Gew 88

My neighbour brought over this rifle he asked if some one could tell him what he had. Not even sure what kind of round it takes I'll post pic as soon as possible

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baz, Pretty nice Turkish GEW 1888. The crescent mark on the receiver ring indicates Turkish military. The turks made several changes to the original 88's including modifying the magazine so that rounds could be individual loaded. A picture of the back half of the receiver would help determine which version you have. The "S" indicates that it is chambered for standard 8x57 Mauser. Check to see that the bolt head is in place on the bolt. Also does the bolt number match the receiver? These are not the strongest actions so read up on the subject before firing and proceed with caution. Salt Flat

Ah, a rifle of endless debate.... and collecting variations.

I have a number of these rifles also S marked, and was told to NEVER fire milsurp ammo in them. The S was the culmination of improved steel and barrel design... but NOT necessarily bore diameter. Remember that the Turks did some gunsmithing on the their own, to these rifles.

I was always told to "slug" the barrel of these rifles, to insure you know what the true diameter is..

Many people that I had met, would cast or get bullets that were diameter and powder charge reduced... to fire in these grand ole rifles. But many people claimed to fire full power loads in them all day. Wishing to have all limbs intact, I have always taken the road of caution when shooting rifles over 100years old...

If you didn't know, check the barrel bands... you noticed the XX out markings. These are the previous "German" units that the rifle had served in. Each time it was removed from a unit, the old marking was stamped out. Some expert around here will tell you what units its served in. There should be 2 digits on the band, which match the receiver's last 2 digits. If a complete rifle ran out of barrel bands to stamp... sometimes units would start stamping the buttplate.

As to worth, it depends on the bolt also. I used to get these without bolts for like $40.00 in extremely rough shape. They were even cheaper when first imported (without bolts) from South America. I have seen some examples at gunshows go from $275 to $500+ in great condition. These good condition examples are typically of an earlier import. The last mass import I believe was from a South American Country where they were stored on a dirt floor. Turkish modified riles seem to bring somewhat less than one in pure "German" configuration, at least in my area.

Technical folks claim that this really isn't a Mauser. And it is referred to as a Commission Rifle, often. The barrel shroud is novel, but makes field maintenance a problem. Most that I have seen, had really bad shrouds, but somehow the barrel outsides look good. Shroud removal is easy, if you have the tools. Otherwise don't mess with it. It would be a tragedy to crush a shroud in a vise....

As to the bore diameter? The story is that the early Gew88's had a smaller bore than "modern" 8mm's... along with a lower pressure.

Snap more photos! You seem to have a nice example there!!

I will post more pics as soon as possible thank you for the info so far.

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You have a Gew88/05, the Germans converted many of their Gew88 to use Mauser style stripper clips rather than the en-bloc charger used in the Commision Rifle's Mannlicher style action, this is one of them. The work began in 1905, hence the "05" addition to the rifle's terminology. Once war production of the Gew98 caught up with demand, the Germans started donating the updated design Gew 88/05 to their Turkish allies who were in desperate straights for weapons, this started in about late 1915, early 1916.

The rifle was designed by a Military Commision - hence the terminology "Commision Rifle". It has a bolt of modified Mauser type and an action and magazine taken from Mannlicher as well as a barrel shroud designed by Milch. As you can see, it is less a Mauser design than a Mannlicher and it's adoption by the German military offended Mauser to no end and inspired his work on the advanced 1889 design used by Belgium and others and finally led to the 98 action used by nations all over the world.

These guns got a bad rap because of earlier rifles with a thinner-walled chamber area combined with the newer S patronen for which the leade and rifling were not really designed. S converted rifles, typically, are plenty safe (slug the bore to be sure - some rifles were rebarrelled using Czech barrels in south amierica for the .318" version of the 8x57J round. The '88 served with distinction throughout WW1, Germany ended the war with many of these still in the field, long after Gew98 produciton had caught up with demand.

Guys need to re-read Claven2's post. The South American import (Equador) rifles will have Czech barrels on them. CircleZ stamping is the clue. They are 1888 tubes in all regards. Bore is .318 NOT .323 and necks are made for that .318 bullet. I'll guess that were used with standard 8mm ammunition. They managed to hold together, but are commonly found in NRA "beat" condition. By the way, the import included many boltless rifles and many bolts lacking the bolthead. Old rifles, but fun rifles.

My S chamber Steyr 88/05 seems to really like 154gn FMJ surplus, which was the standard WW1 era 8x57 S patronen (0.323"). All these guns were originally made for Patronen 1888, which was a round nosed 225gn bullet. When the Germans converted the guns to the 88/05 configuration, the addition of the stripper clip guides caused them to machine a notch into the front of the receiver so the older, longer M88 rounds could still be used despite loading a bit further forward then when using en-blocks. The notch was NOT, as is popularly reported, for the 1905 S patronen, which is actually a shorter round than the M88. The S mark also denoted that an S patronen reamer had been used in the chamber to ensure the 1905 round would work ok. On most rifles this would not have even cut metal, it was a safety precaution to ensure the neck diameter was sufficient.

The Germans shot M88 and M1905 ammo in these guns interchangeably when they had them in service, with the S round preferred for guns so converted because the rear sight leaf had been re-regulated accordingly. At short range, it didn't really change performance switching to M88 ammo, which the Germans were keen to use up as conversion of rifles to S pattern progressed.

Most GERMAN barelled 88's will have a bore diameter between .321 and .323, totally safe to fire the .323 military ammo OF THAT DAY.

Where it get dicey is that in 1934, the 8x57JS was beefed up considerably to a 198gn boat tailed spitzer with a heavier recoil impulse for use in the K98k and machine guns. I would NOT fire the M34 loading of 8x57JS in my Gew88, and neither did turkey who stuck with the M1905 version of the 8x57.

As stated before, SLUG YOUR BARREL before shooting standard 154gn 8x57 in your Gew88 rifle. Chances are you have the .323" bore, but you want to make sure - trust me.

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