Diana K98K PCP… but in a real K98K Rifle

[Joshtd89]

I thought I’d started a thread on this in 2021 but now can’t seem to find it.
Story goes I bought a Diana K98K PCP as a get back into shooting rifle and something easy to use for my young boys. Wasn’t looking for anything too serious and being a bit of a history buff this seemed to tick the boxes for me.

However, after the initial shine wore off the amount of plastic parts on it got to me so I started to remake all the plastic parts in metal at work starting with the sling loop and barrel band.

But then studying the photos I had I realised it wasn’t going to quite cut it and my ADHD brain went into overdrive as I could see proportionately the real rifle was actually very different.

Cue the strip down.

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So I decided to do what every sane person does and decides to buy a real K98K to restock the PCP guts.

As you can see, the parts on the real rifle are very much smaller than the parts I made

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As is the stock

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The stock required a fair amount of work to get the PCP guts to fit. I did some measuring and found that if I machined carefully enough I could get the reservoir to fit in the stock and it would just break though where the barrel band covers. A 7/8” bullnose end mill worked a treat to cut a groove for the reservoir and a 6mm end mill machined out the rest of the stock to house the trigger mech.

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Lovely

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The area where it broke through was mm perfect to be covered by the band and enable the rifle to be charged through the original PCP rifles charging port through a hole I will machine in the sling band.

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Getting the measurements from the genuine rifle’s metal work I made a new barrel from heating a piece of larger stock the same OD to fit the genuine rear sight and inserting a faux barrel which fitted the OD of the air gun barrel and its OD slotted exactly into the metalwork. When cooled down the two are solid together. I machined a flat into the larger part to then clear the reservoir and gave the sight a little “tweak” in the fly-press.

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I then took the genuine trigger guard and machined the top off to fit in the slot. Thankfully the measuring paid off and the trigger sat perfectly

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Another bonus is the fill gauge will be easily observed when I machine a hole in the cover plate which fills this hole.

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Original foresight

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As the rifle will be used I wanted a scope, but had to be period looking. Not period as I’m not spending several thousand pounds on a sight! However, the German No.4 reticle was a must, apparently it’s the perfect crosshair for “large game” (read that as humans…) I found this great little Carl Zeiss Jena ZF6/S which is a 6x32 stop from the late 60’s early 70’s I believe.

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New bolt take down discs as the originals were too badly corroded.

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Stunning work. Do you want to do mine?

 

[Eversham]

A little teaser. Will hopefully stain the stock with Tru Oil and paint the machined parts on Sunday

 

[Eversham]

5 coats of Tru Oil down, several more to go…

 

[Mark Palmer]

Very impressive!

 

[shiftyp87]

That is incredible!

 

[Jimmypie]

Best conversion I’ve seen for a very long time , proper talent and patience !

 

[Mr Bond]

Tidy pressure gauge solution, maybe needs calibrating or de-gassing though!!

 

[Mark Palmer]

I've always thought that a Lee Enfield replica pcp that cycles and ejects dummy cartridges would be a cool idea, well beyond my pay grade to work it out though!!

 

[HeadHunter]

That's an impressive job you've done so far buddy, it looks really good, kudos to you

 

[Liam191]

Awesome, what an amazing project! Love it

 

[Joshtd89]

This is amazing. If you ever want to move it on please let me know

 

[Eversham]

Dry build time….

But

 

[Nords]

I love to see updates on this thread. I keep thinking 'Ed Harris' in Enemy at the Door...

(maybe he had something else though? He is the first German WW2 sniper that pops into my mind!)

 

[Eversham]

And that’s it done. All the little issues ironed out, cleaned, oiled and assembled. Have it a good polish with some car polish then waxed itch with Birchwood Casey Gun Stock Wax. Now time to use it.

Also, a nice touch, that production rifle was very light, the listed weight for a genuine K98 is given as 37-4.1kg depending on spec and materials….

 

[westy]

Amazing!

 

[John M]

Wow. That is amazing.

If these conversions were offered for sale, I'd even make room for a PCP in the gunroom!

 

[Eversham]

Wow. That is amazing.

If these conversions were offered for sale, I'd even make room for a PCP in the gunroom!

I reckon it’s cost about £1,000 to build in parts and the labour involved would be even more I must have spent some 20+ hours on refinishing the stock alone

 

[Robsmyth]

Fantastic work mate

 

[Rollo]

Very nice! Could even convert me
to owning a pcp.
It would be great to have one converted to a .25 springer, then you’d have some recoil too.

 

[Gunman1964]

absolutely brilliant .... all the work involved and the time spent makes doing things like this worth while,
i dont think i have a single replica in my collection i havnt done SOMETHING to .... even if its just fitting/making wood grips for it...
a big WELL DONE