A Commission 88/05 up and shooting again

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Eaglelord17

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Hi all,

Just thought I would share with you all my Commission 88/05 rifle. These rifles are one of the many niche firearms I quite enjoy collecting. This particular example was made in 1891 by Loewe in Berlin. Sometime around 1905 this rifle was converted to the 88/05 configuration (change in caliber to the Patrone 'S' round, sights modified, stripper clip feeding instead of Mannlicher Clip feeding), and from there would have served with the Germans on the Western Front in WWI (this rifle is surprisingly still has a fair bit of matching parts, and the barrel band still has the regimental marking of who it was issued to). After that it was sent to the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) to assist them in arming there military, and it would have served the Turks through the rest of WWI and the conflicts they fought in post-WWI.

I have had this rifle for a while, but only have gotten around to shooting it now because I have done my research and assembled all the components I needed to load for this rifle safely. The bore on these rifles vary, and just because it is 'S' marked doesn't mean it has a .323 bore. Most actually have a .3215 diameter bore like this example here. The actions on these rifles are also not the strongest, and in service these were known to blow up as they never understood the pressures involved in smokeless powder and they didn't even proof the rifles. I recommend reading up on it, quite a interesting story. For making ammo for this rifle I used 170grn .321dia bullets (bullets originally intended for .32 Winchester Special) because those fit my bore nicely. I also kept pressures on the low side and only used 40grns of IMR 3031 which means this bullet was travelling at about 2250-2300 ft/sec.

Very comfortable to shoot with that load, and the sights aren't that far off at 100m because of the heavier bullet and the fact it is travelling much slower than Patrone 'S' ammo. The only issue I had was the neck tension wasn't enough to hold the bullets when trying to feed from the magazine, so I had to single load (which is safe on these rifles, the extractor is designed to lip over the cartridge). I guess that just means I am going to have to buy a 8mm Mauser crimp die.

These are definitely underappreciated rifles, and I am looking forward to bringing it out more in the future.





 
I did enjoy reading your text as I too love these rifles. I do not even know why. Maybe because they were only designed once and then replaced. I also have a 1890 Loewe 88/05 and an all matching 1890 Loewe 88s (1903 upgrade only) I'd share photos if it wasn't so much work to do.
 
Sounds like some nice rifles, I am jealous on the 88s as they don't come up too often. I am somewhat kicking myself for not buying one of the M13 Austrian-Hungarian Gewehr 88's that came in recently through Corwin Arms, if I had known what they were at the time I would have jumped on them (I didn't realize they were the Austrian-Hungarian rifles until after they sold). I hear you on the effort required for the photos, I rarely do it anymore because of how difficult it has become.

At some point I think I want to start collecting the different rifles based off this bolt system. So far I have a M1904 and M1904/39 Mauser-Vergueiro which is a divertive of it, though not as close as the Mannlicher rifles. I think it would be a pretty cool collection, and there would be a fair bit of variety. M1893 Romanians, M95 Dutch, M96 Portuguese, and the famous M1903 Mannlicher-Schoenauer.
 
For those interested it was the middle band and the magazine which were matched to the rifle (would have been in German service, as the Turks really didn't care about keeping matching parts together). The barrel jacket also matches to the rifle.





 
The War Ministry ordered that only 1888 rifles with new unused barrels be adapted for the “S” cartridge.

Barrels after July, 7 1896 = ((0.15mm)+(7.9mm)+(0.15mm)) = 8.2mm = 0.3228346” or ~ 0.323” grove diameter.

The preceding information was from “German Military Rifles and Machine Pistols 1871 – 1945”,
By Hans Dieter Gotz. Translated by Dr. Edward Force, CCSU. Includes information on assault rifles and Sten copies.
 
Again, love these. Here a few pics of mine for fun - 88s and 88/05. The 88s is all matching and has the only 1903 S update, while the 88/05 has seen it all and has seen too much

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sail32 said:
The War Ministry ordered that only 1888 rifles with new unused barrels be adapted for the “S” cartridge.

Barrels after July, 7 1896 = ((0.15mm)+(7.9mm)+(0.15mm)) = 8.2mm = 0.3228346” or ~ 0.323” grove diameter.

The preceding information was from “German Military Rifles and Machine Pistols 1871 – 1945”,
By Hans Dieter Gotz. Translated by Dr. Edward Force, CCSU. Includes information on assault rifles and Sten copies.
Click to expand...

That information is incorrect. I personally slugged my barrel and it is a .3215 diameter bore with .315 lands. Everyone I know who has also slugged there bore pretty much always turns up as a .3215 dia bore.

Part of the issue with the Gewehr 88s is a complete lack of accurate information on them, coupled with inaccurate published information such as your quote above. Not blaming the author, "German Military Rifles and Machine Pistols 1871-1945" is a very wide topic area, and it would be impossible to know all there is to know about the subject. It was also published pre-internet so information would have to be gathered by hand. The final problem with that is the fact that is was also translated which doesn't help either.
 
Always thought the Gew88 had an undeserved bad reputation especially from the writings of US gun "experts" of the 1920-60 era.
Take the same bolt and add a Schoenauer magazine and these same writers would all call it the best sporting rifle in the world.
 
Thanks for posting. I bought one of the bunch that Corwin had and am reading everything I can find on them. I've looked through a bunch of manuals and have not found one listing for 8x57J yet. They all have a warning about it , but no data for the J. I see in Peteroliver1234's post the cutout for the stripper clip on top (and the cut at the front for the bullets) , but what is the cutout on the left side for?
 
green said:
Always thought the Gew88 had an undeserved bad reputation especially from the writings of US gun "experts" of the 1920-60 era.
Take the same bolt and add a Schoenauer magazine and these same writers would all call it the best sporting rifle in the world.
Click to expand...

I can understand where they were coming from though. They are relatively weak action guns, with weird bore diameters, that aren't easily converted into hunting rifles (due to things like the barrel jacket). When it is chambered in 8mm Mauser, but you can't use most 8mm Mauser in it safely, coupled with the fact that the original 88s used mannlicher clips which are also hard to come by, I can see why they would start calling it a bad gun. Most the old gun 'experts' would however praise the Kar 88s and Gew 91s though as excellent rifles to convert into hunting rifles, specifically because of those butter knife bolt handles and light weight.

The Schoenauer bolt was a bit of a improvement on the original Gewehr 88 and it was also in a cartridge that it could handle with no issues. The Gew 88 is really a hastily developed not as well prepared as it should have been rifle. The chambers at first wasn't thick enough for the pressures, the barrel jacket helped rust the barrel and you having no way to verify it was happening, there was no proper gas venting so they changed the striker cap so it had a deflecting shield to try and point gasses away from the shooters eye (the French did the same thing for the Lebel). Not to mention all the issues they had figuring out how to do rifling, which really should have been figured out before mass issue. The bolt face required the action to be closed to snap over the rim of the cartridge, which if you aren't paying attention could result in the soldier accidentally trying to chamber a round when there is already one in the chamber (and potentially cause the primer to detonate). The last major issue is they didn't proof the rifles, the German method of proofing was at that point taking a random sample rifle and firing 5 rounds of service ammo out of it, which does nothing to prove they are safe.

Definitely interesting rifles, but it is one of the few that I can 100% say I would not want to take into combat, as these were known to blow up from time to time.


wd113 said:
Thanks for posting. I bought one of the bunch that Corwin had and am reading everything I can find on them. I've looked through a bunch of manuals and have not found one listing for 8x57J yet. They all have a warning about it , but no data for the J. I see in Peteroliver1234's post the cutout for the stripper clip on top (and the cut at the front for the bullets) , but what is the cutout on the left side for?
Click to expand...

The cut-out on the left hand side was for to make it easier to load stripper clips, his is much more excessive than most I have seen, mine only has a slight cut there. For loading the J cartridge first thing you need to do is slug your bore, it generally will have a .3215 dia grooves. Then you can use bullets that size or under with the minimum-mid range load data from most American reloading books, as they purposely keep it on the lower end of things. You do have to remember these did shoot Patrone 'S' which was a 150grn bullet at 2850ft/sec though that is generally considered unsafe to shoot through them now, it still for the most part handled it. Just stay at the low range, and you should be fine provided you are using the right bullets.
 
Eaglelord17 said:
Same ones as the 88s. I have some repros I bought from Corwin Arms a couple years ago, and from the looks of them likely require some fitting to get to work right. Originals are very difficult to find.
Click to expand...
I bought some of the repro Mannlicher clips from Corwin as well at the same time. You are correct in that all of mine needed a bit of tweaking to function properly, though mine were for use in a 1904 Mannlicher usually referred to as an Irish Mannlicher but they used the same clip and ammo to feed them. Wasn't really that hard to get them to work but it was a bit fiddly for lack of a better term.
Interestingly enough at one time I had a fairly substantial military ammo collection back in the 1975-85 or so time period and at that time I had no problem at all acquiring original clips but they are definitely scarce now as pointed out and these rifles won't function without them.
Nice rifles by the way!
 
You should be able to load single rounds as the 1888 is not a controlled feed.

One of the complaints of the 1888 was rounds exploding when loading.

The first round was chambered but not under the extractor and the person would work the bolt again and the second round would set off the first round. One of the reasons for Mauser's controlled feed.

A very good book on German Rifles is;“German Military Rifles and Machine Pistols 1871 – 1945”, By Hans Dieter Gotz. Translated by Dr. Edward Force, CCSU. Includes information on assault rifles and Sten copies.
 
When you see a deep thumb cut on the left like that, which chops through the Gew. 88 markings, it's a sign of a Turkish rework.
The best source is Dieter Storz, German Military Rifles Vol.2: 88 and 91 Firearms. Expensive,though.
Some '88s had a reworked bolthead to provide a controlled feed; the vast majority retain the original type, though.
 
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