I never really heard much bad talk about the 88 Commission rifle, except by idiots who don't know how to treat it. They think that because it's an "8mm" you can just stuff some Turk in there and start blasting......no, wrong. Maybe you could get away with it for a while, until a lug cracked. The S-marked rifles are fine and very accurate shooters with Remington Cor-Lokt or handloads loaded within spec.

I had an argument once with of the the said "idiots" who said I was being overcautious by not shooting full house military 8mm ball through an 88, he says "I guess I'm just more adventurous than you" by shooting hundreds of rounds of Turk through his 88, because he claimed it was perfectly able to handle any 8mm because he was some kind of a metal worker or whatever and he knew what he was doing. I hope it was an "S" rifle, at least, or the Darwin effect may have occurred already If not, I bet he's got a ruined 88 with excessive headspace from receiver stretching, a cracked lug, or some other damage. Some people think that if it doesn't grenade on round #1, then it's safe to continue doing whatever with it forever. THESE are the guys who start the "bum scoop" about 88's being unsafe, crap rifles, weak action, etc. because they are just too ignorant to realize that 8mm does not mean ANY 8mm.

The biggest "danger" to mis-informed casual shooters is the guys that buy one of the Turk rebuilt 88's, I have one of these and it's a solid rifle, but still obviously has an 88 bolt and receiver. The Turks basically made their 88's as close to their rebuilt Gew98's as possible, same stock, same barrel, everything is Turk Gew98-M38 style, not even a need for the En Bloc clips anymore. To the casual observer it would appear to be a 98 style Mauser.

These are a good buy for collectors like us, though, because most of them have mint like new bores, because the Turks didn't really shoot these rebuilt 88's. I would guess they were rebuilt just for reserve or emergency use, maybe even for export. It seems like even they knew that the 88's weren't made to handle the high pressure ammo.

My Turk rebuilt 88, with what looks like a brand new M38 type barrel installed along with the sights, new stock, it's very accurate with Cor-Lokt. I have to single feed it, though, because the soft points of the Cor-Lokt hang up on the feed ramp. No big deal, don't plan on taking this rifle into battle anytime soon



My "crappy unsafe weak inaccurate" M41 Don't mind the feet!

The Trapdoor 45-70's got a bad rap, I heard, from some of the "old timers" I have talked to here and there.....but again, "operator error" and failure to properly make sure the rifle was in a safe condition prior to pulling the trigger are usually to blame.I read in "Man at Arms" magazine that some of the 45-70 carbines used on the frontier were sometimes found during ordnance inspections to be in totally destroyed condition, and still being used by soldiers.....rifles with burst barrels from firing with greased rag "tompions" left in the bore, cracked stocks clean through the wrist (later strengthened on later models) firing pins would stick and cause slam fires, etc.

The bad rap I heard was from guys who bought these cheap back in the day from places like Bannermans or just bought them as second hand rifles from guys who had them laying around. Already in rough shape, these guys would load them with badly corroded surplus ammo or one guy even claimed he shot .410 shotgun shells in his to kill crows. Even today I'm sure some originals are taking abuse from uninformed shooters using high pressure 45-70 designed for the modern lever guns.

A quick note, maybe off topic, but both original and modern "repro" percussion arms got a bad rap from early shooters and collectors. I know a guy in his 80's now, who says back in the 50's and 60's he would buy 1861 Springfield muskets for $5 at flea markets, along with old Colt 1860 Army revolvers for a similiar price. He would cast balls out of melted down flywheels and fishing weights (IIRC not pure lead!) and says he would load so much powder in the 1861's it would blow the hammer back to full cock and they would "shoot the old cap and ball revolvers until they fell apart". Lord knows how many guys blew themselves up back in those early days of cheap surplus, not knowing any better and using massive BP charges or even smokeless Then they dismiss these guns as "soft steel old crap". A well maintained percussion rifle or revolver has never failed me. There is the myth that "BP revolvers always chain fire and half the time don't go off"......because of some shooters who don't know how to use them, or load them with oil soaked chambers and clogged nipples dismiss them as "junk". I shoot the repros, but with modern BP substitutes, hot caps and tighter manufacturing tolerances, a BP revolver with dry chambers, clear nipples,the proper size caps and properly loaded will almost never misfire and are quite accurate.

Oh yeah, the old shaving brush clean is still alive and well. I spent many happy hours brushing off my bolt carrier and outside of my M4 in my tent after a mission over in dusty Iraq.

I love my M16A1 clones and my Bushmaster A2 type for the range, they are one of my favorite range rifles for target shooting. Notice I say "range rifle", if I had a choice I would have carried something else. I just can't trust a rifle in a hostile environment that is held together by 3 cent roll pins. When the magazine reliability problem is solved, they can be OK, but I don't see the use of a rifle that if you drop it in the mud it's basically inoperable. I ordered 3 of the MagPul P-Mags for myself while I was over there, along with changing the springs and followers in my standard mags with CMMG high tension springs and anti-tilt followers. I figured if I had to "shoot to live" type thing I wanted to give myself the best chance at a weapon that works.......instead of the old, beat up standard jam-o-matic green follower mags where you just "stuff it in and pray it works".

I could see that, a .30 Carbine round at 2-300 yards lacking the power to penetrate heavy, dense clothing.

The vast majority of "bad press" comes from shooters and so called "experts" who fault a cartridge because it can't do something, when it is being used for purposes beyond what it was designed for. Some people can't grasp the fact that an M1 carbine is not a main battle rifle, but a defensive carbine........there are revolvers chambered for .30 carbine, but there are still the odd few idiots here and there who look at an M1 carbine at a gun show and are like "maah this thang arn't no good at long range, not worth scopin' fer a deer raffle mmm hhmmm" They fault the .223/5.56 round for being "not as good at long range as a .308" No, really! I would have thought a 55-gr .22 caliber slug would be an awesome performer at 1,000 yards, much better than a heavier more powerful round!

Gun shows are great places for entertainment, just grab a big cup of coffee and hang out near a seller who has a large selection of various military rifles, or just walk around and listen to various people talking. You can spot right away who's got a good head on their shoulders and knows what's going on, and then you get to hear basically every single gun myth, story, legend, and every butchered variation when the "gun show goobers" start handling military rifles. These guys are always right, never wrong, they have seen Carcanos blow up, M1 carbines that can't shoot past 25 yards, Japanese rifles that shoot a round where the wooden bullet returns like a boomerang, Enfields made in "Austria", a wood stocked M16 over there (It was an SKS) This is where the old myths and rumors stay alive, in the gun shows and shops all over the US, where someone sees a Carcano "You don't want them, they blow up when ya shoot em" and then the "new" shooter who hears this tells 10 other people, and it remains a "fact" that Carcano's will blow up when you pull the trigger.