in anger and i feel i can give a full picture of the strength's and weaknesses of this new offering .
    To begin with this is an airsoft version of the classic German rifle used during world war two , its a regular gas powered rifle with gas in the magazines , a Co2 magazine is available as an after market option .This version is a clone of the Tanaka Kar98K that is widely acknowledged as the best of it's king on the market ,one bonus with the PPS version is an NPAS fitted allowing the tuning of the power from between 200 and 500 fps , what this means is that if you want a 500 fps sniper rifle you can adjust it on the day in only a few minutes so you will not be too hot on a hot day or at reduced range on a cold day ,my testing has been during the mild winter temperatures we have had this year so upper power may be higher on hot day's , the other advantage for those of us in the WW2 airsoft community is that it can be adjusted to the max 350 fps of a regular no minimum engagement airsoft rifle , this was the bug bear of the Tanaka's and G+G's that were frequently un usable for WW2 airsoft due to power being too high .
    The rifle is all in real wood and metal with no plastic's to be seen , the finish of the wood is good if a little too dark for my taste but is not as high quality as the Tanaka , the only steel parts are the front sight guard and the spring clip for the front barrel band , the rest is of alloy of very good quality , the finish of the alloy parts is paint rather than a chemical treatment but the paint is of good quality and neither chips or scratches easily with the exception of the bolt , the paint on the bolt has worn through in places where it slides in and out of the breach ,the paint on the bolt when new gave the action a slightly woolly feel but as the paint was abraded it becomes a more crisp feel that i prefer , you can see the paint wear in the pictures .
    The cocking action is light due to the gas power system and the bolt does not need to be fully drawn back in order to cock and load ,in fact a stroke of only 20mm is all that's needed making quick repartition of shot's easier .
    The front sight is adjustable for windage and the rear sight is of the tangent type like an AK and adjustable for range.
    The magazine hold's 10-11 round's and has gas capacity for over 30 shot's, I have 4 magazines and there seems to have been a revision in how they were made as I have 2 with brass power valves and 2 with steel valves , 2 will accept 11 rounds as advertised but the the other 2 only take 10 rounds .
    It comes in a regular brown cardboard box with dense expanded plastic packing that protect's it well enough for safe delivery ,in the box comes the rifle with bolt removed and in a separate cut out , one magazine , a bag with a small allen key and screw driver both for power adjustment and finally the "instructions" , the instructions are very sparse but do include a parts break down.
    Power is adjusted by first removing the bolt , this is a simple matter of releasing a catch and withdrawing the bolt from the breach , once removed you must unscrew a small locking allen screw at the top of the bolt towards the front ,then insert the screwdriver into the nozzle and adjust the screw found in there either outward to reduce the power or inward to increase it , once the power is where you want it just lock the allen screw and re fit the bolt .
    The rifle has a good weight and feel , the wood finish around the hand grip is noticeably smoother than else where , the trigger is nice and smooth and not at all heavy , the rear sight's are quite far forward but more than adequate ,there is a rail on the side of the rear sight for the fitting of a scope if needed .
    The cost of the rifle is very attractive at around £200 from the far east or around £300 in the UK ,magazines are around the £25 mark again that's a delivered from the far east price and i believe are Tanaka compatible.
    So how does it fair in use ? well last weekend i used the rifle all day on Saturday at a WW2 event and it shot flawlessly all day , i was re loading in field and re gassing only at control point and i never ran short on gas , the range and accuracy was very good , it is meant to come with a tight bore barrel but i have no means of confirming this , it uses a standard vsr type hop rubber and barrel so is easily upgradeable if needed but i doubt i will as i see no need .I spent the day up against Thompsons , Sten's ,BAR's and other bolt action rifles and she made a good account of herself , frequently people thought i was at 500fps when in reality i was shooting at 330fps at the beginning of the day although that may have climbed as it warmed up .
    So what's wrong with it ?
    There are two thing's that are of concern , the first is the power consistency between magazines , I'm seeing 10-20 fps power variation between magazines ,for my own purposes this is of no concern but i know many sniper's who finely tune their rifles who may find this unacceptable .
    The second problem is wear on the hammer part of the bolt , this is a similar problem that early G+G rifles suffered with , I've taken some photo's to show this , in my case i have replaced the part buy turning and milling a new part out of steel but this is not going to be possible for many people and not something I'll be offering as a service due to the time involved , although i saw the wear it at that time had had no effect on the operation ,i just replaced it because i could , its possible the Tanaka part would fit but i have not try'd it , it would also take a great deal of wear to make it fail as it is very thick piece of alloy and i may be voicing un founded worries .
    These rifles are selling like hot cakes and it's hard to find them in stock and it's entirely possible that the wear in the hammer might be rectified by the manufacturer as I'm sure I am not the only person to notice it.
    So if you are in the market for a Kar98K and are trying to choose then this is a serious contender , while not of the quality of a Tanaka in the quality or finish it is as good as the G+G and more consistent than the G+G and comes with NPAS that neither of the other brand's offer , it's considerably cheaper than the other two high end versions and probably better than the G+G and leagues better than the Dboys versions that are so poor as to be outside comparison .
    I hope you find this helpful and feel free to ask questions.












    these last three are of the hammer removed from the bolt to show the wear.



  • #2
    Re: PPS Kar98K Review by Dadio

    Looks to be a lovely rifle. I've been looking for one in the UK and so far no such luck. A few retailers say they're getting stock in for the summer, but no promises.
    Nice use of the zeltbahn too. I've always loved Splittertarnmuster.

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