Originally Posted by
Ricochet
Continuing this discussion, I have a warm spot in my heart for my 1944 Turkish Mauser, which I got after the days of the real bargains had passed. I had to pay $55 for it! It is one of the K. Kales with the Turkish made new receiver, the rest of the parts likely scavenged. Compared to other Turk Mausers, this one is downright homely. Its stock is larger in many exterior dimensions and roughly finished. The receiver is machined perfectly functionally, but was not originally highly polished. I suspect that at that time the Turks were under pressure to crank out usable arms in a hurry as the various WWII combatants were, because they were under heavy pressure to join both sides. The stock is noticeably thicker looking than others, the forearm crossbolt and firing pin removal tube in the butt are crudely set and recessed more deeply into the stock than normal because it's thick. The wood would be very pretty had it been finished into a fine sporter. It has a cleaning rod made of cartridge brass, which was wavy and required straightening. The receiver, barrel, sights, stock, bottom iron, and magazine floorplate all have matching numbers, but the bolt is mismatched. Roughly finished as I said, much handled, and looking "rode hard and put away wet." It came to me heavily coated in Cosmoline, of course. On the left side of the butt it had a bright red dot of paint about 2 1/2" in diameter. I wish I had photographed it before cleaning off the Cosmoline, as the gasoline I used took the paint right off without a trace. I've never heard of such markings on a Turkish rifle, but suspected it was something like the red painted band on the Romanian "Instructie" rifles, meaning one used only for training. I was disappointed to find that after thorough scrubbing with gasoline soaked patches and bronze brush, the bore was bright but only showed the gentlest of ripples for rifling grooves! I had never heard of a rifle bore so thoroughly worn out, but anything is possible, especially with an old one from over there, and there's a first time for everything. I took it to the range and fired it with 1942 surplus Turkish 8mm. I shot it over my Chrony and saw velocities near 3000 FPS with those 154 grain copper-nickel jacketed bullets, and some of the rounds showed signs of high pressure with several primers piercing. That surprised me with such a worn bore, but I'd read all the stories about high pressures and velocities with that old Turkish milsurp ammo. I couldn't get a hit on the paper at 100 yards. As inaccurate as my Mini-14! So, I got a freebie take-off barrel from another Turkish Mauser that someone was making into a sporter. I took my barreled action out and tried to remove the barrel with a barrel vise and action wrench. I couldn't budge it. So I tried the old method of using the "heat wrench" to loosen it up. (I'm doubtless making any gunsmiths reading this flinch.) I coated the action ring and breech end of the barrel heavily with SAE 30 oil, reasoning that it would smoke at around 500 degrees F and keep me from messing up the heat treatment. I applied my propane torch and heated it to the oil smoking point. To my surprise, as it stood vertically, white smoke came out of the muzzle and crumbly black particles fell out of the breech! There was no oil inside the barrel or action. I let it cool and looked inside. I could see sharp rifling at the breech end of the barrel! So I heated it similarly the full length of the barrel, with more smoke out of the muzzle and much black, crumbly, carbonaceous looking stuff falling out of the breech! I gave it a good cleaning. When finished I had sharp, good looking rifling all the way down the bright bore! After that it shot quite normally with the Turkish ammo, still no tack driver, but I could get the bullets on paper. It's much more dangerous at 200-300 yards than a Brown Bess! It's the specific one I mentioned with the .326" groove diameter, and it likes 8mm Maximum handloads much better than Turkish milsurp.
Now, what in the world fouled that bore so badly that the rifling grooves were nearly invisible, and the jacketed bullets were being squeezed down to bore diameter? I had already scrubbed and scrubbed till my arms fatigued and my hands were going numb, shot it and cleaned it afterward TWICE without loosening any of that stuff! The debris that fell out when I accidentally discovered that heating removed it didn't look like it had a trace of metal in it, just dry black coky looking stuff. It just occurred to me that if that was an instructional rifle for recruits, maybe they didn't use it only for practicing rifle assembly and disassembly, drilling, and such. They may have carried it on field exercises shooting lots of blanks, with minimal cleaning! That could account for a lot of black buildup with no bullets wiping out the grooves, and if they just pulled an oily rag through it for cleaning, that could glue the stuff together harder the next time it got hot from shooting blanks. Just an idea. Has anyone else encountered this?
Anyway, this is another one with a very surprising bore condition! Now this thing is rough as a cob and uglier than a mud fence, but I'm quite fond of it. It's not the best shooter, but it's not the worst, either. It's definitely got character!
