1888 Commission Mauser

[David LaPell]

I have been thinking about getting an 1888 Commission Mauser for one of our local military matches (anything goes as long as it is open sight and a military caliber). I looked at one the other day, it has the S on the receiver, the grooves milled in for stripper clips, and the bottom of the mag well covered. Has anyone ever dealt with these guns before? This thing is in excellent condition with a great bore, and if I can get decent groups out of it, I would rather get it than a Nagant (never liked the safety on those).

[357maximum]

Mauser had nothing to do with the GEWR88 B.T.W. :lol:


I had a turked 88-14 fall into my lap last fall and I am simply loving it. 15 grains of unique and the lee 326-175-FN group buy mould sized to .325 make it a very accurate and fun playtoy. I did absolutely zero load development for it. :shock: A very kind soul let me turn a bunch of his play loads back into brass and I needed to search no further. THANKS MATT :bigsmyl2: So far it has only shot the one load and it likely will only ever be fed this load as it really likes it. I may just kill a buck with this load/gun just to do it one of these seasons.


Noisy Maggots are neat guns but I like the commision rifle alot better.

[elk hunter]

David,

88 Commission rifles are neat rifles. The 1905 version that you describe has the advantage of not needing the special clips to shoot them as a repeater. Make sure the rifle still has the bolt head as sometimes they are lost and it can be hard to find a replacement.

Try this this site http://www.gew88.com/ for more information about the 88.

[Gunsmoke4570]

I have the 1888 modified to use the stripper clips as well. It is a Spandau IIRC. I have some SAECO GC boolits loaded up for it over 16.0gr of 2400 I'm planning on trying out on my next range trip.

[Dutch4122]

15 grains of unique and the lee 326-175-FN group buy mould sized to .325 make it a very accurate and fun playtoy............... I did absolutely zero load development for it..................So far it has only shot the one load and it likely will only ever be fed this load as it really likes it.


Your welcome, Mikey [smilie=s:

I can verify that as I have shot that rifle with the very loads mentioned. She is a sweetheart. We were shooting off hand at a 8" across steel swinger at Badgeredd's place that was 50 yards away. The gun just wouldn't allow a miss:shock: as long as the "nut behind the butt" did his part. I was very impressed by the old "Turked" Commission Rifle. That gun is the epitome of a rifle that don't look like much; but performs like a precision instrument.

It sure is a fun rifle; especially for somebody like myself who's a lousy offhand shot with a long gun.:rolleyes:

[koyote]

I was just looking to post some questions on this rifle.

I have a Danzig 1890 production, rearsenaled rifle. (S stamp) - works, fires, all matching 4 digit serial number, fun piece. But for reloading purposes I'm wondering what I'm looking for in bullets. UNTIL I start casting.

The reason I ask is mining the intarwebs results in a few answers, dependent on the writer, which side of the Atlantic he's on, what he's drinking that day, and other factors.

I'm pretty sure it's .323......

[KCSO]

The most accurate cast bullet rifle I ever had was a KAR88. That gun with the original bead front sight ( yes they made them) would shoot under 2" all day long at 100 yards. My gun was a Sears rifle bought mail order as a GERMAN HUNTING rifle in the 1930's and was shot with factory 8mm mauser ammo from then till 1990. One or two shots a year and one or two deer a year. Cases fired in the gun needed almost no resizing the die never touched the shoulder. I shot 12.5 of Red Dot powder and a 190 cast bullet sized 323. My Dad's 88 rifle was just as nice.

[izzyjoe]

the lee 175gr. is a good one, and so is the lee karbiner mold. i think it's 215gr. but i loaded up some couple months back, and they were very impressive. you can get the mould from midsouth. they make two diffrent ones, the other is alot bigger, it's 250gr. but the 215gr. will serve you well.

[L Ross]

Just dug out my 88, it's a Danzig 1890 S bore. I load it a bit different in that I use a 200 gr. F. Zika tapered plain base schuetzen bullet loaded long with 14 gr of IMR-4227. Several other shooters marvel at how accurate it is and it cost less than their rear sight. If only they had the sights of an 03A3.

Duke

[koyote]

Duke-

just out of curiosity, what's your serial range? My 1890 danzig is 33xx

[izzyjoe]

mine is a 1890 danzig, and it has a .325+ bore. so i have to size them big.

[L Ross]

Koyote, its serial number is almost 2200.

Duke

[koyote]

older than mine! :D

I'm just starting to wonder. how many of these 1890 danzig made pieces are floating around here.

[L Ross]

It is my favorite ugly gun with its dull slightly rough stock and old brown metal barrel shroud and pendulous magazine, because it shoots so well.

Duke

[koyote]

I need to get a pot and get going, I really want to try some CBs in it. Shooting the can full of turk 49 is getting old!

[jonk]

koyote- I sure wouldn't be shooting ANY full power ammo in it, much less turk. The 88 action isn't as strong as the 98 and the recoil lug can and eventually will fail with full power loads.

Now pulling bullets and downloading might be ok...

[Good Cheer]

Mine was bought for $35 and then reworked by Richard Hoch (preserving the outer sleeve) with his cast bullet barrel and mold made to match. It's a long barrel .32 cast rifle with long range sights that's a repeater. Just doesn't get any better than that.

[303Guy]

(never liked the safety on those)No safety is good or reliable. Ever see how Mauser 'safeties' are modified to take a scope? It doesn't take much to knock it into the fire position. Same goes for the SMLE and No.4 'safeties'. I never use a 'safety' - too dangerous!

[adrians]

No safety is good or reliable. Ever see how Mauser 'safeties' are modified to take a scope? It doesn't take much to knock it into the fire position. Same goes for the SMLE and No.4 'safeties'. I never use a 'safety' - too dangerous!

im on the same page, don't trust old safeties they have been known to let loose, so i load all my mausers and gew88s one piece at a time,
but they are usefull for bolt dissasembly:evil::):twisted:

[John119]

Back in the late 1970's Big 5 Sporting Goods here in Calif. were selling clean Turkish re-issues (dated 1935) of the 1888 Comission rifle.

$ 29.95 ea.

[Buckshot]

http://www.fototime.com/CDBFBF007F1D86B/standard.jpg
http://www.fototime.com/6CF8A6276D674E3/standard.jpghttp://www.fototime.com/F3635672BAE1CAA/standard.jpg

................I've got a M88/35 Turked Commission. It's an exceedingly fine shooting rifle with cast. It also weighs a ton. I could see some 5'4" Turkish trooper humping this beast all over the countryside :-) One of the most accurate loads for it was a casefull of TCCI 5020 ball and the Lee custom 236gr slug I honcho'd some years back. Velocity was a bit over 1950 fps.

http://www.fototime.com/95526EC254D5D0C/standard.jpg

The slug mentioned above is in the middle here. However it shoots most anything well. I also have another M1888 surplused to Turkey but it is still complete with it's barrel jacket. It's barrel is pretty well shot out. Smooth but well worn. I thought one day I'd make a 7x57 sporter out of it, but I doubt I'll live long enough to see that come about :-)

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

[Fishman]

Buckshot, your post is making me want to get mine out and try it out. I've had it for a while but haven't gotten around to shooting it or even slugging the bore. I had no idea they were such forgiving shooters.

[gew98]

Have been loading 154gn S patrone type bullets for my gew88's forever and they seem to like them more accurately on the high side of pressures. Never thought to cast 8mm bullets for them...but I'm really warming to that idea.

As a collector that likes to shoot...all have perfect bores but the gew91 , and all are matching bolts and npt turked with.

[adrians]

The most accurate cast bullet rifle I ever had was a KAR88. That gun with the original bead front sight ( yes they made them) would shoot under 2" all day long at 100 yards. My gun was a Sears rifle bought mail order as a GERMAN HUNTING rifle in the 1930's and was shot with factory 8mm mauser ammo from then till 1990. One or two shots a year and one or two deer a year. Cases fired in the gun needed almost no resizing the die never touched the shoulder. I shot 12.5 of Red Dot powder and a 190 cast bullet sized 323. My Dad's 88 rifle was just as nice.

i have an all matching kar88 and i would love to see a picture of the front bead sight ,mine still has the "winged" blade sight ,also # to the rifle .
KCSO could you post some pics of the front bead sight, it,s got my curiosity i haven,t seen one .
all the best adrians,:twisted::confused::evil:

[adrians]

here's my all matching erfuht 1891 kar88..

[gew98]

The most accurate cast bullet rifle I ever had was a KAR88. That gun with the original bead front sight ( yes they made them) would shoot under 2" all day long at 100 yards. My gun was a Sears rifle bought mail order as a GERMAN HUNTING rifle in the 1930's and was shot with factory 8mm mauser ammo from then till 1990. One or two shots a year and one or two deer a year. Cases fired in the gun needed almost no resizing the die never touched the shoulder. I shot 12.5 of Red Dot powder and a 190 cast bullet sized 323. My Dad's 88 rifle was just as nice.

As noted Mauser had nothing to do with the gew88...in fact politically mauser got butt *&$%^# on that .
The gew88 stared life with a roughly .312 lands and a .319 groove. In short order the germans found their bullet jacket alloys fouled the bore toot sweet and caused some burst barrels and lug setback. So they modified their bore dimensions to about roughly .316 land and .321 groove and this solved that problem.
When the S patrone was adopted in 1903 it was realized a change was in order for gew88 , gew91 and Kar88's in service. So the new S patrone was a lighter pointed bullet and starting in 1903 new made barrels were made to deal with the .323 S patrone bullet in the gew98 .Those rifles gew88 & pre 1903 98's in service as they came in to depots had their chambers slightly reamed to accept the larger diameter bullet..they did not modify bores of existing rifles just chambers & throats.
In late 1905 it was decided as well when this work was done that some rifles needed to be modified for use with the mauser 5 shot charger system of loading in place of the mannlicher clip system. When the war start in late 1914 there were nowhere near enough gew98's to go around. So the german expidited not only gew98 manufacture but gew88 modification to handle the Mauser charger. In very early 1915 turkey needed german aid bad. So the germans took the vast majority of gew88/05 rifles and shipped them to turkey and kept the mannlicher clip versions on hand for themselves as they had the ability to supply mannlicher clipped ammunition to themselves over supplying the turks such.
As well an ersatz version of the gew88 mod to mauser charger was done...the real and very rare 88/14. In place of charger guides pinned and brazed to the receiver bridge the charger guides were made out of built up weld and then ground,machined to workable specs. A very rare variant not to be confused with the gew88's that had mauser charger guides brazed and or pinned to the receiver.
Pre and post WW1 the germans sold many surplus gew88/kar88 rifles for surplus. The commercial german market made many many examples of hunting rifles in many calibers for local and export sales. Those made in the 8mm mauser caliber almost always tended to be for the very tight .318 bore...not safe with .323 milspec or hot hunting ammo. As well the czechs rebarreled many surplus gew88's for south america in the 1930's for the commercial tight bore .318 bullet.
I have a handfull matching straight issue german gew88 and gew91 rifles... they all shoot very excellently with .323 bullets at mil spec loadings. I have never tried cast bullets in them but I have read of superb results with them. I can see that as they shoot better than the like gew98 with same ammo.

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

GEW98,

I have a C.G.Haenel I expect is in the original chambering. It uses the top loadingclip charging system, and is a Sporting Rifle. Mine is stamped on the barrel by the importer .315". It is marked on the left side of the receiver "2,67g GBP" with a line under it and under neath thatSt.M.G. Is this the original cartridge chambering? I plan to slug it, and CH4D has the older reloading dies. 7,92 X 57 (actually 56,8mm in length?).

Thanks for any information you may wish to share.

Rich

[gew98]

Rich ; these are commercial german proof marks. 2,67 is the powder charge it was regulated for ( sighted ) and the "Stmg" is loosely designed jacketed bullets.
You almost certainly will need .318 bullets ( or cast) to safely use this rifle. You can likely use any standard 8mm mauser dies by just polishing the expander on the decap rod down to the desired diameter and or swapping it out with one already sized like you seek.

[Multigunner]

GEW98,

I have a C.G.Haenel I expect is in the original chambering. It uses the top loadingclip charging system, and is a Sporting Rifle. Mine is stamped on the barrel by the importer .315". It is marked on the left side of the receiver "2,67g GBP" with a line under it and under neath thatSt.M.G. Is this the original cartridge chambering? I plan to slug it, and CH4D has the older reloading dies. 7,92 X 57 (actually 56,8mm in length?).

Thanks for any information you may wish to share.

Rich

Heres a few markings and ther meanings I found in one of my older books.


The Gew 1888 proofed at 4,000 Metric Atmospheres ( 58,000 CUP) would bear a mark as follows. '2.67 g. GBP' over the mark 'ST. M.G.' the latter stands for the type of service projectile "Stahl Mantle Geschoss" (Steel jacketed). 2.67 g. is the powder charge in grams of the special powder " Gewehr Blattchen Pulver( Rifle Flake Powder)".
Blattchen is the word for leaves or pages of a book.

Other markings you may find are 8 mm over 57 and St. M.G. over 14.7 the last being the standard bullet weight in grams.

Other bullet designations you might find on sporting rifles are K.M.G. "Kupfer Mantle Geschoss" ( copper jacketed) and "Bl.g" which stands for Lead bullets.

Some civilian owned rifles had barrels intended only for use with cast lead bullets, the barrel steel of those may not be strong enough for smokeless powder loads.

Theres a short section in W W Greener's book "the Gun and its Development" that deals with European proof testing. He mentions the German method and IIRC the powder charge of the proof rounds weighed the same as the standard powder charge but was of a powder formulated to give a much higher pressure. They expected variations in the quality of powders so the proof test was to mimic a worse case scenario of cartridges that had been loaded with a defective or degraded powder. The working pressure of the standard cartridge was of course far lower than the stated 4,000 atmospheres.

[gew98]

Heres a few markings and ther meanings I found in one of my older books.


The Gew 1888 proofed at 4,000 Metric Atmospheres ( 58,000 CUP) would bear a mark as follows. '2.67 g. GBP' over the mark 'ST. M.G.' the latter stands for the type of service projectile "Stahl Mantle Geschoss" (Steel jacketed). 2.67 g. is the powder charge in grams of the special powder " Gewehr Blattchen Pulver( Rifle Flake Powder)".
Blattchen is the word for leaves or pages of a book.

Other markings you may find are 8 mm over 57 and St. M.G. over 14.7 the last being the standard bullet weight in grams.

Other bullet designations you might find on sporting rifles are K.M.G. "Kupfer Mantle Geschoss" ( copper jacketed) and "Bl.g" which stands for Lead bullets.

Some civilian owned rifles had barrels intended only for use with cast lead bullets, the barrel steel of those may not be strong enough for smokeless powder loads.

Theres a short section in W W Greener's book "the Gun and its Development" that deals with European proof testing. He mentions the German method and IIRC the powder charge of the proof rounds weighed the same as the standard powder charge but was of a powder formulated to give a much higher pressure. They expected variations in the quality of powders so the proof test was to mimic a worse case scenario of cartridges that had been loaded with a defective or degraded powder. The working pressure of the standard cartridge was of course far lower than the stated 4,000 atmospheres.


Moolti...If it's not marked stmg by german proof laws it's a safe bet it's not recommended for jacketed bullets. There are oodles of wehrmannsgewehr's out there marked for neither jacketed or lead bullets... but it's a safe bet they were intended for lead bullets as the 8.15x46 cartridge was used more for target than hunting. As well if a reciver is marked 10,2 at the commercial proof mark on the receiver that indicates sighted in/rated for the sS 196gn bullet. I've only encountered this on some few wartime produced non military 98's and those gew98 to 98k reworks pre 1943 assembled for the SS.

[Multigunner]

STMG is the mark for the Steel Jacketed Bullet, the copper jacket has its own initials (KGM).
The 8mm GEW88 is not a 8.15X46.

There were many sporting rifles built on the Gew88 action, the type of barrel is important when judging the proper bullet. If the barrel had been intended for copper jackets, then steel jackets might cause undue wear. If intended for lead, then either type of jacketed bullet could be expected to cause undue wear.

The weight of the standard powder charge and the proof test charge are the same, the powders themselves are different, the proof powder being more energetic.
They chose this method because they found that using a heavier charge of the standard powder could not only give far higher pressures than the proof charge due to limited powder space, but even if the over charge could be keep within the 4,000 Atmosphere limitation, a overcharge in the limited powder space would vary wildly in its pressures from one proof cartridge to another.
The Powder they did use mimicked the conditions one might expect of old cartridges stored poorly in a hot climate (such as Africa), and established the safety margin.

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

My gunsmith slugged my bore and made a chamber cast for me yesterday afternoon. T-I-G-H-T!! .304" by .3145". I could be off a thousandth maybe, that's reading an old Sterrett.
Any interest here in having Swede make us a slimmer version of his excellent fat323471?

Rich

[Multigunner]

My gunsmith slugged my bore and made a chamber cast for me yesterday afternoon. T-I-G-H-T!! .304" by .3145". I could be off a thousandth maybe, that's reading an old Sterrett.
Any interest here in having Swede make us a slimmer version of his excellent fat323471?

Rich

Most .303 owners would wish for a bore that tight. You might get good results with some boolits meant for the .303. Probably have to neck size to .303 dimensions though.

Someone may have already posted the list of progressively smaller bore sizes.
I ran across an old article with the list in millimeters awhile back. I doubt I'll find it again, but if no one else has already found it and posted it I'll look for it again.

I think some commercial sporter barrels were that tight on purpose for best accuracy. Since they wouldn't be fired many rounds between cleanings they could handle the tight bullet to bore fit.