The Panzerbüchse 39, abbreviated PzB 39, (German: “tank hunting rifle model 39”) was a German anti-tank rifle used in World War II. It was an improvement of the Panzerbüchse 38 (PzB 38) rifle. This round is a 0.75 inch by 5.5 inch round.

German anti-tank rifles originated back in 1917 with the Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr, the world’s first anti-tank rifle. It was created in response to the appearance of the first British tanks on the Western Front. That single shot manually operated rifle enjoyed moderate success; approximately 15,800 rifles were built.

German development resumed in the late 1930s. In an effort to provide infantry with a man-portable lightweight anti-tank rifle, Dipl.-Ing. (certified engineer) B. Brauer at Gustloff Werke in Suhl designed the Panzerbüchse 38 (PzB 38). It was a manually loaded single-shot weapon with a recoiling barrel. When fired, the barrel recoiled about 9 cm (3.5 in), which opened the breech and ejected the spent cartridge casing. The breech block was then arrested in the rear position, remaining opened for the gunner to manually insert a new cartridge. The gunner then released the cocked breech with a lever at the grip. The breech and barrel would then move forward again and the trigger was cocked in preparation to fire. This rather complicated mechanism was reportedly prone to jamming as the system got dirty in field use.