The Turk that should have been, and actually WAS! Part 1

[Buckshot]

..............Some number of years back when Turk M1938 rifles were selling for like $49 on sale at Big 5 I bought one. It looked pretty nice and seemed to be in good shooting condition. While it was certainly finished notably less well then say a 1909 Argentine, the price was also much less. Besides, a high powered rifle for $50? Sure, I'll take one:D

I eventually got all the Turkish real estate out of the action and bore and flushed all the grease and crap out of the bolt. I loaded up some ammo for it and was very surprised to find I had to size the boolits to .323" as .325" was too fat for the throat and the boolit would get all rucked up and pushed back into the case. You'd also need a mallet to close the bolt. The groove came in a very tight .323" and the bore a .314".

Ended up I couldn't hit nuttin wit it. All my hopes dashed right there. It all looked so good:veryconfu I set it back and forgot about it for some time. Later on I thought I might check it out some and decided to take it apart. Heh, maybe I could put it back together different and it'd shoot?

So I got all the military bands and crap off of it and was lifting the barrled action out of the stock, when something went "Boing!" WHat did that was the stock coming free of the barrel, as it made a distinct swing to the left with a bit of a twist to it. Well gee! No wonder it didn't want to shoot.

You could buy M38 wood at that time for like $12 I think it was but didn't want to spend $12 + shipping for something that might have been even worse? I again set it aside while I wondered what to do with it. At some point I decided I would really like a Turk carbine. At the time I'd never heard of a Turk carbine so the idea was unique to me, so I thought. As it turned out, the Turks DID produce a very similar animal as the model 1905, but all were made from their model 1903 actions.

http://www.fototime.com/E30422B21C717FF/standard.jpg

So I adjourned to the manufactory where I commenced to perform havoc upon it with some of my official gunsmithing tools. To wit, a 6" bench vise and 2 Ridgid pipe wrenches. The barrel had been hack sawed back to the desired 20" length. The farther wrench IS biting on the barrel, but at a point above a step that would be turned back. Marring would be turned off. I almost ripped the vise off the bench but heat from a hair dryer and penetrating oil worked thier magic. It came loose with a sudden "BANG!"

http://www.fototime.com/1547652DB9F6D17/standard.jpg

In this photo the barrel step is getting turned back. This is before I had my good lathe, so this is the *** Chinkawanese mill/lathe combo. However, it had a file and sandpaper beat all to heck! It finished up much nicer then these roughing cuts appear.

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The muzzle getting turned down after being crowned, and a bit for an anticipated band.

http://www.fototime.com/CE1A4C75CB4CDBB/standard.jpg

So you end up with this. Actually this photo was taken before the step was turned back, but it's at the correct barrel length.

On to Part Dos!

...................Buckshot

[Buckshot]

............So most the big stuff had been done, and now it was the farking detail things that needed doing.

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This is the Turk rear sight. The base is attached to the barrel via soft solder. The curved piece is seperate from the base and is wedged in place and primerily retianed by the ladder when it is in place. Now you can't have a carbine with that long ole infantry rifle sight. Just wouldn't be right :D

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Here you can see the seperate curved piece. The base has been sectioned and mig welded back together and put back on the barrel and soldered into place.

http://www.fototime.com/68952D4ECECA540/standard.jpg

In this photo the curved piece has been shortened with the curve modified. The ladder is still stock length. I stuck it back in to cypher out how much to remove.

http://www.fototime.com/21EAA9504FE2A34/standard.jpghttp://www.fototime.com/28CD1519DD77005/standard.jpg

On the left is the sectioned ladder. On the right is a VERY poor photo of the completed rear sight. BTW, the new shorter handguard wood is from Century Arms from a M94 Swede. Naturally they sent a Birch handguard and the Turks stock is walnut.

Tonight I'll finish up with part 3. The stock modifications and the finished carbine.

...............Buckshot

[Buckshot]

http://www.fototime.com/A194C84456131E0/standard.jpg
This photo is out of sequence as it was taken before the barrel step had been turned back, and the barreled action is laid in the unmodified stock for checking. It does give you an idea of the difference in length though.

http://www.fototime.com/B1E63E1806F5EFB/standard.jpg
In this photo the stock has been sectioned out at the lower band and the front part put back together. I drilled 2 holes in both pieces. I use a piece of 8-32 threaded rod in the holes long enough to extend out and into the opposite mating holes. Then I filled the holes with epoxy and clamped the barreled action in place to serve as a guide and form.

http://www.fototime.com/430CE81E0507D7B/standard.jpg
I installed a barrel band spring, as it merely had a screw through the band and the stock to retain it and the band spring looks better to me. I had to make the nosecap since I wanted a Mannlicher full length type stock. Basicly all it is made of is a couple pieces of 1/8" thick strap that had been heated and been beat unmercifully until it began to look like a nosecap.

I had turned down the muzzle end to take a front sight base. I used a piece of 5/8" keystock and drilled, then bored a hole in it to fit over the barrel. After cutting to the right height I milled a dovetail in the top to accept a Mauser barlycorn front sight blade. The sightblock was then soldered in place.

The nosecap fits on the end and over the front sight block. Naturally it has a hole in front for the barrel. There is a hole on either side so the front sight blade can be drifted back and forth.

http://www.fototime.com/B994F8B106821EE/standard.jpg
Since this was supposed to be a cavalry carbine, the regular sling swivels on the bottom of the stock had to go. Thinking the Turks wouldn't throw anything valuable away I mounted one in the side of the buttstock where one for a cavalry carbine might go.

http://www.fototime.com/3AB71B25EE06EED/standard.jpg
For the front band, I cut the swivel hump off the other one and then welded it to the side of the front band. A bit of work with the Dremel had it looking pretty spiffy. I STILL haven't gotten around to bending that bolt handle down.

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The finished carbine.

http://www.fototime.com/26DD2D3FC2EF69E/standard.jpg
The other side

http://www.fototime.com/4081B75BF8E1589/standard.jpg
And here it is down in front with it's stablemates. At the back is a fully Turked M1888 commission, which I suppose should be called a M88/14/35. Next down is another un-messed with M38 I'd later bought for $69 at Big 5. Right behind the new carbine is a Turk M38/46, or their answer to the German K98 configuration. This was one of a '3-Fer' SOG had many years ago for $125.

The other 2 were pretty much dogs. Two buddies bought them for $50 each so my rifle cost $25! One was a good shooter but had a crap stock. They swapped out wood and the other rifle with the wasted barrel was converted to 35 Whelen. He eventually put it into a Walnut Midway stock and it's a shooting SOB.

The one shown there is the one I managed to split the stock slightly thorugh the wrist, while successfully trying to get my 240gr Lee custom 8mm slug up to 2300 fps! It wasn't bad and you can barely even see it now, even while looking for it.

The bottom 3 rifles have their actions line up pretyt well so you can see the lower band, handguard, stock and barrel length differences pretty well.

So that's that. Oh, it shoots pretty good too. The carbine that is.

..............Buckshot

[Junior1942]

Buckshot, www.jgsales.com has Turk M38 Mausers for $65 in "Good Condition." See http://www.gunsamerica.com/guns/976614635.htm

I'm thinking about getting one and making a scout rifle out of it.

[Buckshot]

Buckshot, www.jgsales.com has Turk M38 Mausers for $65 in "Good Condition." See http://www.gunsamerica.com/guns/976614635.htm

I'm thinking about getting one and making a scout rifle out of it.

.............Well ya orta! How much longer are high powered centerfire rifles, COMPLETE going to be available for that kinda money? My buddy built a 35 Whelen on one and it's a nice rifle.

..........Buckshot

[SharpsShooter]

Nice project Buckshot. Good pictures too.

[jethrow strait]

Estimado Sr. BS, I'll second Sharshooter's congrats!-------even though my ageing computadora gagged for about ten minutes on that virtual herd of images. You sure got your 49 bucks worth hombre. Your project brings back memories, Ankara/ASFA memories, but my five $49 specials(heck, the bolt alone is worth that!)have been dormant lately----until yesterday. Danged if one of the rangemasters didn't greet me yesterday at port arms with a 1903 Turk(re-arseneled in '37)bayonet and all, saying "Here, it's yours!". And now, your thread. Guess I'll have to get into 'doin the Turk' again.

All but one of mine, the one of 98-22 origin(and even it got a receiver sight and a tall Brownell's front blade), have been happily butchered by yours truly. The only one with a large thread receiver(originally a GEW 98 which still had about a third of the kraut arsenal marks on top of the front ring)is now a .270 sporter, another with a bad barrel now sports one of those tejano .45ACP barrels; one I even rebarreled with another Turk barrel I got off eBay(talk about Turk fever!). The ones still in 8mm are great shooters, rivaling the Swedes. That's one of the reasons I was gatherin up 8mm molds, like a squirrel in November, a few years ago.------jethrow

[Buckshot]

..............Sharpshooter and Jethrow, thanks. I appreciate it. It was a fun project to do. Those Turks were the bargain of the century. That is, after the Swedes of the mid 90's. The M38 in the photo of the 4 rifles above is either a Gewher 98 or a Czech. Only a tiny bit of what was stamped on the reciever ring is visible under the Turk re-stamp, and the sidewall is blank. You can look inside the action ring and see it's a true large ring.

I understand there is still quite a store of Mausers in Argentina and Brazil, and it's rumered that Russia still has mountains of WW2 stuff. I don't know who else might still have inventories of saleable stuff, but it would seem to be getting pretty slim in the milsurp marketplace. I don't think many of us will be able to afford to go out and buy 5-6 of something without taking a 2nd out on the house anytime soon :D

I don't know what I'm worried about though. I have a couple Carcano's I haven't done much with, and a M1917 in the same situation, not to mention a K31 which has had 50 fire forming loads through it to date. It's just that I have this weakness ............ha!

...............Buckshot

[Frank46]

Buckshot, talk about the 90's. A buddy I know owns a gun shop(bet you can guess where this is going) and one day he had a rack of 96 swedes for $75 each. Since I was a regular customer I managed to get a cleaning rod and some patches. Went home with 4 of them. All reall nice bores and only one that had a bubbaized rear sight.
Figured one day I'd do something with them. One I glass bedded and shot on a regular basis. Before my cataracts the thing was like a match rifle. Thanks for the memories.
Frank

[JDL]

Buckshot,
Real fine gunsmithing! That's exactly how I would want my Turk to look, if I had one. Dadnabit, 3 or 4 years ago Century had a special of 4 for $100. No I didn't! :-( -JDL

[gregg]

That is so cool you don't even want me telling you how cool it is.
Its just cool.. Way to go buckshot