Gewehr 88 ammo question!

[Spartan301]

Hello Calgunners!
I have a 1891 Loewe Berlin Gewehr 88 that I got this year and after getting a cleaning rod & repo sling for it, I'm ready to shooting it.
I see that these rifles went through many upgrades before, during and after WW1. But with all the different changes in ammo & chamber modifications, I'm a little confused!

Here is what I do know: Rifle has a "S" on the receiver with a "Z" over it.
Has not been "Turked" and still uses the Mannlicher style enbloc clip.
Barrel shroud, receiver and bolt have matching #'s.
I slugged the barrel, bore dia. is .310 - .311. ???
I know there are Calgunners out there who can shed some light on what ammo can be safely shot through it or school me on what components I need to reload for it.

Thanks,
Spartan301

[TRAP55]

The S was applied in 1905 when it was converted to shoot the Spitzer bullet round. The freebore was lengthened and the grooves deepened.
For ammo choices, handloads with cast bullets work best.
I would limit milsurp choices to just Romanian, anything else runs much hotter. Off the shelf commercial ammo limited to American produced, Euro loaded ammo like Norma, Privi, Wolf, etc. run much hotter too.
Checking the head space before shooting it would be a prerequisite.

[smle-man]

I'd stay away from any modern military load for a .318 bore Model 88. Remington's 8mm mauser load is pretty mild and uses a .321 bullet as a compromise between .318 and .323 bullets.

.318 bullets are available from specialty reloading houses, worth investigating if you reload.

OWS sells properly sized lead 8x57J ammunition for your rifle:

http://ows-ammo.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=58_21&products_id=4

[GunKraut]

Squeezing a .318 or even worse a .323 bullet through a .311 barrel is beyond dangerous.

I would recommend slugging the barrel one more time and taking exact measurements of the indentations left behind by lands and grooves, respectively.

My Gew88 barrel came out to .321 and I'm hand loading 30 cal bullets.

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

Your barrel should slug out to between 0.318" and 0.323" (for a replacement barrel). It really sounds like you have some built-up fouling you need to clean out.

You need to limit your loadings, as was stated. I handload.

The longer freebore keeps the pressure from spiking and being dangerous, but it does increase barrel wear as the bullet swages down. The 150 grain pills used had a very low bearing surface so as to decrease this wear.

My load is a 0.323" Hornady 150 grain spire point over 45 grains of Varget. Much less (or 0.318" bullets) and I start getting low pressure signs and incomplete sealing.

Regards,

Josh

[Spartan301]

Bore VS. Rifling?

Sounds like a lot of good info. Thanks everyone!

I believe all GEW 88 bores (the distance from land to land) were all .311 with .318 rifling or grooves. (8x57mm J Patrone)

The "Z" marking for Zugtiefe (Depth of Rifling) had the grooves deepened to .321, to reduce the risk of split barrels.

8x57mm JS Patrone Spitzer then opened up the rifling to .322-.323
(S marked receivers) and reaming of the chamber. Not the bore.

There seems to be a lot of FUD on the internet on this subject, mainly because of incorrect terminology. Please set me straight if I'm wrong.

I'll clean the bore again (fouled rifling?) and try slugging it again, I'm not getting much of the rifling on my test slugs.

[Springfield45]

Your 88 should have a bore diameter of .318. The .311 number should be from the rifling's. The S mark is the Spitzer type bullet modification. The Z mark means it was fitted with a barrel with deeper rifling's.

Most of the teething problems with the Gew. 88 was at first they used heavy long jacketed bullets and the barrels were soft and thin. Most of the problems were fixed with the Spitzer bullets.

Do not use modern ammo. Your hand loads should be decreased by 20%. And should chronograph at 2000 fps. Use cast lead bullets with gas checks of .318 diameter. I have used .321 jacketed bullets in mine with no problems. Use a slow burning powder like H4895.

Go slow, take your time and be safe. These rifles are getting old. And there was little provision for burst cases. Ware shooting glasses. You are responsible for your own safety.

[gun toting monkeyboy]

Squeezing a .318 or even worse a .323 bullet through a .311 barrel is beyond dangerous.

I would recommend slugging the barrel one more time and taking exact measurements of the indentations left behind by lands and grooves, respectively.

My Gew88 barrel came out to .321 and I'm hand loading 30 cal bullets.

Please read some of the other posts on here, as they explain it very well. He isn't trying to squeeze anything out of a .311" barrel. The lans on the barrel measure that, but they are supposed to on this particular barrel, simply because that is how it was made. The groves are more than deep enough to handle the larger diameter bullet.

OP, as the others have noted, yours is probably set up to handle the .323" bullets. However, I would stick with the American factory loads, or lighter hand loads. I would also see how well it shoots with .318" bullets. Because of the tighter lans on these, you may get better accuracy with less pressure using those. You can also reload using the .321" bullets made for .32 Special, as they are the same as the American factory bullets, and normally cheaper and more available than the .318" bullets. I believe Hornady makes some very nice hunting bullets in the 165-170 grain range. Yes, it could probably handle full-powered loads with .323" bullets. But that is more than the action was designed for, and your rifle is nearly 125 years old. Baby it. There is no need to squeeze every bit of performance out of it.

-Mb

[GunKraut]

...yours is probably set up to handle the .323" bullets.

"Probably" is a dangerous word when it comes to determining safe bullet diameter for Gew88 barrels as some underwent modifications during life time.

The O/P did not specify if 0.310" - 0.311" was land or groove diameter. He said "bore" which technically refers to land diameter but it's not uncommon for people to confuse bore diameter with groove diameter. After all, it's much harder to correctly measure the rifled inner diameter of a slug (=land diameter = bore) with calipers than the outer (=groove) diameter. Never assume anything, always ask for confirmation.

The groves are more than deep enough to handle the larger diameter bullet.

How do you know? What makes you so sure it's not a 0.321" barrel? Why would you not encourage the O/P to slug the barrel one more time to get a definitive answer on actual land and groove size?

My remark about squeezing a .323 bullet through a .311 barrel was purposely provocative as the O/P had omitted reporting the groove diameter. If someone wants sound advise for feeding a 120 year old rifle that doesn't have a lot of margin for over pressure by design, he needs to put all facts on the table.

And nobody should recommend any bullet diameter, powder charge etc. until all facts/dimensions are known.

[TRAP55]

Spartan, slug it, and mic both the lands and grooves.
The Rem ammo that smle-man mentioned, was loaded by lawyers. It's anemic compared to what's loaded in Europe, and was probably used in that rifle before it got here.
Get some brass, some Magnum large rifle primers, a can of TrailBoss powder, and shoot cast bullets. You cannot overload with TrailBoss, even if you compress the load. Makes a great 100yrd subsonic plinking load. No recoil, and so quite, you can shoot them without ear plugs.
When you're ready to load, give me a shout and I'll send you a handful of 165grn Flat Nose cast .321 bullets to try. No need for gas checks with TrailBoss either. If you like em, I have a spare mold I'll make you a deal on too.

[gun toting monkeyboy]

"Probably" is a dangerous word when it comes to determining safe bullet diameter for Gew88 barrels as some underwent modifications during life time.

The O/P did not specify if 0.310" - 0.311" was land or groove diameter. He said "bore" which technically refers to land diameter but it's not uncommon for people to confuse bore diameter with groove diameter. After all, it's much harder to correctly measure the rifled inner diameter of a slug (=land diameter = bore) with calipers than the outer (=groove) diameter. Never assume anything, always ask for confirmation.



How do you know? What makes you so sure it's not a 0.321" barrel? Why would you not encourage the O/P to slug the barrel one more time to get a definitive answer on actual land and groove size?

My remark about squeezing a .323 bullet through a .311 barrel was purposely provocative as the O/P had omitted reporting the groove diameter. If someone wants sound advise for feeding a 120 year old rifle that doesn't have a lot of margin for over pressure by design, he needs to put all facts on the table.

And nobody should recommend any bullet diameter, powder charge etc. until all facts/dimensions are known.

Well, let's see here... It is a German rifle, with the original German markings saying that they went through and redid the barrel to accept the .323" bullets. As was explained to you above. Now, you are right, those markings could very well be wrong. However, if you know anything about German rifles, you would know that they were somewhat... Teutonic in their attention to details like this. And that, just as described above, the rifles were modified and then stamped after inspection. I mean, yes, it is possible that he has a rifle that somehow slipped through the factory refit unchanged, and there just happened to be a drunk inspector doing a shoddy job that day. And he just happened to stamp it stating it was fine. And all of the armorers since then failed to notice something was off. I guess it is technically possible. But I would tend to doubt it. If you want to be an uptight twit and get snippy, please feel free to do so. However, judging from your low post count and obnoxious response, you can safely assume that nobody is going to listen to you. As for my advise on reloading, exactly how many cartridges do you reload for? How long have you been doing it? How many oddball cartridges do you reload for? You will note, or you would if you had much experience, anyway, that all of the steps I mentioned will either result in a lower chamber pressure than using a .323" bullet, or are already considered to be safe, and part of the industry standard. And in case you are one of those people who actually needs one of those "Do not try this at home" warnings on everything, anybody with half a brain would know to check out any information on reloading they find on random forums online out with other knowledgeable sources before they tried it. I mean, really; who takes advice from somebody named "Monkeyboy" online without doing a bit more research first? All I did was point him in some other directions he might not have known about.

-Mb

[echo1]

One of my 3 GEW 88s is still chambered for M88, one is marked "S", and the third one is a Turk arsenal refurb, 88/05? PAX

[GunKraut]

Well, let's see here... It is a German rifle, with the original German markings saying that they went through and redid the barrel to accept the .323" bullets. As was explained to you above. Now, you are right, those markings could very well be wrong. However, if you know anything about German rifles, you would know that they were somewhat... Teutonic in their attention to details like this. And that, just as described above, the rifles were modified and then stamped after inspection. I mean, yes, it is possible that he has a rifle that somehow slipped through the factory refit unchanged, and there just happened to be a drunk inspector doing a shoddy job that day. And he just happened to stamp it stating it was fine. And all of the armorers since then failed to notice something was off. I guess it is technically possible. But I would tend to doubt it. If you want to be an uptight twit and get snippy, please feel free to do so. However, judging from your low post count and obnoxious response, you can safely assume that nobody is going to listen to you. As for my advise on reloading, exactly how many cartridges do you reload for? How long have you been doing it? How many oddball cartridges do you reload for? You will note, or you would if you had much experience, anyway, that all of the steps I mentioned will either result in a lower chamber pressure than using a .323" bullet, or are already considered to be safe, and part of the industry standard. And in case you are one of those people who actually needs one of those "Do not try this at home" warnings on everything, anybody with half a brain would know to check out any information on reloading they find on random forums online out with other knowledgeable sources before they tried it. I mean, really; who takes advice from somebody named "Monkeyboy" online without doing a bit more research first? All I did was point him in some other directions he might not have known about.

-Mb

The O/P had valid questions but also assumptions which could be wrong. As an example, the mere fact that the numbers on receiver and barrel shroud are matching means nothing as barrel and shroud are separate parts. The barrel could be the correct original barrel, modified as marked on the receiver. Or not. In the past 50 years a gunsmith could have replaced it with a barrel from another, maybe unmodified rifle. After all, the O/P's rifles shows signs of heavy use. Are you able to tell from the number on the barrel shroud if the barrel inside is original to the receiver or not? X-ray vision, anybody?

Since you have lead this discussion successfully down the drain with personal insults and childish babbling about drunk inspectors, let me help the O/P escape from your fruitless arguing to a far more educated and helpful intellectual exchange on Gunboards:

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?26061-Gew-88-Bore-Sizes-and-Ammunition

[Spartan301]

Spartan, slug it, and mic both the lands and grooves.
The Rem ammo that smle-man mentioned, was loaded by lawyers. It's anemic compared to what's loaded in Europe, and was probably used in that rifle before it got here.
Get some brass, some Magnum large rifle primers, a can of TrailBoss powder, and shoot cast bullets. You cannot overload with TrailBoss, even if you compress the load. Makes a great 100yrd subsonic plinking load. No recoil, and so quite, you can shoot them without ear plugs.
When you're ready to load, give me a shout and I'll send you a handful of 165grn Flat Nose cast .321 bullets to try. No need for gas checks with TrailBoss either. If you like em, I have a spare mold I'll make you a deal on too.

Thanks for the good info. Much appreciated!

[gun toting monkeyboy]

The O/P had valid questions but also assumptions which could be wrong. As an example, the mere fact that the numbers on receiver and barrel shroud are matching means nothing as barrel and shroud are separate parts. The barrel could be the correct original barrel, modified as marked on the receiver. Or not. In the past 50 years a gunsmith could have replaced it with a barrel from another, maybe unmodified rifle. After all, the O/P's rifles shows signs of heavy use. Are you able to tell from the number on the barrel shroud if the barrel inside is original to the receiver or not? X-ray vision, anybody?

Ummm... Yes. And found one of the older barrels, matched the patina, and mounted it on the receiver perfectly. Have you ever taken one of these apart? Exactly how much work do you think is involved in getting all of those parts to index perfectly? By your logic, there are mystery gunsmiths running amok, potentially plying their devious craft maliciously, hoping to trick some poor bugger in the distant future into blowing themselves up by using the wrong cartridge in a rifle. That sounds plausible, right? How about you got caught making a dumb statement and now you are being defensive because you got called on it? Next time if you don't know an answer, you don't have to post.

-Mb