Swiss Schmidt Rubin 7.5 straight pull bolt action.

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*twirltwirltwirl* Nothing. Denied. How bitter am I?
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I'm here to cheer you up. I will trade you my K31 WITH a nifty name tag for that old, worn out 96/11 of yours AND pay shipping.

In my best imitation of "Gold Hat" from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, "..just throw that ol' iron over heeere..." :D :D :D
 
My first one had no name, so I was quite unhappy. But, it's kind of a bummer to have not had a response to my letter. Like I said, an excuse for a third perhaps.
 
I was so disappointed with not getting a name with my first K31 that I bought a second one. No dice there either. I was talking to a salesman at Big 5 sporting goods and he admitted to me that he checked all their K31s as soon as they came in.
I have been shooting my K31 in our local Vintage Military Bolt Action Rifle matches. It is a terrific rifle, but my point of impact rises with heat. Most of the stages are 10 round stages and by the last few shots I have to take heat into consideration. Last month we had a 400 yard target and I was walking the sight down the target. I blew the last shot by holding too low. Another great thing about the K31 in these matches is the detachable mag. Again, these stages are 10 rounds and most stages are timed. The intention of course is to re-create the old time practice of using stripper clips under pressure. But, since I own two K31s, I just take both mags and making the reload is a non-issue. The straight pull action is also very smooth and quick. You quickly get into a rhythm with the bolt.
Ammo is an issue with the Swiss rifles. I am currently shooting Swiss mil-surp ammo that costs me $39/60 rounds. I have purchased Norma at $39/20 rounds. But, I am now reloading the cases. This has all become acedemic for the handloader now since reloadable brass is now available. It isn't something that you can just pick up the phone and get in a couple days, but Graff & Son gets it in periodically. I am currently waiting on 500 pieces. This should last me a lifetime. One beauty of the K31 is the fact that it has a .308 bore. So, bullet selection is wide. I am shooting Nosler J4 Competition 168 grain HPBTs. It is wonderful to be able to buy the best quality match bullets to give a fine rifle like this every chance to succeed. I have also been playing around with cast bullets in this rifle. I have a mould that I originally bought for the .30-30. It drops a bullet at about 196 grains. I am using a charge of 13.0 grains of Red Dot. It provides a load that is relatively quiet and has almost no recoil. It provides very cheap practice and long brass life. It allows short range practice to fine tune your position shooting and to familiarize yourself with the rifle.
 
Let me also share a humerous story about reloading for the K31. As I mentioned, I have been shooting a lot of Swiss mil-surp ammo. This ammo is very, very accurate and has beautiful brass cases. The cases are top quality, however they are Berdan primed. For those of you that don't reload, we Americans use boxer priming and our loading tools arn't designed to deprime Berdan primed cases. But I just couldn't bring myself to throw these fine cases away. I would bring them home and put them in the tumbler. They would come out with a mirror finish. I finally decided to go all out and I purchased and RCBS tool for depriming Berdan primed cases. The day it arrived I immediately sat down at the bench and deprimed all the surplus cases. The tool worked great. I then resized the cases and was ready for priming. The next morning I called The Old Western Scrounger who I had been told on-line was the only place in the US to get Berdan primers. But appearently Berdan primers come in numerous sizes and they needed to know the dimensions of the primer pocket. I was at work and couldn't get right back to them. In the mean time they went to the SHOT show, so I couldn't call them back for a couple weeks. When I finally got back with them they advised me that they were no longer going to be carrying RWS products and they could not provide the Berdan primers.
So, the project is now on hold. I don't know where to get the primers and have already spent about $60 on the depriming tool.
For me, this was a matter of principal. I just wanted to be able to reload Berdan primed cases. I didn't care if it was cost effective. I didnt' care that reloadable brass was available. I just wanted to be able to re-use those beautiful cases.
 
Yet another thing to add to my collection.
I will warn you gentlemen now, don't ever get a C&R license.
There isn't enough money or storage space to take care of all of my wants.
 
444,

Perhaps this website could be of some help in your quest to reload those berdan primed cases. It is a website dealing with reloading Carcano ammunition, but I believe a technique employed could be used to reload your 7.5 cases.

Just a bit from the site, again, this is referring to the Carcano case.
The Berdan primer used in Italian Service ammunition is 0.204" (5.18mm) in diameter, which is not a standard size. However, it is a simple matter to enlarge the primer pocket in the Italian cases to accommodate the American 0.210" Boxer primer. The procedure is to bore a central flash hole with a No. 50 (0.070"/1.7780mm) drill, which simultaneously cuts away the Berdan anvil. Then enlarge the primer pocket by boring it out to full depth with a No. 4 (0.209"/5.3086mm) drill with the end ground flat (i.e., a flat bottom drill) so that it can bottom in the primer pocket without cutting appreciably deeper. The pocket is then cleaned out a trifle with a primer pocket reamer to give a perfect force fit for the 0.210" primer. I've used Winchester, Remington and Federal primers with complete satisfaction. All work must be done accurately, preferably in a lathe. This may sound complicated, but it is much easier to me than converting 6.5 MS cases.

Perhaps you experiment with a couple of cases using this technique. You are ok so long as your primer pocket is smaller than a No4 drill bit. Then the standard large rifle primers would fit.

Hope this helps.
Good Shooting
RED
 
I have considered doing this, but never went any further. I very well might look into this.
I really appreciate the help.
 
I was sitting here after reading your post and remembered that I had the dimensions to those primer pockets sitting on my bathroom sink (yeah, I am single). I measured a diameter of .210 and a depth of .075. Now I am no machinest and I am not sure exactly how precise these measurements are, but it would appear that I might be able to do this by doing nothing more than drilling a central flash hole.
 
I was sitting here after reading your post and remembered that I had the dimensions to those primer pockets sitting on my bathroom sink (yeah, I am single).
Click to expand...

Ain't that the truth. I laughed out loud when I read that... being married and father of three. :D I can't possibly convey how unlikely that sight would be in this household. :p
 
Well, I have been divorced for years now and my house is chaos. You know how you married guys have this argument with your wives ? ; This room is a mess. Yeah but I know where everything is. Well I can tell you after conducting an extensive test on this that it is possible to have a house that looks like a tornado went through it, yet still know exactly where you put everything. When Red brought up using Boxer primers, I KNEW that a month or two ago, I measured and wrote down the dimensions of a 7.5 Swiss primer pocket on the back of a credit card receipt and that night I emptyed my pockets out on the bathroom sink. The paper was right where I left it.

Unfortunately, the Boxer primers are too big. They go into the Berdan primer pocket with very little resistance. I don't think it would work in this case.
 
Yeah, I meant to say that :D

"Unfortunately, the Boxer primers are too big. They go into the Berdan primer pocket with very little resistance. I don't think it would work in this case."

This I said wrong, the primer pocket is too big. The boxer primer can easily be pushed in with your thumb. I don't think it would work very well. It may work with very light loads, but I am not going to chance it. Someday, Graffs will come though with my brass.
 
Well, after reading the posts here and on the Swiss Rifle forums, I went ahead and bought me a coupla K-31s, one for me and one for Pops. Besides, AIM says they're almost out of them and I didn't want to get left out of all the fun. Two rifles for $200 isn't all that bad a deal, is it?
 
$100 bucks a pop for K31s ain't bad at all unless they're in the worst condition I've ever seen... which still isn't that bad.

Just went to a small show this weekend and there was a guy with about 10 of 'em lined up. Think they were priced at $150 each. Most guys had no idea what they were. When they caught my attention, I sort of zoomed over to check them out and one guy said something to the effect of, 'ya lak dim space rifles, do ye' or something like that. :p
 
I tried to shoot mine today. Stopped at the range on the way home from work to try a new handload. But it was too windy. I managed to get off 8 rounds before my target stand blew over. But, I had one five shot and one three shot groups; one with my handload and one with Norma factory ammo. My handload shot right on the money at 100 yards with the 100 meter sight setting. The Norma shot a little low. I would really like to wring this thing out from the bench. I have been shooting this rifle for a year and never really sat down at a bench and shot groups. I would also like to see just exactly where this rifle hits out to 400 yards compared to the sight settings. A bullets path is not linear. The farther the bullet gets, the faster it drops. But, if you look at the sights on these old military rifles, the distance the rear sight moves between 700 and 800 meters is the same as the distance the sight moves from 100-200 meters. I realize that these extreme range setting on the sights were intended for volley fire, not precise aimed fire. But since I do shoot my rifle out to 400 yards, I need to know where it hits when the sight is set at 400. My plinking load using a cast bullet and 13 grains of Red Dot uses an 800 meter sight setting to hit a steel plate at 200 meters.
 
I saw that AIM raised their prices this week and Century is almost out of them as well. I'd be curious on condition. TRVLR905 -- a condition report when you receive yours would be great!
 
Hey, this would make a great match to my Swiss Army knife.


444-

On the sight issue, you stated that the sight increments are all the same. That doesn't necessarily mean the elevation increments are the same. With sight of that style, the closer you get to the front pivot, the more elevation you get per increment. For instance, 200 to 300 meters might only move the sight arm 5 degrees. But the difference between 700 and 800 meters is 15 degrees.

Take a look, I may be wrong.


On another note, I don't suppose it would be worth it to glue the primer in place? Something a little rubbery might survive firing.
 
I called Graf & Sons today and found out that they are going to get their shipment of 7.5 Swiss brass in August. It is going to have a Graf & Sons headstamp. They are also getting 7.62x54R brass; same as above. They also mentioned that they do sometimes carry Berdan primers, but don't have what I need right now.
So, I am going to have to make due with the 50 or so cases I have now and keep paying outrageous prices for surplus stuff.
 
August! :( Oh the pain....the pain. I should mosey on over to their website and see if they're taking pre-orders. I betchya that brass is not going to last long.
 
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