I finally got to take my M1888/90 Mannlicher Rifle out to the range that I purchased a few years back from Royal Tiger Imports (RTI). See the previous videos on this rifle, including the unboxing, here: • RTI Mannlicher Rifles
Very interesting rifle. There are so many that are not commonly seen. Hard to believe that thousands upon thousands of them were made and yes, so few remain. Given the quality of the ammunition and the bore of the rifle, that is a very good group very well centered for windage. Elevation is easily corrected. Might want to consider hand loads. A flat base bullet will likely give better results in a worn bore.
Man, an hour and a half to the range. That's rough. Im thankful to have a friend with land I can shoot on and a couple public ranges within a half hour. When I go to a public range to minimize time changing targets I take a huge sheet of cardboard and tape it to the target stand and put 6 targets on it...it helps a lot when you have guns you're sighting in as well since you can see your hits even if they are way off target.
Great looking rifle. Hope to add one to my collection some day. Until then, it was nice to see you enjoy it. Casto's has been nice to fill the void, expensive, but still nice to have.
Beautiful piece of handiwork from an artisan, or partisan that must have known his way with a graver. So few of these museum pieces still in existence, that collectors are sore with flexing their checkbooks to have a specimen like this. Thank you for sharing!
I am sorry to make the obligatory delayed sound/hangfire joke/observation but those were a hell of a bunch of hangfires! Poor joke aside, I truly enjoy your videos and seeing how you bring these pieces back to life! Go Navy! Beat Army!
I got an actual 1890 w the safety but was missing some other small parts. Got lucky, gun was unit marked and matched to include the stock too. Real clean AOI stamp. Only significant issue was the bore, actually really good rifling just had a slight ring/bulge of about .1 mm 4 inches from the muzzle. Shoots fine at any rate just like yours, criminally underrated RTI offering
There $65 a box now, from what I know he is the only one doing 8x50 and there's a 3 year backlog for 8x50 dies for reloading. Someone should tell Steinel to start making some.
USNA i just had the same problem with my M43 Mauser and the Romanian surplus i had ..It was the Stricker spring. That ammo you have there is 1935 marked that just might be gone. You can see it in my last video i just made. THANKS for showing !
I have both an original 1888 Mannlicher and an 88/90. I can't tell any real differences between the two except the side plates on the rear sight. Supposedly they also changed the chamber area slightly; hence why there are 8x50 and 8x52 cases. The case length doesn't really seem to matter in these so long as it's between 50 and 53mm or so. Anyways, I was wondering if you would happen to know if they changed anything with the action to strengthen it or did they basically just change the sights? Reason being, I know these aren't the strongest actions and found it odd that nothing was really changed as far as action strength when transitioning to smokeless powders. I would like to use the same loads in both of my Mannlichers if possible. As an aside, I do load my own ammo. Those loads from Castos Curios seem a bit stout for the wedge locks. I'd probably only fire those in the M95 Mannlichers. I think the loads for the wedge locks was a heavy 240-245gr moving about 1800-1900fps but those were with black powder and semi smokeless loads which have a gentle pressure curve, though I'm sure many of these wedge locks were fired with the later M93 ammo as well. Having multiple special cartridges in the same caliber being made and issued would be a logistics nightmare. I suppose other "weak" actions also made the transition to smokeless. Rolling block, Vetterli, Martini-Henry, M71 Mauser 6.5 conversions, the Gras 8mm conversions, etc... Liked and subscribed btw. You've done a good job restoring a lot of these arms.
Great video! It’s nice to see these old rifles being fired. The ammo pouch is pretty interesting as well. I haven’t seen a lot of these single-cell pouches. Is it from WW1 or post-WW1?
What kind of ammo did you use, is it castos or handloaded? I've heard you should use low grain ammo with these since they are blackpowder tolerance built on the receivers
Though I don’t know if this is 100% confirmed, the thought is that RE and REC marks were applied to rifles allocated to Colonial Use before 1936. They switched to AOI after.
The problem with your ammunition not firing is a week spring inside the bolt stretch the spring someone probably left the rifle locked and cocked squeeze the spring until it doesn't have the force necessary
If the highest numbers on the rear sight are 18 on the left and 30 on the right it's a purpose built 1890. If they read 17 and 25, it's either an 88 or an 88/90 missing its side plates.
It has 18 an 30 on rear sight base with no plates glad to know it’s a rare 1890 purpose built acceptance date ends is a 2 can’t make out the first part in mmm thinking 1892 but it might be 1912
Great stuff. Thanks for sharing! Could we please get an updated tour of your gun room/overview of your AH collection? It’d be cool to see the developmental history from the Lorenz, Werndyl, to the mannlichers! This is one of my favorite videos of yours: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gyOpW0e15aY.html
Thanks! I actually haven't changed out my gun room much since that video was done. My plan was to rotate weapon eras/countries every so often, but I haven't gotten to that yet. When I do, I'll definitely post an update!
