88 commission rifle groove/bore

[swheeler]

swheeler,
Here a couple of pics of the 2 88 commission rifles I kept and redid for myself.
I am a lousy photographer so please don't make fun of them'
I have some new cherry wood (which was a period wood of the time) that I am going to use to make new stock next winter.


Jim

Very nice Jim. They will definately be some beauties with new cherrywood stocks.

[olgandalf]

Hi, I got to this thread via google. I'm trying to make rounds for my recently purchased gew 88. It's presumably from Ecuador. Removing barrel from shroud, i found the z in a circle that means czech. My caliper measures a fishing weight slug at .318-.310.
A web site is selling .321 gas checked cast bullets at $20 per 250. Are they ok for my rifle? I've read elsewhere that with pb you can or should go slightly over groove diameter.

[swheeler]

Ogandalf; those should be fine for you, I'm shooting .325 sized, seat them deep enough where you can just close bolt and give it a try.

[JKH]

My commision 88 sporter (Haenal) shoots the LEE 175 grain boolit quite well, I have a Karabiner mold and am going to try those next, my boy wants to use it for deer and that huge flat meplat should do a fine job.

I size mine to .321" I have a sizer with interchangeable bushings and use the .321" and a .318" bushing to size jacketed .323" slugs to size when I cant get factory, I also can size .32 special bullets down from .320" which make great hunting loads for the .318" bore 8X57 rifles.

Time to get set up for casting! The LEE 175 grain boolit shoots great, the 2 gang mold is cheap and readily available, I have shot it out of 3 of my 8mm's with very good accuracy so far, my old Turk mauser with a dark bore (but strong rifling) put 5 shots into 1 hole at 50 yards, I was able to repeatedly hit a small pumpkin that was about 4" in diameter off-hand at 50 yards, 100 yard hits on a 10" plate were not difficult, even with the incredibly small and crappy sights on that rifle!
The 215 grain Karabiner is showing great promise as well but definitely kicks up the recoil over the 175, much worse in the Turk for some reason but then again that rifle is absolute misery to shoot with ball ammo anyway but is very pleasent with the 175's.

Jeff

[olgandalf]

Thanks

[Dutchman]

My single "representative" Gewehr 1888 is from Ecuador. It has a new Czech barrel and measures .318" in the grooves. These were $100 from Southern Ohio Gun Works when they were first imported. Many were worthless junk. I bought this one from another collector so I knew was I was getting.



One of my cruffler friends, John van Texas, has a pretty good site on the Gewehr 1888:
http://www.texastradingpost.com/m88/

He also has a page mirrored from www.cruffler.com
http://www.texastradingpost.com/m88/commission88.html

I have a 2nd Gewehr 1888 on the way to me right now from Colorado. Its another Ecuador rifle that will be used as a "shop" rifle. I'm going to look into a LER scope mount for the Gewehr 1888. Depends on what I can do with the rear sight base.



Dutch

[dualsport]

This looks like a good place to ask. Where can I get a clip(clips?) for a 88? I have a chopped up 1904 Steyr Irish Mannlicher and just found out it uses the same clips as the 88. It sounds likely and then I wouldn't have a single shot.

[Beekeeper]

dualsport,
I got mine at Old Western Scrounger.E-mail dixie there and ask her if they are still available.
Be prepared they are pricy.
They also have to be tuned to work correctly.
Swede Nelsons web page has a tutorial on how to do it.


Jim

[bruce drake]

Numrich (www.e-gunparts.com) also sells the 88 Commission clips (repros - not original) for around $5 each. They are brass and work ok but like Beekeeper's comment above, they have to be tweaked a little bit for easy of extraction and insertion.

Bruce

[JKH]

anyone have a shooter 88 they want to trad for a WWII vintage Turk 98 in good shape? Doesnt have to be super nice, just solid with a shottabl bore and all parts intact.

Jeff

[SwedeNelson]

I still have some of the 8mm 247Gr. RN
2 cavity LEE moulds on hand.


A great bullet for the GEW88 that needs a .321.

A SAECO #081 works great too.

One of my funner rifles.

Swede Nelson

[closey]

This looks like a good place to ask. Where can I get a clip(clips?) for a 88? I have a chopped up 1904 Steyr Irish Mannlicher and just found out it uses the same clips as the 88. It sounds likely and then I wouldn't have a single shot.

I have a G88 charger spare, if you still need one PM me your address and i will drop one in the post for you.

Closey

[closey]

[QUOTE=SwedeNelson;863303]I still have some of the 8mm 247Gr. RN
2 cavity LEE moulds on hand.


A great bullet for the GEW88 that needs a .321./QUOTE]

Its also a great boolit in my Kar88

Closey

[olgandalf]

My .321 cast bullets are on order. I have never hand loaded. I've read that it's possible to take apart milsurp rounds with the inertia device and reload with 10% less powder. Is this feasible with the 175 grain .321 gas checked bullet?

[JKH]

olgandalf,

That is feasible with several caveats.

First is that you have no idea what power is used or its relative burning rate (other than it is probably fairly slow), so you will most likely end up with to high velocity and mucho leading.
(This method does work well though for substitutig commercal hunting bullets)

Secondly, you will still have the original primer which is corrosive, and you will have to clean the rifle thoroughly with an aqueous solution afterward to prevent rust (similar to cleaning up after black powder, WWII vintge USGI rifle bore cleaner works great!).

Other options; pull the bullet and dump the powder, substitute with a proper reduced load powder charge (such as 17 grains Alliant 2400, 10 grains Unique, 19 grains IMR 4227, etc), you will still have to deal wth the corrosive priming but will have a suitable load.

Best option is to chuck the idea and load from scratch with commercial US components (that is if you have the equipment, otherwise find a buddy who loads and get his help).

Keep us posted on you're progess.

Jeff

[olgandalf]

Thanks Jeff,
I'm used to corrosive ammo. I have a turk mauser and three mosins. I'm assuming I will shortly buy either used or new brass on Gunbroker. But I already have lots of turkish and yugo 8mm surplus and thought of trying a few. I have a friend with equipment who had me load 40 rounds from new brass, under his watchful eye. Thanks for the suggestions of other powders. And the encouragement

[olgandalf]

Gentlemen,
I finally have brass, cast bullets, press, dies, primers, a pound of IMR 4064, a set of Lee dippers, and a few other things. I'm new to realoading. When the brass is resized it falls right into the chamber, unlike unsized brass. How do I tell how deep to seat the bullet? When I made a test round (no powder, resized brass with the fired primer left in for ID) and chambered it, the bullet was pushed back so that only about 15mm was showing--the top lube groove. This is lots shorter than the historic cupro-nickel rounds given me by my seller. Thanks in advance, all the more if I've said or asked something stupid

[Beekeeper]

olgandolf,
Welcome to the GEW88 world.
The only stupid question is the one you do not ask.
GEW88's are special and a little different than the run of the mill weapon.
You did right in making the dummy round to test how far to seat the boolits.
The difference between what you got and what the factory rounds look like is due to the shape of the boolit.
Use the data that you aquired by making the dummy round.
I shoot several different types of rounds in my 88's and they are all different legnths.

Until you are sure of your weapon I recommend that you use the starting load data and check for bolt setback after a few rounds..

They are a hoot to shoot and are an eye turner at the range as very few people have ever seen one.

If you have problems come here to the forum and PM me and I will try to help[ as much as I can.]

If you want to use different powders than the 4064 any of the powders used for 8MM Mauser and its starting loads will work.


Jim

[olgandalf]

Well, I made and fired my fist round. 170 gr cast boolit .321 in czech barrel sluggrd at .318. I ignored the data on the IMR site of 41.5 gr 4064 for 170 gr copper clad in 8mm mauser. Instead I followed Lyman data posted elsewhere of 31.5-35 gr (or Lee dipper 2.2) as beginning load. Pierced 6'' of maple log in my back yard. No difficulty of bolt movement or deformity of case. Almost no recoil compared to my turk or my mosins with surplus ammo. Oh, OAL is 2.663". more later.
Thanks Beekeeper for the encouragement.

[Frank46]

Scot, how did you solve the wide barrel channel on your rifle?. From the pic I can see it but a description would better help me understand what was done. I have a gew 88-05 that uses regular stripper clips and the bore is kinda rough. I got lucky on gunbroker and found a swedish mauser small ring 8mm mauser bbl in really nice shape. Thanks, Frank