Third Party Press

Spandau 1895 Gewehr 88

The marking S on the chamber means that the transition cone behind the cartridge chamber has been modified - extended. In order to allow the larger projectile of the new cartridge to have time to reshape slightly to pass through the tighter bore. In general, G 88 with a stronger barrel, marked n.m. (neu material) are approved by state testing in Europe for the use of 8x57JS ammunition according to CIP standards. The testing facilities will check the weapon, measure the barrel, categorize it, measure the breech play, fire two torment rounds and mark the weapon with valid caliber marks according to the current standard and issue a protocol valid throughout the EU. We may not understand each other in some terms, I use google translate. What year of production do you think these transitional stronger barrels are dated to?.
 
You are quoting old , proven wrong information . The leade / throat for the long P-88 ammo is 3x as long as needed for the much shorter S bullet . So making it longer makes no sense . Since he S bullet is .3208 and the groove of the barrel is .3208 , what has to be " reshaped " ? Plus I have a large test group of rifles that proves in metal that is not true . I am sorry to say but is has been known for a while that the European testing and proofing of Gew-88's has problems . N.M barrels were not used on all rifles , they were a test . What is 8x57JS ? Is it S ammo with a ,3208 bullet , is it sS ammo with a .323 bullet ? I would not fire current S&B [ JS ] spce ammo in the above Gew-88 , it has the wrong size bullet and is loaded too hot . The S means it has been checked , and only modified if needed for neck dia clearance , not throat .
 
I hate o tell you but both of those videos are packed full of misinformation . He gets about everything wrong from bore sizes , bullets sizes , what a Gew-88 S is , what the Z means , and on and on . About 60% bad . Yeah I know he must be an expert because he made a video .
You sound just like mag on gunboards...
I agree Ernie. I generally advise folks NOT hang their hat on YouTube celebs....
I completely agree....


HOWEVER....

This is a perfect example of the problem with our community. ernie8 or mag, has mountains of empirical evidence, secret primary sources that no one else has access to or knowledge of, and proof that Storz and everyone else is wrong, including many noted "celebrities" and published authors. He refuses to share his sources as asked by numerous people.

So, we have an "incorrect" celebrity, published authors, such as Storz, whose works WILL CONTINUE on and prevail thru to future generations.

Like so many before him, ernie8 or mag, will die and his children will throw his empirical evidence and secret sources in the trash, like was done with much of Wall's documents and research, or filed away in random collections, and be lost to time.

I cannot understand the irrationality of people who grumble and condemn those who take the time to share information (right wrong or indifferent) and yet refuse to present their own case.
 
You sound just like mag on gunboards...

I completely agree....


HOWEVER....

This is a perfect example of the problem with our community. ernie8 or mag, has mountains of empirical evidence, secret primary sources that no one else has access to or knowledge of, and proof that Storz and everyone else is wrong, including many noted "celebrities" and published authors. He refuses to share his sources as asked by numerous people.

So, we have an "incorrect" celebrity, published authors, such as Storz, whose works WILL CONTINUE on and prevail thru to future generations.

Like so many before him, ernie8 or mag, will die and his children will throw his empirical evidence and secret sources in the trash, like was done with much of Wall's documents and research, or filed away in random collections, and be lost to time.

I cannot understand the irrationality of people who grumble and condemn those who take the time to share information (right wrong or indifferent) and yet refuse to present their own case.
One thousand percent yes. Well said!
 
So you can not look at real guns or bullets ? Some of what they say does not even make sense . The experts said the stripper clip guides are riveted on even though there is no through hole and rivets work by compression . Even though I knocked a guide off a rifle and the weld was clear . What documentation do you need for that ? Why would you need to " reshape " a .3208 bullet to fit a .3208 groove barrel ? BECAUSE you think the rifles have .318 barrels and the S bullet was .323 , both easy to check . The 05 notch was cut for the LONGER S ammo ?? , again just put a S round next to a P-88 round to see your are wrong . Why is a Z barrel a .323 groove if you just measure a bunch ? Several of your article and book writers did no research and just did their interpretation of other bad info . Yes I have friends who have original documents and have looked at more in Germany and they have shared that printed info with me that I match to REAL rifles . Their info and my rifles match up every time . So if you want to think you have a .318 barrel , a riveted guide or a .001 rebored barrel that is fine . But no one else that checks will have them . If you check , your real rifle will match up to what I say . Also It would be a very BAD idea to shoot S&B spce ammo in a .3208 groove gew-88 no matter what the guy says about N.M. barrels . I also have real rifles with and without N.M. barrels that disproves what he said . I have no children and will have no say on where all my stuff ends up , nor will I care by then . I did share info to keep the guy from firing the wrong ammo in his rifle , and told why it was wrong . I shared the Czech small barrel info with everyone when I found it . I shared the info on what really was a Gew-88S and how to tell , when about every one of your US writers had it wrong [ like the video guy ] . Why does a 1918 Gew-98 have the S stamp if it just means a recut for S ? Yes I have 2 Gew-88/05's with the original rear sights on them , they also disprove some of the stuff printed by people .
 
So you can not look at real guns or bullets ? Some of what they say does not even make sense . The experts said the stripper clip guides are riveted on even though there is no through hole and rivets work by compression . Even though I knocked a guide off a rifle and the weld was clear . What documentation do you need for that ? Why would you need to " reshape " a .3208 bullet to fit a .3208 groove barrel ? BECAUSE you think the rifles have .318 barrels and the S bullet was .323 , both easy to check . The 05 notch was cut for the LONGER S ammo ?? , again just put a S round next to a P-88 round to see your are wrong . Why is a Z barrel a .323 groove if you just measure a bunch ? Several of your article and book writers did no research and just did their interpretation of other bad info . Yes I have friends who have original documents and have looked at more in Germany and they have shared that printed info with me that I match to REAL rifles . Their info and my rifles match up every time . So if you want to think you have a .318 barrel , a riveted guide or a .001 rebored barrel that is fine . But no one else that checks will have them . If you check , your real rifle will match up to what I say . Also It would be a very BAD idea to shoot S&B spce ammo in a .3208 groove gew-88 no matter what the guy says about N.M. barrels . I also have real rifles with and without N.M. barrels that disproves what he said . I have no children and will have no say on where all my stuff ends up , nor will I care by then . I did share info to keep the guy from firing the wrong ammo in his rifle , and told why it was wrong . I shared the Czech small barrel info with everyone when I found it . I shared the info on what really was a Gew-88S and how to tell , when about every one of your US writers had it wrong [ like the video guy ] . Why does a 1918 Gew-98 have the S stamp if it just means a recut for S ? Yes I have 2 Gew-88/05's with the original rear sights on them , they also disprove some of the stuff printed by people .

You are completely missing my point, and have every time I have attempted to make it. Whoever has wronged or slighted you in regards to Gewehr 88's is NOT ME. You are having some argument with people that are not present. I will endeavor one more time to try and make my point with you, and will speak my peace as they say.

So you can not look at real guns or bullets ?
On the contrary, empirical evidence is paramount in any of our studies. Time and again, primary documents have been shown to be in error. However you have to PRESENT or share that empirical evidence. For example, and not totally unrelated to our topic, the Karabiner 88 front band. Storz was kind enough to put this original drawing in his book. This is the drawing I used as a basis to machine new replacement front bands or "nosecaps" as they are called. The drawing is wrong. But I cannot simply tell people that the drawing is wrong, I have to present my empirical evidence to SHOW how it is wrong. So in this case, I could show photographs of several screws that were measured using an optical comparator to show that the screws are not in fact a whitworth thread, but actually a 60 degree metric thread. Providing additional numbers to show a variety of samples would pretty well prove the point. Simply claiming that I know more than the experts does not prove them wrong.

The experts said the stripper clip guides are riveted on even though there is no through hole and rivets work by compression . Even though I knocked a guide off a rifle and the weld was clear . What documentation do you need for that ?
Great, show pictures! Why don't you present that? Simple easy task to present and show that while "accepted" knowledge may claim one thing, clearly there are contrary examples.

Why would you need to " reshape " a .3208 bullet to fit a .3208 groove barrel ? BECAUSE you think the rifles have .318 barrels and the S bullet was .323 , both easy to check
As you said, you do not need to. If the rifle has a .306/.318 land groove dimension, it will not chamber a .323 cartridge regardless, and you'd have to be daft to force the bolt closed. The results when you do are surprising.

The 05 notch was cut for the LONGER S ammo ?? , again just put a S round next to a P-88 round to see your are wrong .
But clearly the cut was made, and as frugal and fastidious as the Germans were I cannot imagine them doing extra work for no reason. What was the reason?

Why is a Z barrel a .323 groove if you just measure a bunch ?
You said you own hundred(s) of Gewehr 88 in a previous message on Gunboards, and you have claimed to have slugged the majority of them. Why don't you post the maker/year/serial/markings and the bore dimensions. That would very easily correlate and prove your point.

Several of your article and book writers did no research and just did their interpretation of other bad info . Yes I have friends who have original documents and have looked at more in Germany and they have shared that printed info with me that I match to REAL rifles . Their info and my rifles match up every time .
This brings me back to you being slighted or insulted because I really don't know what articles and book writers you are referring to. The only work on the 88 that I know of is the work by Storz. There are a few other bookstore topical books I have seen, but hardly what one would call scholarly or academic. To claim that Storz did no research is, well, laughable. If you have friends with original documents, and you have access to more in Germany, and that documentation matches up with the REAL rifles, then it is an easy case to make. Simply present the documents along with the findings from the real rifles. To me that sounds like a pretty straight forward case.

So if you want to think you have a .318 barrel , a riveted guide or a .001 rebored barrel that is fine . But no one else that checks will have them . If you check , your real rifle will match up to what I say .
I don't need to think on thing or another, when I can know, through measuring. Again, however, if I argue a point contrary to or even as the accepted opinion, I still present evidence to prove my point. No one will take my word simply because I say it.

Also It would be a very BAD idea to shoot S&B spce ammo in a .3208 groove gew-88 no matter what the guy says about N.M. barrels . I also have real rifles with and without N.M. barrels that disproves what he said .
Having rifles marked nm and rifles that are not marked nm does not disprove what he says.

In general, G 88 with a stronger barrel, marked n.m. (neu material) are approved by state testing in Europe for the use of 8x57JS ammunition according to CIP standards.
If you have evidence, either through primary source documents, or through other empirical evidence to show that the n.m. markings were not a new material that was stronger, then please, share it!

I did share info to keep the guy from firing the wrong ammo in his rifle , and told why it was wrong . I shared the Czech small barrel info with everyone when I found it . I shared the info on what really was a Gew-88S and how to tell , when about every one of your US writers had it wrong [ like the video guy ] .
You haven't shared any info. That is the point. You have shared that everyone else is wrong and you are the only one who is right. You continually refuse to show how and why. Every time you post on gunboards and now here it is a contentious argument which you refuse to share any of your evidence. It is nauseating.

Why does a 1918 Gew-98 have the S stamp if it just means a recut for S ?
Then prove them wrong and show WHY.....

Yes I have 2 Gew-88/05's with the original rear sights on them , they also disprove some of the stuff printed by people .
I have no idea what this is in reference to.


I am in the process or doing an extensive amount of research on Mauser rifles heat treat and metallurgy. It is astounding the amount of wrong information available. The frustrating thing is, it was all done almost 50 years ago. All of that information has been lost. The person who did the research cut up allegedly hundreds of Mauser rifles to determine their metallurgy and heat treatment. He had some original documents and allegedly even spoke with some people who had immigrated to the US post WWII who had worked at companies who produced Mauser rifles. My time is extremely valuable and I hate wasting it. I furthermore hate wasting it on something that someone else has already done. If you have all the necessary evidence to prove your points then present it and be done.
 
[People] , will die and his children will throw his empirical evidence and secret sources in the trash, like was done with much of Wall's documents and research, or filed away in random collections, and be lost to time.

I cannot understand the irrationality of people who grumble and condemn those who take the time to share information (right wrong or indifferent) and yet refuse to present their own case.

You just hit on one of my major, major pet peeves. It drives me absolutely nuts how many people hoard knowledge like it is a secret commodity, and how badly it screws up any subsequent attempts to research things. I've got a buddy who collects antique revolvers and apparently it's even worse over there.
 
I thought a little more on this subject this morning. Without our failures we cannot fully understand our successes. Without these garbage rod knock-offs as you say, we would not have a benchmark to understand just how good the Mauser truly is.
Also, if I know Sam, he was being tongue in cheek too.
 
I have answered all of the above questions many times before . A quick one . Why the notch ? Here is how I got my info . A German army manual shows how to take S rounds out of a stripper clip and put them in an enbloc for use in a non 05 rifle . It also shows the reverse . So if you look at a 05 rifle you will see the S ammo will load without the need for the notch . You will also see that when you load the rifle with P-88 ammo in a stripper clip the notch is exactly the shape of the P-88 bullet tip and the notch guides the ammo into the rifle . So by combining a document with a real rifle you get the answer to the reason the German did it . I am using over 30 years worth of document research , rifle collecting of several people and my personal experience as a custom rifle maker , machinist , welder , riveter and a massive collection of rifles to get my data . So just quoting a source is not easy , I am the source for most just as you are the source for your testing of metal. I posted the photos of the welded guides online over 18 years and three computers ago . I have no idea where they are now . I have been collecting old military rifles for over 40 years and have over 2000 . I have test fired them all . I have run a military rifle shooting match for about 15 years and have all those shooting records . That is my source . I wanted to learn about Japanese Type -99 rifles , so I collected every maker , and series by 10,000 block . So without a source, I know exactly when and where each change happened in production . If you do not want my info , do not use it . Shoot ammo in a rifle that you should not . Spend extra to use a .318 S&B bullet in a .321 bore rifle to get worse results than you would with a common bullet . I figure some people may want the truth and help .
 
Also some of your questions are nauseating . You do not seem to be able to see the reasons , like your comment on the reason a Gew-98 has the S stamp . Do you really think they were recutting chambers in 1918 for S ammo ? The only thing it could possibly mean is the rifle could shoot S ammo , as that is what the mark means on all older rifles . Some of the German documents are confusing if you do not have a bunch of real rifles to check them with and that is one reason some of your famous writers get it wrong even after reading the doc . Like the bore sizes . The docs say that the Germans made the groove deeper by .0015 in early 1890 . So some people assumed that meant they CUT the grooves deeper , they did not . They just made the BORE hole smaller by .003 which did make the grooves deeper . The bore went from .314 to .311 . I figured this out by measuring a bunch of early rifles with the original barrels on them - ALL were .314 . Then I measured a bunch of post 1890 1/2 rifles , ALL were .311 . So the math and real rifles match the docs . Riveted stripper guides . It does not matter what some one wrote if you look at a rifle there is NO through hole which means it is not possible for it to be riveted . Also if you look at a lot of rifles , and are a welder , you will see the flame tip cut in some where they got sloppy flame welding . You can see the heat discoloration on some of the guides . The weld circles are harder than the guide metal , a rivet would have to be much softer to be hammered flat . So that is just common sense . Also in that time period it was called a rivet weld .
 
Oh god, I appear to have provoked a gang war, well then
I plan on loading up some Cast lead .323 from maplewood bullets, I plan on slugging the bore this weekend and "stealing" some calibrated calipers from work to get a good groove and land Idea. Not sure how wise cast lead is consdiering it will be 0.005 larger than the bore.
 
Oh god, I appear to have provoked a gang war, well then
I plan on loading up some Cast lead .323 from maplewood bullets, I plan on slugging the bore this weekend and "stealing" some calibrated calipers from work to get a good groove and land Idea. Not sure how wise cast lead is consdiering it will be 0.005 larger than the bore.

I'd be curious to hear how your cast loads turn out. I recently tried cast in my Gew88 and got just terrible results. I was resizing to .318, though. Just awful leading and the bullets were keyholing really badly at 25 yards. The groups were generously in the 3-foot range, I did the math and from what I remember it came out to something like 150 MOA.

The bore was rough and I figured it might just be a wall hanger, but as a hail mary I resized some .323 175gr jacketed down to .318 and got some OK groups. Not good - the bore is still rough after all - but clearly stabilizing properly collected together into an actual group of shots.

If you decide you want to resize for the bore Lee currently has some .318 sizers - https://leeprecision.com/bullet-szr-punch-.318.html

My understanding is that they're overruns from a custom order. Ordering off their website can be a problem (something about state tax limits) but if you call them they'll throw one on ebay for you. It's how I got mine. Really great people to work with.
 
Your .323 dia cast should be fine in your .321 ish groove barrel . You want a few .001 over size for cast . Shooting a undersized .318 cast bullet will give poor accuracy . Sizing down .323 jacketed to .318 for a .321 bore is a waste of time and will give poor results when you can just buy .321 bullets made for the 32 Win special that will work great . The Gew-88 is one of the most accurate of the old military rifles ,and is good for 1 to 2 inch 5-shot 100 yards groups with the right bullet and load .
 
Your .323 dia cast should be fine in your .321 ish groove barrel . You want a few .001 over size for cast . Shooting a undersized .318 cast bullet will give poor accuracy . Sizing down .323 jacketed to .318 for a .321 bore is a waste of time and will give poor results when you can just buy .321 bullets made for the 32 Win special that will work great . The Gew-88 is one of the most accurate of the old military rifles ,and is good for 1 to 2 inch 5-shot 100 yards groups with the right bullet and load .

My bore slugs at .315 across the lands. I didn't see the OP saying his was at .321, apologies for the confusion.
 
You are shooting a Czech barrel rifle ? .315 at the lands , not the grooves ? If it is .315 at the lands it is not
Czech , what is at the grooves ? I am not sure I understand what you are saying . The OP's is a German barrel rifle as his photos show .
 

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