Latest rifle for your consideration Gehwer88
Heres my latest item,Erfert made,1890 S.
Not in the best condition and missing its bolt but has got its cleaning rod,sling and bayonet coming soon hopefully.
Front band marked 166 R5 211 regimental marking ?
I cant work out whether the Spitzer bullet models still used the same en bloc loader as the original models ive provided pics of magazine areafor your attention in case you can see that its adapted for a stripper clip.
Regimental should be stamped as 166.R.5.211., correct? This denotes that your rifle was at one time issued as "Weapon #211 of the 5th Co. of the 166th Infantry Regiment". The 166th was officially known as Infanterie-Regiment Hessen-Homburg Nr.166. It was formed om March 31, 1897 and based in Bitsch. In 1914 at the beginning of the Great War, the 166th was a part of XXI Armee Korps.
All of the above holds true only if all numbers on your rifle match. If not, then the information only applies to the regimentally marked part, it was the only part that can be confirmed as part of the 166th.
It appears that your rifle is a straight Gew88, your 3rd photograph plainly shows that it has not been modified for the use of the Mauser style stripper clip so it will still require the Mannlicher enbloc clip to function as a repeater. Along with a complete bolt, you will need the enbloc clip lock that appears to have been removed, probably to repair another rifle, likely after the rifle was surplussed, it is not a military method of doing things.
Thanks for your answer USNV5,you are correct about the markings,and the bayonet lug is the ony part with this marking.
Were spitzer bullets used enbloc as i assume the S above Erfert means converted to spitzer.
Glad to be of help. The throat was opened up to allow the .323 "S" bullet to chamber (earlier bullets "88" were .321) but the increased pressure of the higher velocity round is best to be avoided today when these rifles are all over 120 years old.
Also, the gas escape in case of a blown primer or case failure are to be considered for the Rifle 88 since the gas handling capability is not as good as the later 98 action.
The Germans certainly used the more powerful ammunition as did many others in military service when these rifles were young but there is no reason for the modern recreational shooter to do so. Down-load your ammunition if you can reload your own or use US civilian loaded 8MM Mauser ammunition (Remington or Winchester) which is traditionally loaded to a lower pressure than military ammo and European civilian rounds. The US ammunition uses a .321 bullet as well as the lower powder charge.
Forgot to add, slug your bore using a soft lead slug to see exact bore diameter, many of the rifles recently imported to the US (maybe you have seen these in OZ?) came from Ecuador and were rebarreled to excessively small bores (.318) by the Ecuadorian military using barrels from Czechoslovakia and small bulleted ammunition from the same source. The barrels will be marked with a Circled letter Z at the chamber and must be carefully reloaded for.
Thank you again,very interesting,unfortunately [?] im in England,all rifles here are deactivated unless obsolete calibre so its just a wall hanger,still it will be fun finding the missing parts.
Worldwide Arms have these weapons for sale on there site. I wonder where their stocks came from.
DA119 German Gewehr 88 Rifle - 03-DeAc Rifles
Picked up a m1871 bayonet today,here it is prior to cleaning
by wrecker
Ah, I see. Not unfortunate at all though, just inconvenient sometimes. But you are right, the search is often more than half the fun. And the Sg71 is a hard one to find, you did well.
Im hunting the sling at the moment,the hard bit will be the bolt,everything comes to he who waits,thank you for your interest. Colin.
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