I think that I will express the general opinion that little is known about the weapons of Norway, nevertheless, the Norwegians are releasing their own versions of weapons, one of which we will get acquainted with in this article. The weapon is simple and inconspicuous, nevertheless developed and produced in a country that has practically never been noted in the entire history of firearms. In general, let's see what the Norwegian designers did, and whether it was worth bothering at all with the release of their own version of the sniper rifle.
Weapons were born within the walls of the Norwegian company Vapensmia in 1985. After 3 years, the weapon passed, all tests and was adopted by the army and police under the name NM149. Honestly, even at that time, the weapon was already outdated, but this does not mean bad. Actually, at first glance it is clear that this rifle is more likely the mid-twentieth century than the 80s, however, personally, I am always in favor of reasonable conservatism, but in this case it turned out to be reasonable.
The weapon was designed for ammunition 7, 62x51 NATO standard, they were not set over targets in front of the weapon, limiting themselves to effective fire at distances of up to 800 meters, with not the highest accuracy. Despite the appearance, in many sources the barrel of the weapon is referred to as free-weight, that is, the wooden stock does not touch it, although they say in some samples for this you have to work with a knife or cartridge case. As proof, it is given that it was because of this that in the first versions of the weapon the stock often broke at the place of installation of the bipod, later this moment was corrected, however, it is not known how. It is difficult to believe in a free-hanging barrel, but we could not find people who got acquainted with this rifle, so we will leave this question open. Despite the fact that the weapon has a wooden base, the designers provided for the adjustment of the rifle in length for a specific shooter, though by placing spacers under the butt plate, which is somewhat old, but cheap and reliable. The sighting device of the rifle is only an optical sight, the weapon does not have open sighting devices. On the rear side of the shutter there is a safety switch in the form of a rotating element. The rifle is fed from detachable magazines with a capacity of 5 rounds.
The basis of the weapon was the "Mauser" bolt with 3 protrusions, which is already a time-tested and well-proven solution for such weapons. The thick-walled rifle barrel has 4 grooves in its channel. The total length of the weapon is 1120 millimeters, while the barrel length is 600 millimeters. The weight of a rifle without ammunition is 5.6 kilograms.
Whatever it was, and no matter how I liked this weapon, but I really like it, but I have to admit that this rifle is more of a hunting weapon than a sniper's tool. Apparently, the designers of the Vapensmia company were of the same opinion, since already in 1990 they created a modified version of this rifle.
The key point of the modification was the replacement of the stock tree with a light alloy, which radically changed the appearance of the weapon. In addition, the butt was equipped with a height-adjustable stop for the shooter's cheek, open sights, a flash suppressor appeared, as well as folding bipods, already included in the weapon kit. Despite the update of weapons in the army, you can very often find a rifle in its original design, so updating weapons is a problem not only for us, but also for Norway.
We have to admit that the Norwegian designers disappointed a little, giving preference to the structure already run in from all sides, without introducing anything new into it, but this may be for the better, since with this approach the result is guaranteed, and it is very, very difficult to spoil the Mauser 98.
