Message for Charile S and Denton. Approached my smith to rethread my Remington take off's (in 25.06 and 270). He said that there was not enough metal to do such a conversion. He miked both the receiver and barrel shank and said by the time he recut the mauser threads onto the Remington barrels it would be a "sloppy mess". He implied that he really didn't want to do it because his libility would be increased from any future problems. OK. I'll buy that. I ask about using a (Midway supplied) Adams and Bennet barrel. He said that the thread pitch of the 98 and Turk were different and that the A&D shouldn't even thread into the Turk. If they did, the barrel was a bad cut. Not only does the Turk Receiver and the A&D 98 barrel thread together, they thread tighter than does the receiver of a VZ-24 when screwed onto the A&D barrel. The VZ can be wiggled up and down when almost seated against the face of the barrel. The Turk has almost no wiggle. The VZ 24 is a Large Ring is it not?

My question to you both is: what is your fee to rethread my Remington's to my Turk's? What do you need to do it? What about indexing the markings and sight holes?

Should the A&D 98 Mauder barrels mate with the threads in a Turk as easily as mine do? Or do I have 3 bad barrels? Please e-mail me at DEichelberger@ref.whs.mil

Hi, I'm not Charlie or Denton, but from what I've read of you post, it sounds like you have a Turk M38 made from a K98 mauser. If it is an M38 then it is a large ring mauser that takes a large ring barrel shank and is the reason why a rem take off barrel will not fit. Turkey had vast stocks of model 1903 parts when they refurbished their arsenal in 1938. The new model M38 was to utilize as many of these parts as possible. As such the new recievers which were large ring size were machined to be accept the small ring shank barrels that the model 1903 used. This is the reason why a Rem take off barrel can be used to rebarrel a Turk. However, Turkey also had stocks of standard K98 german mausers recievers that accept the large ring barrel and not wanting to waste these, they modified the front of the reciever (counterbored to accept the upper handguard) and put large ring barrels on them. It appears that those M38's that are marked as K.Kale on the reciever are large ring small barrel shank and those marked with ATF supperimposed on the reciever and Th 98 on the rail are large ring mausers with large shank barrels. The former should be OK for rebarreling as the reciever was made longer to allow for the counter bore, if you are using the latter make sure you check the amount of threads that hold the barrel in place as the counterbore may have affected the thread count. The only way to tell is to remove the barrel. Check out the thread concerning this on Parralax's turk forum. It was I believe discussed at length last month. HTH

That info is correct. The turks are mostly a large ring outside profile and a small ring thread. The ones that are common and the one you are talking about anyway. That brings into question, at least to me, your gunmith. He should know this stuff. If he doesn't you should question the decision to use him. This really basic information and procedures, any body who hangs up his shingle should have mastered it. If not, don't use him.

[This message has been edited by scot (edited 04-30-2001).]

HSP223 has it nailed dead on. Most 38 Turks take a small ring barrel, which is just slightly smaller than a Remington thread.

It's a fundamental law of the universe that anything that happens must be possible. It must be possible to put a Rem barrel on a small ring Turk, 'cause I picked mine up from the gunsmith a couple of days ago, and it looks great.

If your gunsmith did not get a good look at the gun, he might have assumed that it was a large ring. That would make it very inadvisable to try the conversion, and he should try to talk you out of it. The small ring jobs have a little thin flange that projects forward slightly from the front of the receiver, around the barrel. It makes a little round well.

My gunsmith is
Bryner Gun Shop
749 West 24th Street, Ogden, UT 84401
(801) 392-6855

The owner/operator is Franz Bryner. He's kind of a cool guy... German, I think, or maybe Swiss.

I kept the job of grinding down the welding on the handle, and I installed a 'low scope' safety. Outside that, he ground down the 'bridge', drilled and tapped for a scope, cut of the bolt handle and welded it back bent, cut new threads on the Rem barrel, took the old barrel off, put the new one on, and adjusted the chambering for $120. Now I have to do some surface prep on the receiver, and he is going to re-blue the receiver and trigger guard for $25.

It's best to try to contact Franz if it is raining in Utah. He has the good sense to take the day off if it is unusually nice.

(duh... I went back and more carefully read your message... would have helped if I had been more careful the first time.)

Adams and Bennett make both small and large ring barrels. If you're screwing barrels into the front of the Turk, just slap a dial caliper across the shank. If it's close to .980", it's small ring threads, and the Rem barrel will work just fine. If it's close to 1.10", it's large ring threads, and I'd forget the Rem conversion.

Thanks to all who responded.I don't think I'm still confused anymore. The A&B barrels are advertised as Large Ring 98, thus they should NOT thread into the Turk, but they do. I'll drop Mr. Byner a line.

Called Mr. Byner and he gave me a new set of rules to follow. I have a 1937 and a 1948 marked Turkish with the Ankara arsenal logo. A lot of these rifles were regrinds of existing 98 models. The two I have, purchased several years ago from Sarco are in fact large ring 98's. The threads pitch is different enough so they will NOT accept a normal 98 barrel but they will accept an Adams and Bennet. Don't know what to tell the rest, but at least on mine they are large ring all the way. Thanks to everyone who responded. Now I have two Remington barrels to get rid of. One is 25.06 and the other is .270. E-mail me at DEichelberger@ref.whs,mil