Turkish officer here! I have overseen a lot of ancient mausers being distributed to the village guards or at least was present when they are being discarded/repurposed but this is not one of them. THAT is a weapon I haven't seen and must be very rare. One thing to mention is that the yellowing in the metallic parts and the rear bolt assembly is caused by rust resistant cosmoline wax. And that cosmoline has to stay on the gun for DECADES to have such a potent discolouring effect. I have personally seen M98 rifles were never waxed in that fashion for 70 straight years. Probably because they were always in use some way or the other. At first in the frontlines, then in rear echelons, then in military shools with worn barrels and they would finally be shelved for last resort rifles/militia. Decades of cosmoline is a somewhat polar opposite of that approach. They must have either forgotten them somewhere because these crates were not more than 200 specimens, so they became forgotten like the Ark of Covenant in an Indiana Jones movie , or even more interestingly they were retired from frontline around 1952/55 with NATO with the cavalry branch. Turkish army until that point had always been cavalry centric so perhaps they couldn't retire these as fast as NATO wanted them to. My 2 cents.
Small variants on relatively inexpensive old rifles is what got me started in collecting..when I was younger I didn't have the extra money to buy more in demand weapons. But for $150 bucks I could go to pawn shops or gun shows and bring home a new to me weapon. That made me happy and my collection grew and grew.. most of them have doubled in value.so it's an investment also.. now I'm older and have the money to buy 3 and 4 thousand dollar specimens . But they will Never hold the memories and that proud feeling of being frugal and wheeling and dealing for all the ones that I've held on to for so long.The feel and smell of a been there done that weapon is priceless..
Turks have a hard-on for german weapons, they later adopted and license prodouced g3-hk33s, now they are making their own modified version of HK 416, 417
@@TheWolfsnack let's see, conspiring with the russians they rebelled against ottomans, they raided and pillaged every single village in south east, they killed more civilians than any other allied forces combined. It wasn't a genocide it was self defense. cry somewhere else
This reminds me to kick myself that I ignored a batch of then very nicely priced Persian Mausers that are now changing hands for a king's ransom or three.
Just one little correction, they do not have numbers in Turkish, as the state of Turkey adopted the latin alphabet (with some help from Swedish linguists, but that's another story) shortly after the fall of the remnants of the Ottoman empire. What they are though is Ottoman script, which is very similar to Arabic script. In fact, the Ottoman script borrowed the numerals directly from Eastern Arabic script.
@@DonMeaker well yeah, we could trace it back even further than that, but what's the point? We are talking about developments which happened in the last 100 years, and with languages that are very much still alive and used, as opposed to Aramaic which is almost entirely dead.
Just a small correction! AS FA means "Askeri Fabrikalar" (lit. Military Factories). Conversions were carried out by Çelik ve Kimya Endüstrisi (Steel and Chemistry Industries) but parliament decided to stamp AS FA for simplicity instead. Loves from Turkey, keep up the good work. I'd be personally more than happy to see Greek Mannlicher rifles, those are really cool!
my great grandfather has 6 pictures from the war, in all of but one of them, he holds a kar98az he had from the german aid when he was sent to eastern front to help austro-hungary till germans arrived, he got to keep that rifle after the liberation war and i still have it. in one of the pictures however, he holds what i think of something similar to this rifle, but bayonet was broken from the middle, and was folded and taped to the gun with a narrow piece of cloth. so much stories, untold.
Most of the time your hand will be behind the sling swivel and with the sling on, it won't go anywhere near the point. Most of the bayonets I have or have seen aren't real sharp anyway, nor were they intended to be.
Hey man - If you recall YEARS ago i think it was Century Int'l had a TON of these (one of the Turkish versions) of large ring 98-style for sale for like $20 each and my father bought like ten of them for sale and various projects. I was around 12 or 13 then and built up my FIRST Mauser from one of these in .308, bent the bolt down, Timney trigger, modifed safety, added target sights (always wanted but never got around to real optics), etc. and still have that thing today at my father's house. I SAY my father's house because since then I met, married, and divorced a Turkish woman and I NOW live in Istanbul (had to leave my firearms home, of course). I've been here since around the year of the (most recent) coup but have missed being able to just walk out back and shoot and so I've been checking out your videos a bunch. Thanks by the way and I would LOVE it if you COULD do a series on Turkce Mausers, I think that'd be kickass. P.S. those ones that we had were WEIRD in that they were large ring outer diameter but SMALL RING inner diameter like the older '96 Mausers so while I had bought a blank for a LR '98 back then we had to re-cut the threads for a small ring (at 13 I had help of course). Luckily the base of the large ring thread was basically the crest of the SR thread so it worked out, but that was the only time that we had seen ones like that from what I recall. You brought back a great memory of my time back at home! Anywys thanks for your content and HELLO from the Turkish Republic!!!
Plot twist: Turkish numerals are Arabic, Arabic numbers are Western, Western numbers are Hindu-Arabic, all are read from left to right. The answer is always 42
@@YamacKocovali7 You will be surprised but yes. "old turkish numerals" are just plain Arabic (now called Eastern Arabic). What is commonly known as "Arabic" is Western Arabic. I would call it Arabic inspired numeral system :-D. More or less only numbers we share with original Arabic are 1 and 9.
@@RETmehh It explain why there is new "46" serial when they converted it after date you mentioned. Probably it has been in their armoury before that date.
7:18 It's entirely reasonable. You don't need to fend off cavalry charges post-WW1, and, to quote Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria, 'six inches of penetration is enough, and we don't want overpenetration'.
Never had bayonet training myself but all the old training films I've seen stress controlling the penetration. When the fight devolves to that level getting your weapon trapped in one opponent may well be your last mistake.
@@tarjei99 That's true, but I don't think anyone seriously expected to stop them with bayonets as they did in WWI. Also, they weren't a common enough threat for a major army to consider them when designing/adopting bayonets.
@@tarjei99 They did, yeah, but in fact it was much different from what we're discussing here. Italians, for example, used large amounts of SMGs and grenades during their last mounted charges in the summer of '42 (and that resulted still in huge casualties on their part).
I have a 1893/35 Turkish Mauser. I really hope he does a series on Turkish Mausers, as they can be awesome rifles. They just usually need a lot of extra love and care when you first get them.
This is very close to a to an old Turkish rifle I've been trying to identify in my father's collection. The biggest physical differences I notice is that ours is longer, has an internal magazine that extends out the bottom, and there is a round hole in the stock instead of a rectangular one. From what I can tell ours is a Turkish Gew 88 1930's conversion commision rifle. Love to see one on your channel and learn more about it!
I know that nobogy would care, but im very happy, some years ago i lost the all bolt accion piece of a k98 Mauser i put it aoart for some reason, and i gave that for lost, until i found the bolt piece today, i will get a bayonet fot it latter. Greatings
The first gun I ever purchased was an M38 Turkish Mauser in 8mm. Complete with bayonet and cleaning rod. She has one of the best triggers I’ve ever experienced. So please, do a series on the Turkish guns, I would be so grateful!
You aren't joking when you say the Turks had a huge mishmash of various Mausers and updated versions. Dad has a Turkish Mauser that I wondered about for many years because it seemed to be so unique. Full length 30" barrel in 7.92mm with 1930s Turkish proof marks... ...but built on a Gewehr EIGHTY-EIGHT action! Looks like nothing I've seen elsewhere even compared to other Turk rifles I've seen. I thought for years it was probably a rebuild made with random surplus parts as this pattern did not appear in any military reference books we have, but finally found a reference to this gun recently after a lot of net searches so is in fact a legit Turkish pattern rifle. These old guns have some amazing history and longevity. 140yr old gun that was in service with Ottomans for about 70 of those years.
My father gave me a turkish Mauser with a straight bolt handle and says Ankara like this one. He said my mom bought it at a garage sale for 25 bucks in the early 90s
Great video! It would be amazing if you could make a video about the Turkish "M38" Mauser. Specially the "Ankara K.Kale" rifles. Many people have this type of Mauser, but there is really not much information about them online, or anywhere. They are really interesting and somewhat "mysterious" rifles.
They'd think its retarded because these "rifle caliber pistols " only work because the "rifle" cartridge they fire isn't a fullpower one and thats the only kind they know.
I love the term short rifle. Especially when you look at modern firearms that are naturally short, and look at these "short rifles" and your amazed and boggled. These rifles be long as hell.
The bayonet may have been more effive than you imagine. Seen as something sharp a prisoner would be easily controlled by such a weapon. It might not do for heavy fighting, but for crown control or less lethal functions, it would do.
@@nolanolivier6791 Yes, i saw that one. i cannot really say why, maybe bc they were hosted really well there or there may be some ad involved, but i feel like if the review coming from abroad would be a bit more objective
Little gun fact (I made a word play there): There are old Turkish songs about the great war which even talks about mauser (In the songs its often called "mavzer").
Carrying that over your back must of been fun with that bayonet hanging out and sticking you somewhere in your body. What killed him ? Oh , his own bayonet.
Fun trivia: the "Turkish serial numbers" are in fact the actual Arabic numerals as opposed to "the Arabic numerals", one could call them the "Arabic Arabic numerals" if he were to disregard the fact that these (the ones at 4:53) are the original Arabic numerals. The reason you call 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Arabic numerals is that it was the Arabs that invented the system (some attribute it to an indian astronomer) where digits are notated with unique characters and numbers are positionally notated unlike the Roman system. The "transliteration" of what you see at 4:53 is 4774. Transliteration is actually not the right word to use here since these are not letters but numbers so I should have gone with something like "transdigitation" LOL. Directionality is kind of messy here. The Arabic script is dextrosinistral (dexter=right, sinister=left) but numbers are sinistrodextral (fun, right?) so the directionality of our numbers has nothing to do with the directionality of our scripts. From now on when someone mentions "arabic numbers" you will always remember that they are not the actual arabic numbers but mere translations of sorts. Tell them about this, their minds will be blown too.
Damn Ian, I love your videos but it seems like every old rifle you show triples in price immediately after your video posts. Well I guess if it wasn’t for you I probably wouldn’t get to see so many of these cool rifles.
320 views huh? this is the earliest I've ever viewed a Forgotten Weapons video... Broken analytics aside, this is a really fascinating pattern of Mauser
Yes, very interesting. Is the 7.65 the same cartridge as the Argentine? I can't remember off the top of my head. The variations of Mausers are almost endless, and it looks like the Turks accounted for more than their share. Great video as always. Thank you
Can't seem to find it if you already have, but if you haven't. Would you consider doing a video on the Remington new model army conversion model, as in the from the factory .45lc new model army. Not the conversion cylinders. Great work nonetheless! 😁
I would imagine that they tried this bayonet design as a way of enabling cavalry to be able to fix bayonets without having something loose that they could drop, if it was any longer they'd probably risk accidentally stabbing themselves or the horse if they tried to manipulate it on horseback
This goes back to a time when cavalrymen were carrying sabres on their side, hence placing a scabbard for a bayonet (which would only be used on foot) would be inconvinient. I think this was the case with Italian and Japanese cavalry carbines being fitted that way. However, about 1930's most armies have converted to carrying swords attached to the saddle, but I'm not sure about Turkish cavalry specifically. PS Am I indeed talking to Anthony G Williams, the author of many articles and a famous website?
@@BaronSamedi1959 Using a rifle with a bayonet as a sort of spear from horseback is a desperate measure, in all fairness. Back when Italians and Japanese were desigining and issuing their folding bayonet carbines, there was a general trend among non-Anglo-Saxon nations to equip their cavalry with lances for charging the infantry in a most effective manner. After WW1 you would either follow this trend (Poles would be your primary example) or rely on dismounted fire for the most part, saving sabres for charging on entirely disorganised enemy troops or protesting crowds.
Ian a note regarding the markings on this particular rifle. The non-modern/western (eg. 1,2,3, etc.) or "Arabic numerals" are not Turkish, they are actually Arabic. Those arabic numerals are where the western arabic numerals comes from. Arabic and Ottoman Turkish use the same numerals and just shortening Ottoman Turkish to simply Turkish is a little wierd considering we have a modern language called Turkish as well. Just a heads up.
@@reece9746 in 1928 the newly formed Turkish Republic adopted a new alphabet and language. They discarded arabic letters for latin ones and thus they started speaking a different language of sorts.
@@reece9746 there is a difference between written language and spoken language. While even modern day Turkish has a lot of influence from Arabic, many words have both a Turkish word and an Arabic word for it (like "black" can be both "kara" and "siyah" for instance). There are also A LOT of minority languages in Turkey, some being Turkic languages, some not. While the spoken language didn't change from one day to the next, when the latin alphabet became the norm over the Ottoman script one can very well argue that it started a process away from Ottoman Turkish towards modern Turkish.
@@Femerenden tesekkurler ederim Canalp! I just made a comment about this as well. It's a bit of a pet peeve when people automatically treat Ottoman Turkey the same as Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 🙂 You literally fought a war of liberation for it not to be that way!
@@Femerenden I had no idea about this either until about ten years ago when I asked a Turkish friend to help translate something for me from a document from the 1880's. I was rather red faced when he explained, but did send it on to his sister at Muğla Üniversitesi who very kindly helped me out.
I have a good question for your Q&A: I'm not sure if you'll see it since I can't afford your patreon, but I was wondering what your least favorite videogame depiction of a gun is.
@@defectiveturret4391 they're really undervalued here for some reason, it was on the same rack as two incredibly beat-up german gewehr 98s that were both over $700
@Soundwave 47 yeah later on but not the first couple of mauser patterns ( they kept changing over contracts to the currently most modern pattern) and as far as i know that includes the 1903's. The conversions were obviously done in Turkey but unless i missread it the 1903's were completely made in germany and shipped over.
This being a channel viewed around the world, Ian, or Ian's computer, is probably working on Greenwich Mean Time. Tideline Art, however, uploads from Greenwich around Sunday tea time most weeks.
Ian acts like his videos are too long. i'd like to point out that anything under 30 minutes i consider too short. i can watch and learn from Ian for HOURS.
Loving yours videos but just for kicks, actually, the older numbers are not Turkish but "Eastern Arabic" numerals, the usual numerals are called "Western Arabic" :)
Western numbers are called Arabic from our conversion of the numbers from those used in the Levant during the Medeval period. Those numbers in the Levant were called Hindu numbers from their conversion from Indian Numbers. They were invented between the 1st and 4th centuries by Indian mathematicians. The system was adopted in Arabic mathematics by the 9th century. Influential in their spread were the books of Al-Khwārizmī (On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, c. 825) and Al-Kindi (On the Use of the Hindu Numerals, c. 830). The system later spread to medieval Europe. Latin or Roman numbers were letter based and not decimal as they did not contain a zero.
