Found this in the barrel of an 1888/05

[Flophound]

Hi all,
I've been working on a series of projects taking old barreled receivers and trying to make them functional firearms again.
In my most recent acquisition, an 1891 dated Loewe 88/05, when doing a quick check for bore condition, I noticed it was plugged with something maybe half an inch down from the muzzle or so. I rodded it out, and turns out it was this:

There's an S marking on the receiver which tells me the barrel was rechambered to fit the new spitzer round, but the bore size probably wasn't increased.
So, going on the assumption that this came from the depot that way, that I'm the first consumer to get their hands on this, it strikes me there are a few curiosities here.
First the point of the bullet looks roughly cut. I'm assuming someone took the tip of the jacket off an FMJ.
Secondly, as I said earlier, the bullet was stuck in the barrel. Squib/dud load, or if the bullet is .324 and the bore the old .318, maybe somebody had a very bad day with this gun.

Any thoughts and insight would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
flop

[uscra112]

Squib load, obviously. What does it weigh, as compared to period military bullets? Does the jacket cover the base?

With normal powder charges, .324 bullets will exit from .318 bores, and even shoot fairly well.

[1Hawkeye]

Don't know about the diameter but that looks like a soft point made by PPU in Croatia there soft points have that funny gap between the tip and the jacket. On the plus side now you don't have to spend time slugging the bore.

[Flophound]

Ran some figures on it. It's 27.54mm high and, at its widest point, 8.15mm around.
Weighs 173 grains.
The copper jacket that engaged the rifling looks stripped away in places, leaving a shiny silvery metal behind it.

[uscra112]

Any sign of bore damage from corrosion wher it was lodged?

[1Hawkeye]

That sounds like it was a .321" diameter bullet and the shiny areas are from when the rifling engraved into the bullet. If there is no damage to the bore it should be ok to continue with your project.

[beltfed]

Maybe the bullet was chasing some Cupro-Nickel jacket fouling from the barrel/?
beltfed/arnie

[Flophound]

Bore shows no damage from the squib or anything else. Just a bit cruddy from having sat around with one end plugged up. I'm still flabbergasted that there as a bullet just sitting there. Has anyone else encountered this?

[HangFireW8]

Is the heel of the bullet closed? If so it is likely a true hunting bullet.

[muskeg13]

The bullet also looks like one in surplus ammo that was imported and marketed by Interarms in the 1960s where they pulled the FMJ bullets from military surplus rounds and replaced them with cheap softpoints.

[nicholst55]

Bore shows no damage from the squib or anything else. Just a bit cruddy from having sat around with one end plugged up. I'm still flabbergasted that there as a bullet just sitting there. Has anyone else encountered this?

I occasionally encounter bullets lodged in the bore of .50 M2A1 Machine Guns here at the shop. Soldiers seem to have difficulty installing the quick-change barrels. Correctly, at any rate. Then, when they somehow manage to fire the gun with the barrel not locked in place, the barrel is forcibly ejected out the front of the gun as the cartridge fires. The bullet typically only goes a couple of inches into the bore before it becomes lodged.

[Flophound]

I took a look and the heel is definitely jacketed. I guess that makes it all the more curious— I got the barreled receiver direct from Century Arms. This batch apparently was (at some point, at least) in Turkish hands.
Such is the way of the milsurp collecting game, I guess.

[Don Purcell]

Should really make a person a believer in checking the bore of any weapon before firing I would think.

[winston10]

The German military never had a .318 bore Gew-88 . Since the rifle is a 88/05 it will have at least a .3208 groove barrel , just measure it . The S is not a bore size , it just means the rifle was cleared to fire the S ammo which had a .321 dia bullet and it was made to be fired in the Gew-88 with the original barrel without doing anything to the bore . The problem was a too light a load as people who do not understand the rifle tend to do , or just a squib .