help with a gew 88

mrclean89

mrclean89

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Morning everyone. So I picked this up at a gunshow a few days ago. It was cheap and I didn't have one. So I got it home and was stripping it down last night trying to find any markings on it. There were none other than serial numbers that I could find.

Except for these two little ones on the right hand side of the receiver forward of the breech.

If anyone has any insight onto what this rifle may bee it would be much appreciated.

Also looking for a few parts for this gun.
Rear sight elevator
Barrel band spring
Bayonet
Sling
Stripper clips

Cheers, McLean

 
I can get one tommorow. Someone put a really heavy coat of varnish on the stock so I've been stripping it off and I'm going to bring back a nice oil finish on it. The gun is all in prices right now
 
and there is no other markings on it? my gew is covered with markings. if its a converted to 8mm the K98 stripper clips I think are the same.
 
The markings are generally prominent on these rifles unless your example was scrubbed and became a commercial sporter.

Pictures of the parts together would really help as we cannot determine the variant otherwise.
 
In this case, photographs would be an immense help. In production, there were TWO main variants of the Gew. 88. They were the original Gew. 88 and the Gew. 88nm.

The original Gew. 88 had a nasty habit of lifting out Chambers from that very light barrel. The problem actually was that smokeless powder was very new and they were not yet in complete control of burning speeds. It was called the "Jew-gun" (Judenflinte) in part because of this, in part because that beautiful barrel-jacket was designed by a Jewish fellow who was paid RM 1 for each rifle built. Gew. 88nm was the fix for the problem and consisted of a new barrel with a much heavier chamber area. The "nm" was for "neues muster": new issue. I have both rifles here; they are available for inspection.

Once the rifles were built, though, they went through a series of modifications, especially after the Gew. 98 entered production. The "S" mod was altering the inside of the barrel to accommodate the 1904 pointed-bullet loading of the 7.92x57 JS cartridge. NOT all rifles were modded thus before the outbreak of the Great War; there are lots of photos of German troops, especially Landwehr regiments, carrying round-nosed ammunition for their 88s.

The next mod was the Z mod and it had to do with installing a cartridge-interruptor plate into the upper-right-side of the magazine so that the mag could be loaded singly without the use of that Mannlicher clip. Further adding-on of Charger Guides to the top of the receiver enabled the rifle to use standard 98 chargers.

And the '14 mod closed off the bottom of the Magazine Box, preventing dust, dirt, crap and anything else from fouling the Magazine.

MANY of the rifles given to Turkey had ALL of these mods.
 
The 88 was called the Commission Rifle because it was designed by one and it shows. Ludwig Loewe manufactured only a little over 25% of total production but were credited with all of it thus the "Judenflinte" moniker as Loewe was Jewish. You may notice tiny Stars of David on some of their rifles, I had an 1895 Chileno that was peppered with them. LOEWE and others makers were all combined into DWM in 1897 or so.
 
The Gew-88 was a commission rifle and the Germans tried various scams were tried to avoid paying royalties on the rifles, they had got away with this when adopting the 1871 Mauser.

Steyr held patents that that were used in the barrel jacket and clip, but got their money when Germany needed them to produce weapons in WW 1.
The rifle had many faults and soldiers were injured, mainly by double loading.

The anti Jewish business was started by an anti Jewish radical.

The controlled feeding on the 1893 and later Mausers avoided double feeding,

Two good reference books with a lot of technical and development information on the Gew-88 and the Gew-98 are;

German Military Rifles and Machine Pistols, 1871-1945 By Gotz, Hans-Dieter (Book - 1990 ) 355.82 Got

http://www.amazon.ca/German-Military-Machine-Pistols-1871-1945/dp/088740264X

The German Rifle By Walter, John (Book - 1979 ) 623.4425 Wal

http://www.amazon.com/The-German-Rifle-comprehensive-bolt-action/dp/0853683123

They also contain information on the subjects mentioned above by smellie and others.
 
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wow cant say much about that. how far back is the barrel jacket cut? . must send more pics. I am interested now.
 
Only marks are serial numbers and those two little ones. There doesn't look like there ever was a barrel jacket. I'll get some more pics in a while here.

Cheers, McLean
 
I think in is a Hanyang also. The Turks deleted the barrel Jacket on a number of their rifle during refurbs but the rearsight would have Turkish markings if that rifle was a Turk.
 
SW28fan said:
I think in is a Hanyang also. The Turks deleted the barrel Jacket on a number of their rifle during refurbs but the rearsight would have Turkish markings if that rifle was a Turk.
Click to expand...

The receiver would also carry the Ankara refurbishment stamp with date as well as have a modified barrel jacket stub for mounting a 1903 style hand guard.
 
Hmm so based that there is no turk markings. The sight is in western style numerals. Where do we stand ? I've seen a few turk rifles and most of them had alot of markings on them. Never seen a hanyang though. What would the value of a hanyang be ?

Cheers, McLean
 
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