The M88 "Comission" action is not weak as an action. DSteele is right, it is just as strong as the Mannlicher-Schoenauer action. Some small details led to badmouthing: In military service some design faults surfaced: If you remove the bolt and uncock it accidentially the bolthead may fall out of the bolt on recocking the bolt. If the loss of the bolthead went unnoticed by the soldier, the M88 rifle could be loaded and fired. Of course, firing any rifle without the bolthead leads to disastrous results. Haenel on it's improved, staggered magazine M1900 and 1909 models corrected this by installing a seperate firing pin tip in the bolthead.
When many M88 rifles were converted in WW1 to use the pointed fmj bullet of the 8x57 S cartridge, another fault surfaced. Like many modern rifles, the M88 is a push-feed action. The extractor only snaps over the case rim on closing the bolt fully down.Now, if a soldier on repeating under stress feels some resistance on pushing the bolt forward, he is inclined to pull it back again and slam it forward with more force. Doing so may leave the first cartridge already chambered. The bolt now picks up a second round. As the M88's clip feeds the cartridges straight into the chamber, the bullet point of the second cartrige hits the primer of the chambered first one -- BANG!!
Another weakness of the M88 design applies only to the old military rifles, not the Suhl made sporters. As you know the barrel of the M88 military rifles and carbines is encased inside a sheetsteel cover. To keep weight inside reasonable limits, the barrel proper was quite thin, especially on early guns. As the space between barrel and cover is connected to the athmosphere, the rifles are now over 100 years old and often served under unkind climatic conditions, the barrels often are severely rust pitted on the outside, invisible under the cover. Sometimes such barrels blow up, fortunately mostly at the proofhouse here in Germany. This is not a weakness of the action, but of the design of the military barrels.
