Smoothing Turkish Shotguns

During the past few months I have tested and worked with a good number of Turkish pump action shotguns. All have been reliable but there are significant differences between the furniture, fit, smoothness, and trigger action. Those differences are interesting. There are more than two or three manufacturing facilities making these guns—good information indicates there are at least twenty facilities in Turkey.

These shotguns have become very popular based on the fact that they work and are available when no other shotguns are. Price has been good and lately the shotguns have become downright cheap. Citizens concerned with safety and personal protection rightly figure a pump action shotgun is as good a home protection firearm as they are able to own.

I have seen what were once two hundred dollar shotguns at the big box stores bring twice that price during the pandemic—and a Remington 870 Tactical was pushing a thousand dollars. The Mossberg 590 seemed unobtainable. That makes the Turkish guns long on value. So far it has given good service. Major importers such as EAA and Legacy Sports offer very similar shotguns with different furniture and sights. However, there are differences in the shotguns fit and internal parts as well.

Apparently even Armscor no longer imports Philippine made shotguns but instead rebrands Turkish guns. CZ’s self loading 712 shotgun is also a Turkish product. Some Turkish guns are very well made but the least expensive are made to sell as cheaply as possible. The action may be rough and the trigger heavy but the firearm functions. There are many of these guns out there and chances are there will be many more. As I write this prices have dropped considerably on all firearms.

The Turkish guns are now seen for less than two hundred dollars in some cases. One dealer sold hundreds in his medium-size shop during the pandemic. He kept up the re-orders and was caught with a surplus of inventory during the inevitable slow down. This had him selling the shotguns for $99—a considerable loss. He simply needs to move them and isn’t ordering any other shotguns until he does. I recently had the opportunity to work with several Turkish shotguns.

In one case the action was about as smooth as the average domestic shotgun while the others were pretty rough. One was so tight that the shooter firing the shotgun actually put so much effort into racking the action his hand slipped off the forend. There are standard practices in working these shotguns but some cannot be improved by much. Others respond well. Let’s look at some of the practices used to smooth up the shotguns. Example Shotgun We’ll look at the Rock Island Mireva as a typical example.

When disassembling this shotgun I ran into a problem. The action was racked with the bolt left open and the magazine cap was unscrewed. The barrel was so tight in the action I had to tap the barrel with a

rubber hammer to get it to release. I did this by placing a wedge behind the barrel lock that fits onto the barrel. Note, the original Rock Island Army Philippine-made shotgun does not have a removable barrel, being based on the High Standard Flite King. When I pulled the barrel out I pulled so hard that when the barrel sprang forward so did the bolt, forend, and action bar! The dual bar action bar is attached to the forend with a spring plunger and fits into a mortise in the forend.

The bolt rides in a trunnion of sorts in the receiver. After the first try, disassembly was easier but never became smooth by any means and the action remained stiff. Accompanied by a nine pound trigger compression this was not an easy shotgun to use well. The action bars were examined. Turns out the bolt is actually very well polished although there were a couple of burrs and rough spots. I polished them and the bars were well lubricated and replaced. This made the action noticeably smoother.

This type of work may be contra indicated on a cheap gun as it is perhaps best to spend the money to get a better gun. True, but there are thousands of these Turkish shotguns guns out there. They are inexpensive and reliable and I would certainly not turn down the work. Better guns are not only much Top Bottom more expensive these days, they often cannot be found. The Turkish guns have no trade in value at present.

In a few months they will be as common as single shot break open shotguns once were on the used rack if past experience is any guide. So, they can be good candidates for upgrades and are certain to come in the shop. There is something to be said for holding the action release and cycling the action to wear off burrs. Wear is simply material removed although this isn’t the same as a good polish.

This type of action smoothing by operation may work with a higher quality shotgun such as a Remington or Mossberg but won’t work with a shotgun with rougher action. Sharp edges and burrs tend to accelerate eccentric wear and make the action rougher as time goes on. Quality firearms will often become smoother as the action is worked but lesser quality firearms do not break in and just get rougher with time. This is because the original burrs and flat spots make for eccentric wear, not smooth wear.

We need to look for poor polish, no polish, and burrs. Hard steel working against soft spots isn’t a good form of polish and the harder steel parts will stay rough for along time. So, polish the action bars. If need be, pay atten-

tion to the bolt. The inside of the receiver is usually okay, but along thin file or a tool with some gritty sandpaper to polish the inside of the receiver may be needed. As for a super tight fit, there are several basic designs of the Turkish shotgun. The Rock Island shotgun is just too tight and the result is a difficult disassembly. Some Turkish shotguns follow the line of the Remington 870.

The Rock Island Armory shotgun and the Citadel PRX feature along barrel extension for lock up, making disassembly more difficult. I am not certain why Rock Island or the Turkish maker specified this change; the resulting Rock Island import was very stiff and very difficult to break down. It loosened but little with further work. The EAA Akar Model 612 uses a shorter barrel extension that is easier to disassemble and seems to work fine.

With so many importers bringing in different shotguns apparently from different makers each shotgun must be examined on its own merit. Top Three types of barrel lockup from three different shotguns purchased in the same week. Bottom Disassembly Based on the models I’ve seen so far, the same disassembly procedure works for take down in all Turkish pump action shotguns. After clearing, the barrel/magazine nut is unscrewed and removed.

Some are the standard barrel nut design that has been around for a hundred years or more. The Rock Island, Iver Johnson, and a few others use an enlarged barrel nut with cannelures; this type of nut is much easier to work with. The others are no more difficult than any other traditional shotgun but the new type certainly is an improvement. Some also feature an enlarged bolt release which is also to be applauded. Next, move to the barrel.

To remove the barrel in general with a pump action shotgun simply rack the bolt a bit to the rear to unlock it from the barrel extension and pull the barrel away. This works well for most Turkish shotguns. The EAA Akkar 612 is one but others are more difficult due to the longer than average barrel extension. These shotguns tend to be fitted tightly and are difficult to remove but this varies. The Rock Island was an extreme example.

I hate to have to tell you how to take down a pump action shotgun as it should be simple, but if you’re working with a relatively new shotgun of this type that has not been broken in, I recommend

There have been reports of other types. Some Turkish choke tubes will have dots on the body indicating the choke. lubricating the firearm with penetrating oil and wiggle the barrel as you remove it. Be careful not to pull the bolt and action bars out. Once the shotgun barrel is removed the forend, action bars, and bolt are easily removed. The primary areas of concern in my experience are the action bars; the bolts are usually polished well enough.

The Rock Island shotgun was very well polished in the bolt but the action bars were another matter. They are not smooth and needed a bit of polish, however, they were smooth enough in some places and this made polishing more difficult. It doesn’t hurt to run an old dress sock over the action bars which will snag where the burrs are. Some were large enough for a file but most demanded sanding, resulting in greater smoothness. The improvement isn’t startling but incremental.

Some of these shotguns will be rougher than others. A rather different type of problem was encountered with the Legacy Citadel shotgun. The action bars could stand smoothing but it wasn’t as rough as the Rock Island shotgun. However, I encountered a situation I cannot recall finding on any other shotgun. After a number of firing tests the shotgun exhibited wear marks on each side of the receiver. This was from the synthetic forend contacting and wearing on the receiver, resulting in tightness in the action.

This required more thought to address. I carefully ground and filed portions of the forend. Fortunately, the forend was tightly fitted without the side-to-side play often found in inexpensive shotguns. A bit of grinding and final polish resulted in enough relief in the forend to clear the receiver. While this may be required with a number of shotguns it seems an individual problem. I have not yet addressed the trigger action typical of Turkish shotguns.

They seem similar to the Remington 870 but the parts do not interchange. I tested several Turkish shotguns for trigger action and found the EAA Akkar Model 612 action broke at six pounds, the Citadel PAX broke at nine pounds and the Rock Island Mivera shotgun at ten. As a shotgun has a great deal of recoil compared to most rifles and rimfire rifles especially they have a heavier trigger so the trigger will not be knocked off the sear during recoil. A word on smoothing any shotgun but particularly cheap shotguns.

There are some that do not break in and wear in asthey should. The cheaper Belgian shotguns were among these many years ago. Rough spots become galled rather than smoothed in. By the time this has occurred there really isn’t much a gunsmith can do. In most cases a time-expensive action job works much better than stroking the action for several hundred repetitions. In the case of the Turkish shotguns it’s best if they are caught before they are used and improved out of the box.

Turkish shotguns use Mobil chokes, standard Beretta and Benelli types. Generally, the owner’s manuals illustrate the choke marking. Some will have a single dot for full choke, advancing to several dots for open cylinder. Others are marked with a notch in the bottom of the choke, usually one notch for full choke and continuing in that manner. Just the same, one shop reported that their batch of low rent pump shotguns arrived with Remington-type choke tubes.

I could not personally examine these but the gentleman running the shop knows what he is about. Just the same, every Turkish gun I have used has been provided with Mobil-type shotgun chokes. Turkish shotguns area mixed batch. Some seem to rival or equal Benelli quality. Others are far from it. All respond to careful gunsmithing. AG