[Vaarok]

Well, for starters, know in your heart of hearts that if anyone dares slander your turk at a shooting range it's just because they're jealous and ignorant. Congratulations on your purchase, and try not to become an angsty teenager around your father in the next few years- you kinda owe him that for finding you such a nice turk.

As a general rule, Turks are good shooters with sometimes brand-new barrels and a fascinating mix of recycled parts.

I would point you to Turkmauser.com as a general read-up-on-'em, but the site seems to be down at the moment.

As you said, yes, they're a Gew98 reciever (the best mass-quantity mass-produced Mauser action ever, in at least my opinion) which has had a few threads removed from the front in order to leave a gap for the rear of the handguard to fit under, and then assembled into a M-38 style rifle.

Here's the crazy part. Turkey was part of NATO in Korea, and for sake of standardization, the Turkish troops were issued M-1 Garands in .30-06, so they'd have the same ammo and use "the best battle rifle ever designed"... Except a significant portion of the Turkish troops preferred the Mauser. They said it was more reliable and they liked it better. They also said Turkish bayonets worked better than the American ones, because of better blood grooves so they didn't get stuck. (http://www.exile.ru/2005-April-22/war_nerd.html)

The ATF takes a "standard" Turk bayo, whatever that is, and if you look at the various bits it's made from and check their proofmarks, chances are good you can find pieces that're German from both world wars, Czech replacements, original Turkish Contract bits, and who knows what else.

And just 'cause I thought of it, I've got a couple Turk bayonets I won at an auction. If you'd like one, drop me a PM, and you can have it for shipping.

 

[Vaarok]

Word of advice, go to estate auctions that advertise guns, look at the auctionhouse's catalogue ahead of time if they put it online, and look up all the wierd stuff.

This spring I found a wierd little telescope in a case that didn't look like much, but turned out to be a thousand-dollar-plus Japanese machinegun antiaircraft sight. I didn't win that one, because someone else knew what it was and bid accordingly, but I did get a Uruguayan Mauser 1871. Didn't know what it was, but I asked on the mauser board and they told me, and nobody else at the auctionhouse knew, so I got it for a song.

I also got a K98K sniper rifle once for $250. It looked like a chopped-down regular K98, but I noticed it was all-matching and had an original and different-than-usual scope rail, and everyone else there assumed it was just a K98 with a sporterized stock.

That's the best way to luck into rare guns. Usually people build up- common guns first, then rarer guns, then really odd stuff. But if you can spot the odd stuff when nobody else recognizes it and won't risk paying much for it, you can get it really cheap.

Watch the boards. Whenever somebody gloats about something, you can bet it's good, and if you ever see one in person, pounce it.