Gewehr 88 For Christmas

[Ricochet]

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/SlidePicker/G88R.jpg

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/SlidePicker/G88L.jpg

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/SlidePicker/SantaJohn2006.jpg

This is a dandy! Haven't yet slugged the bore or pushed boolits into the breech to see where they stop, but it functions great with the Lee 175 grain boolit seated to halfway down the second band (which puts it against the lands in my Persian Mauser.) It's "S" marked, throated for the .323" spitzer ammo. Won't reliably feed the 8mm Maximum boolit (which several of my Mausers are also finicky about), due to the large meplat hanging up on the breech.

At the range today it was spitting snow and windy. My fingers were frozen. The front sight needs drifting to the right; I was holding just off the left edge of the paper to keep it on. I was getting less than an inch vertical dispersion but 4-5" horizontally at 50 yards today. I think I can fix that. Oh yeah, that was over a knife-leveled 3.7cc scoop of IMR 7383, a hair under 45 grains, with a CCI #34 primer. The boolits were of about 20% wheelweights and 80% soft scrap, water dropped and lubed with White Lightning. Too dark today for the Chrony, but velocity's a bit over 2000 FPS. I'll chrony 'em when I can get out there under brighter lighting. Bore's nice and clean and black, no cleaning necessary.

The striker assembly of the G88 is massive, and it deeply indents the primers. The striker fall is relatively slow, though, and the insensitive #34 primers (made not to slam fire in M1s and M14s) took lots of double striking. Kind of like shooting 1950s Yugo surplus ammo. Those primers work great in my modern rifles, but I may have to go back to something else in some of the old timers. They need a fast hit to set 'em off.

[mag_01]

:coffee: -------Looks good enjoy your new rifle-------Mag

[Ricochet]

Thanks, Mag, I will!

[Buckshot]

.............Two things on that M88 and needing double strikes. One is to disassemble the bolt and clean it up good, oil with a light machine or watch oil. Secondly, you may also need a new mainspring I don't know what the figure is supposed to be for pounds/effort at it's compressed length, but due to it's age it wouldn't surprise me if it was a bit tired.

I kinda like these rifles, but really only have one M88 and it's had all the German mods. It was sold/given to the Turks and when I got it the rear sight ladder had been remarked in Turkish numerals. Plus it was missing the elevator, which I understand is common for these.

I used a spare Buffington sight ladder assembly and it was almost a drop in deal. Mine has a couple issues with the stock and the barrel tube has a couple dings and dents. Last time I shot it was some years back, but it shot fairly well. My future plans fo it is to rebarrel it to 7x57, then drop it into a full length Mannlicher type stock. Also put on a new butterknife bolt handle.

Your Commission rifle is certainly a fine looking specimen. The bolts work slick as can be, just like a M91 Argie or a Krag.

The other M88 I have is also of Turkish decent. However it's in one of the M38 type stocks, has no barrel tube and wears the other M38 hardware.

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

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

[Ricochet]

Yeah, I do need to strip the bolt and make sure it's free of cosmoline and goop. I can see it's got some kind of light oil in it when it's cocked, but I don't know how well the sticky glop was cleaned. Spring could be tired, too.

I think those fully Turked G88s are cool! One of those is on my wish list, too.

[Ricochet]

Took me a while to figure out how to get the bolt apart, but I did. It was full of sticky brown oil the consistency of honey, surely largely cosmoline dissolved in gun oil. When I was shooting with the snow flying, it must've really slowed the striker fall. Don't have a handy way to measure the spring's rate, or specs to measure it against, but it takes a determined effort to compress it. The bolt parts are all soaking in gasoline now. With them all degreased, with only a thin film of light oil, it ought to give a sharper whack to those #34s.

[Ricochet]

Yep, cleaning all the sticky gunk out and lightly lubing it with ISO 22 spindle oil made it feel a lot snappier. Now I need to get out for some live fire exercises.

Glad I didn't lose the little ejector out of the bolt head while I had it out! That thing falls out and could get lost very easily. It's unobtainable on the used parts market right now, and folks are talking about how to make one in the machine shop on the milsurp boards.

[Ricochet]

Well, degreasing the bolt parts didn't fix the double strike problem with the #34 primers. The spring's been in that bolt likely since the Czechs made the replacement bolt for the Turks (to replace the original bolt that the Brits took away when they won the war) right after WWI. I've E-mailed Wolff to inquire about a spring, as they don't list this rifle in their index. Anybody know if it'll use a spring for another common rifle, like a Mauser?

[Buckshot]

Well, degreasing the bolt parts didn't fix the double strike problem with the #34 primers. I've E-mailed Wolff to inquire about a spring, as they don't list this rifle in their index. Anybody know if it'll use a spring for another common rifle, like a Mauser?

..............Darn, I was hoping that would do it. I don't know about Wolff having the spring, or a suggestion other then taking one out of a Mauser and trying it. Of course, if that worked I'd guess Wolff would know, wouldn't they :-) If they don't, I don't know how much room there is between the coils when compressed. Maybe you could slip on a couple small washers to increase the rate?

I'll have to check, I think it was Springfield Sporters long ago had a bunch of M88 junk on sale and I bought some. Other then some firing pins (look like wood spade bits) I don't recall whatall I did get.

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

[Ricochet]

I'll see what Wolff has to say. That's a good idea about washers to tighten up the spring. I think there's plenty of free space between coils.

[rocklock]

Congrats!!!

That's one on the best-looking Gew 88's I've seen in a looooong time.

[Ricochet]

Thanks, Rocklock!

[Buckshot]

Congrats!!!

That's one on the best-looking Gew 88's I've seen in a looooong time.

..............I think so too and like the 1891 Argies, that mag make'em look kinda racey :-)

Still wondering about that Goober in the 3rd picture tho....................

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

[Ricochet]

Hard to do much for him. Some things just can't be helped.

[mozark]

Have you checked the firing pin protrusion? My experience with the GeW-88, and Mausers (I know it's not really a Mauser) in general is that anything under about 55 thousandths will cause mis-fires and will behave as you describe.

These are extraordinary rifles, and much underappreciated.

MM

[Ricochet]

I haven't measured the firing pin protrusion, but it's very deep. Probably puts the deepest dents in primers of anything I own. Hasn't punctured one yet. But it's putting those deep dents in the primers too slowly to reliably set off these CCI #34 military primers, which are designed not to fire when the firing pin of a Garand or M14 dimples them as the bolt slams shut. I've seen pictures of those dimples in unfired primers, and they can be pretty deep. Takes a good sharp whack to fire these. I think a standard they have to pass is that none fire with an 8 ft. lb. blow with a firing pin. On the G88, everything on the back of the bolt including the shroud and safety moves forward with the striker. Gets a lot of momentum going, but slows it down.

Found out Mauser 98 striker springs are a direct substitute. Ordered a 26 lb. one from Wolff Gunsprings. That's probably stronger than necessary as every one of my Mausers fires these primers first hit, every time, and the reference standard Mauser spring is 19 lbs. I'm not worried about it damaging the rifle, though, as the firing pin looks like a spade bit with big flat parts on both sides to stop it against the bolt head, and I'm not going to be dry firing it. Figured out the trick of holding the trigger down while closing the bolt to gently let the striker down.

What may well have a firing pin protrusion problem is my K-31. It's unreliable with the #34 primers unless I carefully clean the primer pockets of debris and seat the primers very firmly against the bottom. The primer dents, with these or any other primers, are very shallow. The tip is smoothly rounded, not chipped off. Someone mentioned to me last night that he'd found crud blocking his firing pin. When I had the bolt apart it looked clean. I oiled it and put it back together. Think I'll take it back apart and give special attention to the firing pin channel in the bolt head. Guitar strings are very handy for cleaning narrow passages. I keep a wide variety of gauges of used strings around for such purposes.

As for the #34 primers, it's often said around the Web that they have harder cups. Not so. One can easily examine them and see that they have normal thickness nickel plated brass cups. A fellow on one of the milsurp boards, I forget whether I saw it on http://milsurpshooter.net/ or on http://gunboards.com/forums/ recently said he had a CCI technician on the phone and asked him what was different about the primers. He said the cups were standard, but the angle of the anvil had been changed to make them less sensitive. Careful inspection of these primers reveals that the anvils are indeed obviously flatter than those in #200 or #250 primers, with a larger volume in the cup above the anvil for the primer pellet. Wouldn't surprise me if they also used one of the primer mixtures with lower percentages of lead styphnate and tetracene and higher percentages of fuels and oxidizers, to reduce the percussion sensitivity somewhat. But they most definitely are magnum primers. Interestingly, the military arsenal packaging says they're for loading .30-06, 7.62mm NATO, and 7.62x39mm cartridges. So they routinely use magnum primers in those little cases. Remember that WC680 Ball powder was developed for loading 7.62x39.

[Ricochet]

A spring for an M98 Mauser works. An M93 spring might be better, as it's a little shorter. The new Wolff spring I got is about 1 1/2" longer uncompressed than the old spring I took out. The spring I got is a 30 lb. one; I thought I'd ordered a lower rated one, but that's what I have. It's way stronger than needed and was a four handed job to put in, but I definitely should have a sure fire 88 now!

[Buckshot]

..............Gee, I hope that mongo spring doesn't blow the bolthead out :-)!

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

[Ricochet]

Not likely. But I'm not going to dry fire it routinely!