Range Report: 88 Erfurt with plain base boolit

[hornady308]

Hallo, Heute ging ich zu Feuer mein Gewehr...sorry, wrong language. So today I stopped by the rifle range to try out some plain base bullets in my 88 Commission rifle. I used a Lee 175 mold that I recently converted from a gc base to plain base, and I wanted to see if I could get these to shoot accurately as a low cost and simpler alternative to using gas checks. The bullets were cast from wheel weights and left unsized. I dipped them in LLA and loaded them on top of 9 to 10 gr Red Dot. The boolits mic at .325+ and my bore is .324. The 9gr loads shot very well, with groups of ~1.3" @ 50yd. The 10gr load really opened up the groups to around 6". I have not chrono'd the loads yet, but will soon. Apparently, the 10gr load is too hot for the plain base.

136898

[hornady308]

Meant to include a photo of the rifle.
136950

[northern smith]

good idea to skip the gassheck shank, i will try that. mine is a early 98 whith the 318 bore.

[gew98]

good idea to skip the gassheck shank, i will try that. mine is a early 98 whith the 318 bore.
Early 98 ?. The gew98 previous to 1903 had nominal .321 bores. 1903 And after they were a ture .323 bore. Gew88's I have encountered have been also nominally .321 - even one I had that was not S patrone marked. Now there have been a wad of czech rebarreled gew88's out of south america that are the commercially "tight" .318 bore that is not seen on german issue weapons.
Many gew88's and alot of sporter mausers previous to WW2 had the commercially tight .318 bores. I am assuming you slugged your bore at .318 and I'd think it would be one of those south american surplused cezch rebarreled gew88's ?.

[northern smith]

well there are a lot of things i dont know about this rifle. it has been rebuilt as a hunting rifle long ago, (i guess) there are no markings of where it was originally made, and there are some guite crude stamps. one says stmg (stahlmantelgeshoss) and the other is germany. i havent taken it apart yet, so there might bee more. im not at home so cant check it out just yet.

[Ed Barrett]

The Finns with .308 Swiss barrels are extremely accurate with .311 bullets. I've never heard of a problem with military or commercial ammo. On the 88 commission I would stick to cast for the old girl, the barrel with the heat shield is pencil thin. Good Luck.

[frnkeore]

Early 98 ?. The gew98 previous to 1903 had nominal .321 bores. 1903 And after they were a ture .323 bore. Gew88's I have encountered have been also nominally .321 - even one I had that was not S patrone marked. Now there have been a wad of czech rebarreled gew88's out of south america that are the commercially "tight" .318 bore that is not seen on german issue weapons.
Many gew88's and alot of sporter mausers previous to WW2 had the commercially tight .318 bores. I am assuming you slugged your bore at .318 and I'd think it would be one of those south american surplused cezch rebarreled gew88's ?.

+1 to this.

There were problems in the first year, regarding bore and groove size, as well as a thin barrel brusting but, by 1890, all problems where fixed and the .311 x .321 (7.9 x 8.15), became standard. It's true about the Cezch barrel and also that there are very late .323 barreled '88's. There was also the Turk (Mod 1938) re-barreled and stocked 88's.

The "S" marking really doesn't mean anything, all it means is that a gage was inserted into the chamber to make sure that the 154 gr "S" spitzer bulleted cartridge would chamber, nothing else.

I have 6 GEW 88's and ALL have .321 grooves, bores vary from .311 - .312. I have 2 of the Turks, both with nice .323 grooves. This is a good sight for the Turks:

http://www.turkmauser.com/models.aspx

For PB molds for the German 88's, look for the ones made for the 32/40 and 32 Win. Spec.

Frank

[gew98]

Frnak ,, the S patrone marking is significant. It has nothing to do with a gauge...but that the chamber has had neck reamed to accept S patronen. An unreamed 88 Patronen chamber is too tight to reliably chamber S patronen and do it safely as well. I've detailed here for years the failings of early patronen88 bullet jacket material in the early "shallow" rifling. Last count I think I've got 8 matching german gew88's and a gew91. I don't mess with the turked or south american abused varieties.

[gew98]

The Finns with .308 Swiss barrels are extremely accurate with .311 bullets. I've never heard of a problem with military or commercial ammo. On the 88 commission I would stick to cast for the old girl, the barrel with the heat shield is pencil thin. Good Luck.

The gew88 barrel is quite fine as designed when S patrone modified. Dangerous things can happen if you start putting .323 bullets down a .318 commercial bore as the OP's gew88 sounds to be a guild gun with the typically tighter .318 bore.

[frnkeore]

Frnak ,, the S patrone marking is significant. It has nothing to do with a gauge...but that the chamber has had neck reamed to accept S patronen. An unreamed 88 Patronen chamber is too tight to reliably chamber S patronen and do it safely as well. I've detailed here for years the failings of early patronen88 bullet jacket material in the early "shallow" rifling. Last count I think I've got 8 matching german gew88's and a gew91. I don't mess with the turked or south american abused varieties.

I have to disagree with you here. I've researched these for more than 15 years. The "proof in the pudding" on this one is that even unmarked (S) rifles, will chamber the spitzer. The marked ones where only checked, there is no evedence that any were re-chambered. If you have such info (other than someone elses opinion), please reference it so, I can add it to my documention on them

Frank

[hornady308]

I have two of the 88's. Both have some Turk markings, but still have their original shrouds. The .324 bores are in great shape and I plan on using cast bullets only. I just got the Lee karabiner mold and cast 100+ today. I've sized them to .325 and they just slip into fired cases. I'll try them out next week and hopefully find a nice moderate load that will push them along at around 1800 fps. I figure that will kill anything in my area with ease.

[bedbugbilly]

hornady308 - was interested in reading your results! I have a 1905 Danzig GEW98 that I am shooting "cat sneeze" loads in. (bore slugs right at .323). I have tried the Lee 175 GC without using a gas check in it - shoots O.K. but nothing to write home about. I purchased a NOE plain base flat nose that is 130sh grains on a group buy - it shoots very well. I'm still working on it - haven't shot it sense last fall but am getting ready to get at it again. I had my best results with 8 grains of Red Dot - tried Bulls Eye and Unique but the RD seems to work the best. At 50 yards my groups were about 2" or so and a little low with the issue sights set at the lowest setting. I'm going to bump the 8 grains up .2 grains at a time and hopefully will raise the hits - we'll see. But, it is so much fun to shoot and I was glad to get it shooting again after sitting since 1918. (rifle was brought back by a local vet).

Enjoy and have fun! Hope you'll keep posting as you work on your loads - interesting stuff!

gew98 - when I was starting with mine, you were a tremendous help! I greatly appreciate you sharing your knowledge - I've learned a lot for an old fart!