Ares Kar98K Review
Ares Kar98k Bolt Action Rifle
So today I got my hands on a sample of the eagerly awaited Ares Kar98k bolt action rifle. This rifle has been promoted by Ares for a short while now and ahead of the UK release I have managed to have a play with the rifle. The box this sample came in is plain and non descript. This is normal for Ares samples. The retail release of the replica will have a much nicer retail packaging to what is seen here. The rifle was wrapped in grease paper inside a protective plastic cover. The rifle was also inset into some foam inserts so little risk of damage during transit.
That being said this rifle is beautiful. High quality wood and steel construction with a unique magazine design. The wood is absolutely fantastic and some of the best I have seen for an out of the box rifle. The steel components feel robust and all metal parts apart from a few components were magnetic and look to be steel. You have an adjustable rear iron sights with good adjustment. The bolt feels smooth and consistent as well as the bolt handle. The safety can be found at the back of the bolt and has a positive click when rotated.
There are some design similarities from other rifles that Ares produce. The bolt is kept in place by a pin system similar to the Ares Striker series and make removing the bolt extremely easy. The bolt is not Ares Striker spec however. The bolt is longer and thinner than the Striker series. The hop unit mechanism is similar to the MSR-WR take down rifle they did. This means when the bolt is operated the hop unit and barrel assembly move back to align with the feed tube for loading the BB's. Under testing, it seemed smooth and not to have any issues. The hop adjuster is found through a small hole in the top of the rifle which you use a 1.5 mm Allen Key to adjust. The trigger doesn't feel bad at all and my comfortable and predictable to shoot.
On the chrono the rifle shot at 420fps with a 0.20g BB out of the box. And before you get frustrated at me for testing a sniper rifle on 0.20g BB's, yes I did also test on heavier BB's as well. When tested on a 0.40g BB the rifles output was roughly 300fps with no hop up change. Both tested on what the hop was set to from factory which was mostly off. Having a quick test fire of the rifle it shot quite well. I was able to hit a small target at 40 metres with a 0.40g BB 8 times out of 10 with just two fliers. Ares are known not to have the best hop up rubbers fitted from factory, so I believe this could be even better with a hop rubber change just like the Striker bolt action rifles.
The rifle came with two magazines. I am not sure if this will be the same for the retail release however. The magazine is a little stack of fake bullets to disguise the magazine as something more realistic. It's a small magazine that would be easy to carry in pouches both authentic to WW2 or similar era gear and modern pouches. You pull a little tab and the door on the bottom of the rifle opens. You then sit the magazine in place and close the door to hold the magazine in the correct place. It is a bit stiff to push up and clip in but this may get better with use.
We have taken some pictures of the internal components. They have fitted a great sear system in this rifle that is 90 degrees and the release mechanism is super smooth. They have used an Ares Striker hop up rubber, so we would recommend switching this part out for something better. The rifle comes apart really easy and upgrading and maintenance will be a breeze.
I really like what Ares have built here and the only concerning part would be the hop unit as it wasn't easy to adjust the screw as it was quite stiff to turn. Again this could be alleviated with use and also TNT have already been making parts for this rifle and have upgrade hop up parts already on the shelves in Asia. The gun feels great and solid and I would feel happy adding it to my own collection. It will be interesting to see the range test results and compare them to the S&T Kar98k with wood and steel bolt to compare the performance.
I can see Ares doing well here if they hit the mark with this and the new Lee-Enfield models that are due to be released this year. Keep an eye out on the YouTube channel for the video review that I will be doing and thank you for reading.