Uncle Grinch Posted February 23, 2008 Report Share Posted February 23, 2008 I have a K. Kale 98 Mauser that my buddy and I pulled the barrel off as it was a real sewer pipe. The action is in pretty good shape so I picked up an 8mm Turk Mauser barrel (small ring) with a good bore for only $12.00 off the internet hoping to put it back in shooting condition. When I cleaned it up, I was really pleased with it's condition. However I found a 7.89 stamp on the chamber area of the barrel. An 8mm (.323) bullet will not fit in the muzzle. I have not slugged it yet but plan to. I believe I might have a J-bore (.318) barrel as opposed to the more common S-bore (.323). I considered reloading for it using the expander off my 7.65 Arg and shoot cast bullets, but really want to make a 308 cast bullet gun with peep sights. Anyone familiar with this 7.89 stamping? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z1r Posted February 23, 2008 Report Share Posted February 23, 2008 Slug the barrel and eliminate any doubt. I've seen stampings that ranged all over the board and all were .323" however, that doesn't mean anything. Only valid way to verify is by slugging the bore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinkerfive Posted February 23, 2008 Report Share Posted February 23, 2008 I found a 7.89 stamp on the chamber area of the barrel. Anyone familiar with this 7.89 stamping? I checked a few of my Turk take off barrels. Some are 7.89 as well. I'm quite certain that this is a 'land' diameter as opposed to a 'bore' diameter. The bore diameter should be 7.92, if you then subtract 7.89 = .03 divide by 2 = .015 land thickness. So in other words the rifling impression on the bullet should be .015 mm deep. Now all you need to do is match the shank length of the barrel to the receiver then check head space. Oh yes!! Welcome Tinker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flaco Posted February 24, 2008 Report Share Posted February 24, 2008 Hey Rod- Thanks for editing for spelling and humor! LOL. flaco Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Grinch Posted February 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2008 I slugged the barrel this evening and came up with.... Bore... .326 Land... .313 Did it again and got... Bore... .325 Land... .313 This was all taken from muzzle to six inches into bore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bilurey Posted February 26, 2008 Report Share Posted February 26, 2008 Your last post solves the problem completely, you have a TURK barrel. I believe they were designed to handle 8x57, .318x57, and 7.65x54. Headspace is reset for different cartridges by screwing the barrel in or out, by hand, to achieve proper headspace (live round in chamber sets headspace limits). I got a good M1903 Turk action and had it rebarreled with a M1912 Chilean 7.62 barrel cut to 22in. Then I had "Z" do one of his beautiful bolt handle jobs on the bolt. I planned on having the step turned out of the center segment as there is some corresion where the tip of the handguard lay. Unfortunately, my strength and endurance gave out prior to barrel turning and polishing for blueing. Am now hesitant to have peep sight and Williams ramp installed. I use it to teach my grandsons safe firearms handling, such as and not grasping a Mauser action over the ejection port when working the action since that tends to slice off skin as the bolt guide rib rolls a fold of skin underneath the knife-like edge of the extractor blade as the bolt handle is lowered. Just got an Argie Oberndorf "Banner" short rifle, may have to buy the barrel off Dan Markey's 1909 engineers carbine if mine arrives with a bad bore. Lots of Argie Banner short rifles on Gunbroker, also Izzy FN98 .308s, check'em out. The Belgian/Argie 7.65x54 is a super cartridge from 1889, better ballistics and much lower pressure than the 7.62 NATO. Check it out in Barnes, "Cartridges Of The World" and leave them on their actions or add to M1903 Turks, returning them to original cartridge. You may really like this round. See Water's, "Pet Handloads" for some really interesting data. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Grinch Posted February 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 Your last post solves the problem completely, you have a TURK barrel. I believe they were designed to handle 8x57, .318x57, and 7.65x54. Headspace is reset for different cartridges by screwing the barrel in or out, by hand, to achieve proper headspace (live round in chamber sets headspace limits). I got a good M1903 Turk action and had it rebarreled with a M1912 Chilean 7.62 barrel cut to 22in. Then I had "Z" do one of his beautiful bolt handle jobs on the bolt. I planned on having the step turned out of the center segment as there is some corresion where the tip of the handguard lay. Unfortunately, my strength and endurance gave out prior to barrel turning and polishing for blueing. Am now hesitant to have peep sight and Williams ramp installed. I use it to teach my grandsons safe firearms handling, such as and not grasping a Mauser action over the ejection port when working the action since that tends to slice off skin as the bolt guide rib rolls a fold of skin underneath the knife-like edge of the extractor blade as the bolt handle is lowered. Just got an Argie Oberndorf "Banner" short rifle, may have to buy the barrel off Dan Markey's 1909 engineers carbine if mine arrives with a bad bore. Lots of Argie Banner short rifles on Gunbroker, also Izzy FN98 .308s, check'em out. The Belgian/Argie 7.65x54 is a super cartridge from 1889, better ballistics and much lower pressure than the 7.62 NATO. Check it out in Barnes, "Cartridges Of The World" and leave them on their actions or add to M1903 Turks, returning them to original cartridge. You may really like this round. See Water's, "Pet Handloads" for some really interesting data. Bill Good info Bill. Thanks... I have an '09 Argie Carbine that I replaced the barrel on and shooting Lyman's 31499 sized to .313 it groups better than I can hold it. Great little rifle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Grinch Posted February 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 Your last post solves the problem completely, you have a TURK barrel. I believe they were designed to handle 8x57, .318x57, and 7.65x54. Headspace is reset for different cartridges by screwing the barrel in or out, by hand, to achieve proper headspace (live round in chamber sets headspace limits). I got a good M1903 Turk action and had it rebarreled with a M1912 Chilean 7.62 barrel cut to 22in. Then I had "Z" do one of his beautiful bolt handle jobs on the bolt. I planned on having the step turned out of the center segment as there is some corresion where the tip of the handguard lay. Unfortunately, my strength and endurance gave out prior to barrel turning and polishing for blueing. Am now hesitant to have peep sight and Williams ramp installed. I use it to teach my grandsons safe firearms handling, such as and not grasping a Mauser action over the ejection port when working the action since that tends to slice off skin as the bolt guide rib rolls a fold of skin underneath the knife-like edge of the extractor blade as the bolt handle is lowered. Just got an Argie Oberndorf "Banner" short rifle, may have to buy the barrel off Dan Markey's 1909 engineers carbine if mine arrives with a bad bore. Lots of Argie Banner short rifles on Gunbroker, also Izzy FN98 .308s, check'em out. The Belgian/Argie 7.65x54 is a super cartridge from 1889, better ballistics and much lower pressure than the 7.62 NATO. Check it out in Barnes, "Cartridges Of The World" and leave them on their actions or add to M1903 Turks, returning them to original cartridge. You may really like this round. See Water's, "Pet Handloads" for some really interesting data. Bill Good info Bill. Thanks... I have an '09 Argie Carbine that I replaced the barrel on and shooting Lyman's 31499 sized to .313 it groups better than I can hold it. Great little rifle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bilurey Posted February 29, 2008 Report Share Posted February 29, 2008 Wonderful results. Many of the early rifled barrels for jacketed bullets had problems with uniformity of bore dimensions. The cause was the tougher steel and barely adequate mass production machinery. Mauser and DWM both hand lapped drilled and polished land diameter bores and then repeated the process after grooves were cut. Many of these rifles are amazingly accurate with the barreled action tightly bedded. I mentioned in another post that early Springfield Armory barrels were plagued with poor bore uniformity. The solution was the development of a very sensitive bore dimension guage. Bores meeting specs were stamped with a star burst symbol on the lower face of the muzzle crown. Many shooters came to believe this represented a superior bore, it did not. It represents a "min/max acceptable bore". In the '70s the NRA ran an experiment on bore life, using unissued '03 Springfield barrels with AP and BAll ammo. They were surprised to find that accuracy of barrels tended to increase up thru 10,000 rounds and began to decrease starting at 50.000 rounds. This was atributed to the tooling marks and dimensional inconsistancies being diminished, but it took 10.000 rounds to do it. Accuracy was maintained over the next 40,000 rounds simply because lands were still sufficiently present to apply adequate spin to the bullet. Points of impact changed as the bores enlarged, but, grouping remained acceptable as accuracy is a matter of bore consistancy, not tightness. The bottom line is that early, hand lapped German barrels began life as accurate and continued to be accurate for very long periods of time because the lands were very high. So, it's pointless to rebarrel these rifles because of the fine cartridges produced (6.5, 7, 7.65, and 8mm) and their long life barrels, especially if the shooter handloads and is able to hand design loads for a particular barrel. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plumbum Posted February 29, 2008 Report Share Posted February 29, 2008 Your last post solves the problem completely, you have a TURK barrel. I believe they were designed to handle 8x57, .318x57, and 7.65x54. Headspace is reset for different cartridges by screwing the barrel in or out, by hand, to achieve proper headspace (live round in chamber sets headspace limits). hand adjustable? by whom? I have never heard of this. interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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