The Tankgewehr M1918 (The Original Anti-Tank Rifle !!!)

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm watching them right now.

[00:00:07]Unfortunately, they have wandered over onto the Kentucky Ballistics range. I'm a little worried for them. It looks like two 4-footers and a little two and a half footer. Very cute little family out here. Uh-huh. Yeah. I'm going to try and tag them today.

[00:00:26]What's that sound?

[00:00:33]Oh no, boss is here. He's in a monster truck. Someone needs to warn that family. Get out of here.

[00:00:41]I see him, Chad. Oh yeah.

[00:00:48]Bossy ran him over.

[00:00:53]I got to go.

[00:01:04]What's up everybody? MY NAME IS SCOTT AND YOU'RE WATCHING Kentucky Ballistics.

[00:01:08]And I don't know if you know this, but I love anti-tank rifles. And we've had some pretty big ones on the channel, the Lahi, the Solarthorn, the Onio. But today we have the grandfather to all those tank rifles. The very first anti-tank rifle ever built, the 1918 tank air. So in World War I around 1916 and 1917, British tanks started showing up on the battlefield in Germany didn't like it. So Mouser made the 1918 Tank.

[00:01:40]It is basically a giant Mouser. As you can see here, it says Mouser 1918 on the top of the gun. It is a singleshot boltaction rifle that's just huge. This bolt is absolutely massive and it is chambered in 13.2 mm. Compared to other firearms that were on the battlefield at the time, the tank of air was an absolute host. This thing weighs around 40 lbs, is about 5'7 in long, and has a 40in barrel, and is producing around 12,000 foot-pounds of muzzle energy. And this is what it fires, the 13.2 mm. That is a 740 grain bullet. And this looks like a 50 BMG round, but it's actually slightly bigger. So, like I said before, this is basically a giant mouser, but I want to give you an idea of just how big this action is because it's almost comical. It is literally about the size of a Coke can. Also, fun fact, Tankir, if I'm saying that correctly, means tank gun in German. I am very excited to show you this anti-tank rifle today and have some fun with it. It's over a 100red years old and I have no idea when it was shot last. So, without further ado, let's go get set up and get started.

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[00:03:38]This guy takes his land pretty seriously, I guess.

[00:03:42]OH NO. OH NO.

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[00:04:42]Everything had to be custom made for this gun because it's so old. I have custom brass and custom bullets. The original bullets for this gun would have had a steel tip, but these actually have an aluminum ball inside of them and the rest of them is jacketed lead. So, take that into consideration today. When it comes to penetration, I do believe these are going to penetrate very well, but the originals may have done a little better with that steel tip.

[00:05:09]Okay, first round going in there.

[00:05:17]All right, here we go.

[00:05:36]Oh man, I'll tell you what. I was expecting that to kick a lot harder. I am a very poor judge of recoil, but that was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. I've heard a lot of stories about this thing kicking super hard, but I don't know, maybe I'm just kind of numb at this point.

[00:05:56]That is awesome. And that came out of there very nicely. No signs of over pressure or anything like that. These rounds are golden. Okay, let's have a look.

[00:06:06]It appears that we definitely punched through that steel. Doesn't look like it had much trouble. Uh I did hit a little to the right. That's a big hole, isn't it? Look at that. I could almost I bet I can. Yep. Get my thumb in there.

[00:06:24]That's pretty awesome. Yeah, I hit a little to the right. So, my elevation is good. Just my windage is a little off. I have our first quarter inch steel plate still set up. And now I'm gonna set a second one behind it. Now it's not supported, so take that into consideration, but we're going to see if we can make it through both. Second round of 13.2 millimeter going down the hatch. Just so you know, these rounds were originally designed to go through about8 to 1 in of steel, but that was with the steel tip. All righty.

[00:06:58]Here we go.

[00:07:15]Let's have a look here. It appears that I compensated a little too much for my windage. I knew I was going to hit to the right here, so I aimed to the left, but I think I aimed a little too far to the left. We have a nice solid hole punched out of that steel. But looks like I hit the cinder block.

[00:07:34]Not good. And here's pieces of the bullet right here on the ground jacket and whatnot. But even after hitting the center block after going through that steel, looks like we still punched that pretty good.

[00:07:51]And we've got us a a lump on the back here. So, I think that if I would not have hit the center block, we probably would have had a pretty good shot.

[00:08:32]Sorry about that. I'm not really sure what came over me. Up next, I want to see what happens when we hit some modern armor with the tank giver. So, this is a Premier body armor armored helmet. This is supposed to stop up to 44 Magnum, I believe. But I'm curious to see what happens when we place this on a ballistic dummy lab zombie bust. If we have a clean hit, I'm pretty sure we're going to go through. But if it hits an angle, will it deflect it? I think this next shot's going to be pretty cool. But you know what's even more cool than that? The ballistic bandit parked in your driveway. But you better act fast because you're running out of time to get this custom one-of-a-kind build 1979 Pontiac Trans Am with a custom Roadster Shop chassis, over 700 horsepower, Texas speed motor, four-wheel drive, and all the amenities of a modern vehicle. The Ballistic Bandit is a lean mean machine, and somebody's going home with it. All you got to do is pick up some Kentucky Ballistics merch. For every $5 you spend until June 15th, we'll get you one entry to win this thing. Every week I'm introducing a new shirt and this week's shirt is the 357.

[00:09:37]This is one of my personal new favorites. I love the blueprint design and if you want to pick it up, there's a link in the description down below that will take you to Kentucky Ballistics.com. ACT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE. We are all loaded up with another 13.2 mm. See what happens when we hit this helmet.

[00:09:55]>> Okay, here we go.

[00:10:03]Oh, that did not look too good.

[00:10:22]Judging from all of the green liquid on the table, I'm going to say that that helmet did not stop that round. which I mean honestly I mean I didn't really expect it to but there's always a chance that it could deflect it. Let's have a look at Mr. Zombie here. Uh he's not looking too good. Let's get the chin strap off.

[00:10:43]Oh, that's lovely. Yeah, just about everything that was inside there is now on the table. Oh, actually, no, it's it's not on the table. It's literally just sitting inside the helmet.

[00:10:58]Okay. Oh, that's great. Let's have a look at this helmet. So, we have a hole right there.

[00:11:03]And then, as you can see, we blew right through the helmet and then I don't think Oh.

[00:11:11]Oh, it looks like we hit the front of the helmet right here and then probably bounced off because we do not have another hole. I would say that was quite a bit of energy transfer even after going through this helmet. So, now it's got me wondering. I wonder what that would look like in some ballistic gel.

[00:11:31]All right, we have two 16-inch blocks of 10% clear ballistics gel made by Clear Ballistics. And now I'm pretty much just going to point blank them with the tank giver.

[00:11:44]All right, loading up with another round. And I'm not going to risk this because I only have a few rounds left.

[00:11:49]We're going to point blank this gel.

[00:11:52]There we go.

[00:11:58]broke the cinder block.

[00:12:19]Okay, let's have a look at our gel. Uh, so much energy from the first block.

[00:12:26]That initial hit destroyed this center block. Now we have first block here.

[00:12:34]And I'm going to say that is our entrance hole. And then we can see this was a clean uh wound channel. And then what looks like we started to tumble there towards the end. And yeah, look at the way it came out of this thing. It's kind of looks like it probably started to tumble.

[00:12:52]Now, let's look at this other block. I believe we lost it. Yeah.

[00:12:59]Yeah, we entered that block. All kinds of squirrely, it looks like, and then went inside and then it looks like it came out the top.

[00:13:10]Or maybe that's the side. It either came out of the side or the top. But regardless, we lost it. But that was some pretty good energy transfer for a full metal jacket.

[00:13:21]Okay, we shot an armored helmet. Now, how about some modern body armor? There was some body armor in World War I, but nothing like this. This is a Premier body armor level four plate, and I've actually managed to stop 50 BMG with this thing. But will it stop the 13.2 mm out of the tank there? Since the mannequin's kind of tall, I really don't want to shoot from a downward angle up at him. So, I've got my standing bench rest here. Let's see how this works out.

[00:13:52]Okay, let's see how this goes. I'm a little crooked, actually.

[00:14:02]I'd say he felt that one.

[00:14:16]Let's have a look here. I can go ahead and tell you I'm pretty sure it stopped it from the way that mannequin looks. We got us a hit right there and then bam, we stopped it. But boy, that was a lot of energy transfer. Normally when one of those plates stops around, we'll see the chest cave in of the mannequin or something like that. But um this guy, he got blown completely in half from that energy transfer. So, I'm going to say that the tank be kicking. Wait, how do you say that in German?

[00:14:55]>> Nope. Not even going to try saying that.

[00:14:57]Today, we've shot just about everything with the tank of air. We've shot metal, we've shot armor. Now, we're going to shoot some bulletproof glass. A lot of armored vehicles are equipped with bulletproof glass, so I'm curious to see if we can make it through it with a 13.2 mm. Now, this glass obviously has been shot quite a bit, but it's still got some life in it. This section here is pretty good. So, I'm going to give it one last shot before I throw it away.

[00:15:25]This thing is so heavy. I can see why you mostly shot it prone, but kind of curious if I can shoot it standing. We may do that next, but for now, let's shoot the glass.

[00:15:37]All right, we are good to go. Okay, there we go.

[00:15:53]I think it's pretty obvious the tank of air would definitely make it through bulletproof glass. I mean, it is blew clean through that, made a huge hole, and then continued on through back here.

[00:16:04]And uh I'm not really sure what it hit, but I do know I would not want to be behind bulletproof glass with a tank of air pointed in my direction. Okay, for my last trick, I'm going to see if I can shoulder fire this thing, which is easier said than done because it's very front heavy and it was not designed to be shoulder fired. Now, just take a come of practice.

[00:16:30]Oh, I I think I'm going to have to come from up here. I'm going to have to get it on my shoulder and then come down and then shoot.

[00:16:43]Yeah, we only get one shot at this because this is my last round. Like I said, I didn't have many.

[00:16:50]Throw that in there.

[00:16:53]Okay, here we go.

[00:17:00]Okay, there we go.

[00:17:14]Oh my goodness.

[00:17:20]Yeah, you could do it one time, but after that, you're probably going to get ran over by a tank.

[00:17:36]I hope you enjoyed today's video. Let me know what you thought about the tanker in the comment section down below. Be sure to give it a like and make sure you hit that subscribe. Wait a second. I don't own a Mercedes. Whose car is this?

[00:17:49]Hold on a second.

[00:17:55]All right. This is my car. Anyways, yeah. Hit that subscribe button and let me know what you thought about the tanker in the comments section down below. And don't forget, you're running out of time to get the ballistic bandit.

[00:18:06]Be sure and pick up some Kentucky Ballistics merch. There's a link in the description down below that'll take you to Kentucky ballistics.com. And as always, my name is Scott. THANK YOU SO much for watching Kentucky Ballistics.

[00:18:19]See you next time.

[00:18:38]Heat up here.

[00:18:49]Heat. Heat.