1890 Schilling Kar88...light cavalry...light bubba, doh!

[Phosphorus32]

Here's an early Kar88 that was made in 1890 by V. C. Schilling of Suhl Germany.  Not the finest example you'll ever see but thought I'd toss it up here, since I mentioned it in another post.  I picked it up at a parts gun price, which is good since Bubba got his hands on it (D&T side rail, sawed close to an inch off of the buttstock, missing nosecap)    It did have an enbloc clip in the mag well so that's a nice bonus since those are now going for $30 or so.  Seems to be fully functional and has a fair, not great bore.  Has the S mark on the receiver ring and 7.94 on the barrel next to the rear sight, so it should fire modern 7.92x57mm.

The modifications are unfortunate since all of the parts including the furniture are matching on this very early example of a Kar88.  B.3.Ch.4.113:  rifle number 113 of the 4th Company of the 3rd Bavarian Chevauleger (light cavalry) Regiment.  A long term (partial) rescue project: find a nosecap ($$), dress that buttstock with a modified buttplate, not much more I can do with the side rail, or the wire brush marks on the receiver ring 

(Edit: improved pics)


























Dang it bubba!

[Blicero]

Wait a sec...this gun looks familiar. Gunbroker? So this one doesn't have the modification to make it a box magazine as opposed to using clips? And when you say find a nose cap, that's the part that has the sight ears on it too right?

[Phosphorus32]

Wait a sec...this gun looks familiar. Gunbroker? So this one doesn't have the modification to make it a box magazine as opposed to using clips? And when you say find a nose cap, that's the part that has the sight ears on it too right?

It does still need clips.  The original nose caps on these do have sight ears built into them.  Oftentimes the nose cap is missing or has had the ears ground off by Bubba. ...but I didn't get this one off GunBroker. 

This was an odd iCollector auction, everything in the auction was really poorly presented.  I put in a max bid of $110 cuz I figured even if it was just a parts gun I'd be okay at that bid.  Then I walked away, and checked later to find, unexpectedly, that I had "won".

[Blicero]

I swear to Brahma I've seen this gun. I just can't remember where. It's OK, you don't have to let us in your private gettin' place.

You're really movin' on up to the East Side in the German realm! I'd like to see more details of the bolt on this gun. I've never had an intimate view of one. It's cock on close?

[Phosphorus32]

I swear to Brahma I've seen this gun. I just can't remember where. It's OK, you don't have to let us in your private gettin' place.

You're really movin' on up to the East Side in the German realm! I'd like to see more details of the bolt on this gun. I've never had an intimate view of one. It's cock on close?

Thanks!  I'll try to get more pics of the bolt tomorrow.  It's cock on open. Just has a two position safety unlike the Mausers.  The bolt head just twists off if you have it out of the rails...one of the complaints was it was way too easy to lose the bolt head.

[Phosphorus32]

A few pics  of the details of bolt field disassembly:

Cocked bolt


Removing bolt


Bolt channels


Cocked bolt


Decocked bolt ready to remove bolt head




Bolt head slips right out when decocked


FP


Bolt head assembled


Extractor present and removed




Extractor


Bolt head on ejector side


Bolt handle SN


Bolt handle, knurled underside


Safety SN

[Dannyboy53]

...one of the complaints was it was way too easy to lose the bolt head.

The unit Armorer must have carried around a sack full of bolt heads! Interesting write up Phosphorus, thank you.

[Phosphorus32]

...one of the complaints was it was way too easy to lose the bolt head.

The unit Armorer must have carried around a sack full of bolt heads! Interesting write up Phosphorus, thank you.

It doesn't seem like much of an issue to me at the workbench in my garage, but I suppose it would be a pain if you dropped the relatively small bolt head in the mud of the trenches 

Thanks Danny! 

[Dannyboy53]

Like anything else prone to go bad (Murphy's Law) I'm sure the soldiers of the day took precautions.

[Blicero]

Hell yeah. Thanks a bunch Jon. This is great stuff.

I'm sitting here fiddling with the 98/40 bolt and I'm not seeing much difference between mine & yours. And this one is coming from a gun...what...fifty years newer than yours. Same Mannlicher cocking piece (that's why I thought it was cock on close)...detachable bolt head...extractor & ejector both in the head...the firing pin nut is shaped similarly...same safety. The only major difference I see on the 98/40 bolt is it has what I guess could be called a guiding lug built on the top of it. And the 98/40 is in the blue. My bolt head won't slip right off like yours but it does seem too easy to remove- you just depress extractor & turn the head.

What an awesome little gun you scored! Bubba or no bubba that thing is a keeper. Is the barrel really exposed or is it sleeved?

[Dannyboy53]

The caption read..."Dragoon Trooper with Kar88". It was not dated.

[Blicero]

Ha! Man I would look like such a stud in one of those pickelhaubes.
You need to post that one in my Milsurps thread please!

[Phosphorus32]

Hell yeah. Thanks a bunch Jon. This is great stuff.

I'm sitting here fiddling with the 98/40 bolt and I'm not seeing much difference between mine & yours. And this one is coming from a gun...what...fifty years newer than yours. Same Mannlicher cocking piece (that's why I thought it was cock on close)...detachable bolt head...extractor & ejector both in the head...the firing pin nut is shaped similarly...same safety. The only major difference I see on the 98/40 bolt is it has what I guess could be called a guiding lug built on the top of it. And the 98/40 is in the blue. My bolt head won't slip right off like yours but it does seem too easy to remove- you just depress extractor & turn the head.

What an awesome little gun you scored! Bubba or no bubba that thing is a keeper. Is the barrel really exposed or is it sleeved?

Thanks.  It's a cool little light carbine...and a true carbine with a barrel length of just 17.5".  That's interesting how the bolt on your 98/40 is so similar to the 1888 commission rifle/carbine.  It was a mix of design elements resulting from the "commission" driven design, so I'm not shocked about the Mannlicher influences. 

I'm not in a great big hurry to fire this 124 year old carbine.  I'll slug the barrel one of these days to see if it's .318"

The barrel is sleeved like the 1888 rifle (sleeve is 20mm od while barrel is 13.3mm od)






Thanks for sharing the pic Danny.  That's very cool 

[Dannyboy53]

Ha! Man I would look like such a stud in one of those pickelhaubes.
You need to post that one in my Milsurps thread please!

Will do so now Sir.

[Phosphorus32]

Update: So this Kar 88 has the "S" mark on the receiver ring, which means that the throat of the chamber was reamed out to accept the modern 7.92x57mm IS cartridge with an 8.20 (0.323") diameter bullet.  Apparently the Germans felt this was sufficient and they were used with the modern ammo despite the mismatched groove diameter.  I slugged the barrel and found it had grooves 0.318" (8.08mm) in diameter, in other words, the original barrel.  I'm a bit leery of firing modern 8mm Mauser ammo with 0.323" diameter bullets in this 124 year old rifle, even if the Germans thought it was okay a century ago.  0.005" seems like a fair amount of bullet swaging to ask of a such an old piece of steel.

[Dannyboy53]

Phosphorus I would be afraid to try it too. The .005" isn't much in some cases here and there but in an old rifle barrel...

[Blicero]

I love how, in your kar98 thread, I asked what's next and mentioned a Gew91/k88, and you chimed in with a got that! It's like I conjured it. Let's try this...
So...what's next? Sturmgewehr! Mp40?

I guess you need to reload if you want this thing to be anything other than a decorative piece.

[Phosphorus32]

I love how, in your kar98 thread, I asked what's next and mentioned a Gew91/k88, and you chimed in with a got that! It's like I conjured it. Let's try this...
So...what's next? Sturmgewehr! Mp40?

That was pretty amazing that you mentioned that   so, um, yeah sure, those would undoubtedly be next except Washington State doesn't allow FA firearms  ...so my bank account can rest easy.

I guess you need to reload if you want this thing to be anything other than a decorative piece.

yeah, I'd be more comfortable with the .318 bullets, even though it probably shot a lot of .323 in it's life, which may account for the fairly worn lands    I picked up a set of RCBS 7.7 Japanese dies recently as part of another purchase, so I'm slowly drifting towards the reloading scene