German GEW 98 rifle at 800 yards.

[Rapidrob]

My club, NM MILSURPS have our 1,000-yard range in Albuquerque, NM. One half of the range is metric, the other half is in yards.
Yesterday we were at the 800-yard range, The weather was perfect. Bright sunlight, no humidity, 85 degrees F, and almost no wind.
I've owned a 1918 GEW 1898 rifle that has ben to Turkey for a long time. It was not a great shooter. It was a safe queen.
I decided to dig it out and clean the bore. It was dark with little rifling. I use a DIY bore cleaner that is supposed to really clean an abused rifles bore. I filled the bore and corked it up over night. The next morning I un-corked the bore and dumped out the cleaner.
Mud came out. I expected the bore to be a sewer-pipe. I pushed a tight fitting cleaning patch through the bore and it came out looking as if it was ran through a BBQ grill.
When cleaned out and dried the bore was bright and shiny! The rifling is rounded to be sure, but no pitting or any visable damage.
The striker spring was weak. I replaced it with a Wolff 25 pound spring.
I took the rifle to our 500 Meter range last week and the rifle shoot 1953 198 grain Yugo ammo, and showed the rifle could shoot very well.
We went to the YARD side of our range and set the man torso AR-550 armored target to 800 yards.
I set the rear sight to 700 Meters. We are sitting at 5,800 feet ASL. Thinner air. Bullets go a long way.
My first shot was a hit! The flash was tripped. I'm impressed.
I fired 30 rounds at the target. I missed on 8 shots. The mirage got me! HA!
My friend Ted on the left and Chris also hit the target many times.
Between the rifles we had on hand, the target did not stand a chance.
I really like this old Mauser. It is a keeper!

800 neters wuth 1918 GEW Mauser.jpg

[Dave W.]

Pretty cool. Looks like you had fun.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Thanks for a very enjoyable thread! I had, but sold, a GEW 98 that had been given to Turkey as war assistance by the Germans. It was in very nice condition, but the stock was something other than walnut. I never did fire it, but have shot the 4 Turk K. Kale M-38 8x57mm long barreled rifles that I still possess. Their accuracy never disappoints, but their unwieldy length pretty much confines them to target shooting. A little ungainly to carry through the woods. I still have most of a case of the Turk 8mm ammo, plus a couple of hundred rounds from which I pulled the bullets, dumped the powder, loaded it back into the same cases at a uniform measured charge, and reseated the bullets. It remains corrosive because of the Turk berdan primers, so a good cleaning is always performed. The Turk rifles and ammo were just about at the end of the great surplus wave and were great buys.

DG

[Rapidrob]

I, too, have Turk rifles in my collection. They, too, shoot very well indeed. Most are 8/10 scale for condition.