Cosmoline
Member
This morning I heard the familiar flap of wings in the woods about 150 yards from the cabin and the only rifle at the ready was the Schmidt-Rubin 1896/11, which I had been greasing up and waxing down the night before. I replaced the top two rounds of Norma with GP 11 in the magazine and started stalking. Ptarmigan seem to be impossibly hard or amazingly easy to find. Thankfully this one was in the latter category, and was standing perfectly still in a cleared-out area about 30 yards distant. Anyway I shot low to avoid destroying that wonderful breast meat, but the first shot still went over its head. The Ptarmigan still remained in place, so a second shot ended matters. The deep red breast meat is in the cooler and the rest of the bird is in the truck on ice ready for breaking down. Insides to the dogs, feathered hide to my SO for craft projects.
A few observations. The rifle shoulders extremely easy in spite of its size, and I had no difficulty tromping through the spruce forest with it in a hurry. Once I get a high front sight installed aiming should not be a problem. I may put a 50 yard zero on it for the lowest tangent, if there's enough metal to work with.
Noise was very low for a .308-level rifle. My old Savage 99 .308 would leave my ears ringing for an hour, but this rifle made only slightly more noise than a small handgun. Not bad at all, and no ringing ears. I suspect the long barrel simply eats up nearly all the powder and gas, so there's no flaming explosion following the bullet out of the bore.
The GP-11, in spite of it being full powered military ball, is not bad at all for small game. Hydrostatic shock tore up a bit of the lower breast meat, but otherwise it wasn't too bad. Obviously, you must expect complete penetration with the bullet retaining most of its energy, so you must watch your background. In this case the bullet went to earth a few feet away due to the downward angle of the shot.
I suspect the makers and users of this rifle a century ago would not have expected it to end up shooting hare and ptarmigan in rural Alaska.
A few observations. The rifle shoulders extremely easy in spite of its size, and I had no difficulty tromping through the spruce forest with it in a hurry. Once I get a high front sight installed aiming should not be a problem. I may put a 50 yard zero on it for the lowest tangent, if there's enough metal to work with.
Noise was very low for a .308-level rifle. My old Savage 99 .308 would leave my ears ringing for an hour, but this rifle made only slightly more noise than a small handgun. Not bad at all, and no ringing ears. I suspect the long barrel simply eats up nearly all the powder and gas, so there's no flaming explosion following the bullet out of the bore.
The GP-11, in spite of it being full powered military ball, is not bad at all for small game. Hydrostatic shock tore up a bit of the lower breast meat, but otherwise it wasn't too bad. Obviously, you must expect complete penetration with the bullet retaining most of its energy, so you must watch your background. In this case the bullet went to earth a few feet away due to the downward angle of the shot.
I suspect the makers and users of this rifle a century ago would not have expected it to end up shooting hare and ptarmigan in rural Alaska.