Finally
I waited a longass time to scrape together the cash for this, and finally put it in my hands today:
The Schmidt-Rubin K-31.
I’m glad I opted for the walnut stock. And for the handpick. I have to say, if this is “handpicked” I’d have hate to seen the other five- this rifle looks as though the stock was used as an emergency paddle down boulder strewn rapids by a man who had no canoe.
Now, I’m not complaining about the fine folks at AIM surplus, for theirs is a difficult enough job already- what with dealing with assholes like me every day- they are fine people and did a fine job. And I will be back for more rifle purchases, take my word.
No, I suspect this was truly the best of five, and it was a pleasure to see it come out of the box- (I have no doubt that the stock will clean up very nicely and look forward to making it look as good as possible. It has an excellent figure in the stock (which of course you can’t see because of the poorness fo the photo) but let’s talk action here for a moment.
All the things I’d heard about this rifle are true. If Rolex made rifles, they would be very much like this. The K31 action is a marvel of mechanical design, especially as it was designed in a time when building a complex machine meant making every single part by hand and doing so with tediously handmade jigs and fixtures. NO cnc work was done to this, my friends, and the quality is spectacular nonetheless. As Anvil Boy beat me to the punch and got his first, by all means go there and look at his excellent reviews of the pieces of the action.
Range report to follow.
10 comments Og | Uncategorized
Yeah the K31 is a sweet rifle. You can see why hitler didn’t want to screw with the swiss chilling out in their mountain passes. I can fire one twice as fast as a mauser AND hit shit. But as nice as the ammo looks and shoots its one gun that will make you start reloading that stuffs pretty dear.
Congrats, Og!
Looks like it’ll clean up nicely – let us know how it goes!
Matt: I’ve been rolling my own match quality ammo for thirty years.
Years ago I ran into a fellow shooting HP with a match rifle built on the K-31. Worked real good but I remember him telling me that it would not work with high intensity chamberings. I remember thinking that it looked real slick.
The K-31 rifles- especially the older ones- are not strong enough for magnum loads. They’re not fragile, but they shouldn’t be overpressured.
Swiss soldiers wore boots with steel reinforcements on the soles, somewhat like permanently attatched crampons. These tended to chew the stock of the rifle as the soldier climbed and scrambled up and down mountainsides.
About the only serious wear or damage I’ve ever seen to a K31 is the buttstock being chewed up a bit. The metal will show handling wear, but the bores and interiors are almost universally in excellent condition.
My birthday is in two weeks, guess what I decided to order myself about three months ago??
Just seeing if the local mom and pops are going to charge me more than it would cost me to get my C&R FFL for the FFL transfer. If so, I’ll have to wait for my paperwork to come through.
Grau, you’re gonna love this rifle.
+1 to what Gerry N said. My Walnut K-31 looks about like yours from what I can see in the picture.
As for Og’s comment about magnum loads, I don’t know why anyone would want to rechamber a K-31 unless for ammo unavailablity. The GP-11 surplus ammo is near match quality and is used throughout Switzerland today for the K-31 in the matches. Regarding older rifles and higher pressures, the G1889 which was the first Schimidt Rubin now has to be hand loaded to reduced pressures compared to the GP-11 surplus ammo. The subsequent versions, namely the G1896/11, the G1911 and the K-11, all predecessors to the K-31 use the same GP-11 ammo as the K-31. The K-11’s have been rechambered to .308 and the K-31 is at least as strong as the K-11. It is just very expensive to rechamber these rifles. The G1889’s have been rechambered to .30-30 which is roughly equivalent in pressure and ballistics to the original. They are accurate. Have fun!
I saw one site that carried them that had the comment that the stock condition started a new term among importers; ‘beaver-chewed stocks’