The small ring to large ring was the biggest "over design" thing ever sold to the German military. While it may be marginally safer they still continued to make small ring designs. The Kar. 98a you have is one example, the Swed, G33/40, VZ-33 are others. Then there are all the commercial rifles based on the Mauser small ring. 1903 Springfield, the M-70 Win. and numerous others. And the Sweds and M-70's in particular have all been made in some pretty hefty calibers. I have a German sportered Kar. 98a that is in 9.0x63 caliber, before I had it a guy shot 9.3x62 in it. He said recoil was "awfull" and he sold it. But he fired half a box thru it before he gave it up! There were some other good safety feature's on the 1898 design but the large ring was minor!
Labor was the cheapest part of making anything back then, also!
Last edited by dave; 12-28-2015 at 05:26.
You can never go home again.