Making Gewehr 88 Repro En Bloc Clips Work

[sfwh]

I have a Gewehr 88 which uses en-bloc clips and I have some originals that work great. I also have some repro ones that I was given that seem to splay out when ammo is inserted into them so they won't fit in the gun. I am aware that this is a common problem but was wondering if anyone has ever successfully modified the repros to work?

[hornady308]

I wish you luck. I have two of the fakes and have never gotten them to work well. They weren't expensive, so I beat one of them with a hammer since I figured it would not hurt. I think it helped, but mainly because I felt better afterwards.

[Earlwb]

I wonder if they need to be heat treated to make them more stiff. Granted you don't want them to become brittle though.

[sfwh]

I think maybe the metal is too thick but I'm not really sure how I would thin out such an awkward shape.

[KCSO]

The fakes are made of too thick and too spring tempered material. Nothing I have tried will make them work 100 percent. You might try slighlty annealing them and thinning them on a grinder it seemed to help some.

[KenT7021]

The material is too thick.I have a number of the clips sold by Numrich.I got them to work by putting a piece of 1/4 in steel in the clip and using a hammer on the flanges at the front of the clip.

[NikA]

I haven't measured mine yet, but I was wondering if they really needed to be the full enbloc shape to function. Seems to me one only needs the back portion of the clip to retain and feed the rounds, thinking about cutting one of mine off and seeing if the dimensions are closer to workable in that area.

[wrench]

I was able to make the repro clips work pretty well by smashing down the front flange with vise grips. Just needed to be a little thinner.
Hammer would work too, if you had something thin to pound against.