Eaglelord17
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Sault Ste. Marie
Hi all,
Today I am going to share with you what I thought were two Austrian-Hungarian M13s and turned out to be Equadorian Gewehr 88s. One is a 1890 Spandau with the 'S' modification, the other is a 1894 Steyr. When I bought these two rifles I was told they were a M13 Austrian-Hungarian Gewehr 88. For those that don't know during WWI Germany gave about 86,000 Gewehr 88s (still using the 5rd Mannlicher style clips, not the upgraded 88/05). The only real modification Austria-Hungary made to these rifles was replacing the rear sling swivel from the quick detach German style to a swivel wide enough to fit the standard Austrian-Hungarian sling. This is a quick and easy way to identify these rifles, or so I thought.
It turns out the Austrian-Hungarian sling from that era was actually a very wide sling (roughly 1-1/2" wide at the bottom) and as such required a very wide sling swivel. The internal dimensions of the swivel are at least 1-9/16" by 5/8". The reason this is important is because apparently Ecuador also changed the sling swivels on at least some of there rifles (would need to do a larger study to find out if they did this to all their rifles or only some) and they used a smaller sling swivel as they didn't have a massive 1-1/2" sling. Both these rifles don't have the larger sling swivel and as such were both issued in Ecuador.
Now for the actual history of these rifles. For the 1894 Steyr, it would have been bought straight from Steyr as Steyr had the export rights to the Gewehr 88. For the 1890 Spandau, this rifle would have been modified to the 'S' configuration some time in the early 1900s, then likely would have served on the Eastern Front in WWI. Post-WWI it likely ended up in Czech hands who sometime in the 20s or 30s sold it to Ecuador. There is some rumours that Germany might have sold some to Ecuador pre-WWI but I don't personally believe this, it doesn't make sense with the time frame.
The 1890 has the common bolt upgrades (bolt head reworked to allow for controlled feeding, and the gas shield cocking piece), well the 1894 has all the original features. Both are mostly matching (odd parts here and there aren't but most the major features excluding the bolts are). They also both happen to have consecutive rack numbers, which I think is pretty cool.
Hopefully this helps educate on a poorly written on topic (Gewehr 88 data is very debated and not very well recorded).
The top is a 1891 Loewe produced 88/05, the middle is the 1894 Steyr, and the bottom is the 1890 Spandau.
Just showing the original rear sight with the small flip up sight down and up.
Non-controlled feed and controlled feed bolt heads.
The gas shield and original caps.
Today I am going to share with you what I thought were two Austrian-Hungarian M13s and turned out to be Equadorian Gewehr 88s. One is a 1890 Spandau with the 'S' modification, the other is a 1894 Steyr. When I bought these two rifles I was told they were a M13 Austrian-Hungarian Gewehr 88. For those that don't know during WWI Germany gave about 86,000 Gewehr 88s (still using the 5rd Mannlicher style clips, not the upgraded 88/05). The only real modification Austria-Hungary made to these rifles was replacing the rear sling swivel from the quick detach German style to a swivel wide enough to fit the standard Austrian-Hungarian sling. This is a quick and easy way to identify these rifles, or so I thought.
It turns out the Austrian-Hungarian sling from that era was actually a very wide sling (roughly 1-1/2" wide at the bottom) and as such required a very wide sling swivel. The internal dimensions of the swivel are at least 1-9/16" by 5/8". The reason this is important is because apparently Ecuador also changed the sling swivels on at least some of there rifles (would need to do a larger study to find out if they did this to all their rifles or only some) and they used a smaller sling swivel as they didn't have a massive 1-1/2" sling. Both these rifles don't have the larger sling swivel and as such were both issued in Ecuador.
Now for the actual history of these rifles. For the 1894 Steyr, it would have been bought straight from Steyr as Steyr had the export rights to the Gewehr 88. For the 1890 Spandau, this rifle would have been modified to the 'S' configuration some time in the early 1900s, then likely would have served on the Eastern Front in WWI. Post-WWI it likely ended up in Czech hands who sometime in the 20s or 30s sold it to Ecuador. There is some rumours that Germany might have sold some to Ecuador pre-WWI but I don't personally believe this, it doesn't make sense with the time frame.
The 1890 has the common bolt upgrades (bolt head reworked to allow for controlled feeding, and the gas shield cocking piece), well the 1894 has all the original features. Both are mostly matching (odd parts here and there aren't but most the major features excluding the bolts are). They also both happen to have consecutive rack numbers, which I think is pretty cool.
Hopefully this helps educate on a poorly written on topic (Gewehr 88 data is very debated and not very well recorded).
The top is a 1891 Loewe produced 88/05, the middle is the 1894 Steyr, and the bottom is the 1890 Spandau.
Just showing the original rear sight with the small flip up sight down and up.
Non-controlled feed and controlled feed bolt heads.
The gas shield and original caps.
