Printable View
Noticed a few of my Swiss chargers are showing signs of maybe drying out maybe or might just be from age and wear and tear over time . Has anyone ever put some bees wax or something on theirs ? I know they are soaked or coated with a wax or oil to start with . If there is something I can do to make sure they stay good as long as possible I want to do it but don't want to do something to damage them either .
Good question. I only have a couple of them and I am under the impression they are dry. I have no idea where I put them and they were not where they should have been so I can't check.
Don't you love when that happens ????!!!!! I lost my 7 mm Mauser stripper clips last week then of course after I came back putting stuff up I found them in bottom of my range bag !!!!! Good luck hope you find them !!
They will turn up eventually. I just saw there are programs to 3D print the stripper clips. Might be an option. Use those and preserve the originals.
Swiss K31 Charger Clip V2-2 by Lucite - Thingiverse
I have a couple that were made of polymer on the civilian market a few years ago. Works just fine, the only thing is they are a bit thicker than the originals so you have to line them up perfectly with the action to fit the charger in.
Can't help you with drying out. If they aren't falling apart I personally wouldn't worry about it. These are 60+ year old items at this point, I am amazed at how well they have held up all things considered.
Am I correct in thinking that there was / is an "alternative" model that strongly resembles the classic Mauser charger?
Given the very similar head size, the clip for the Swedish 6.5 x 55 should work, ditto the one for the French 7.5 round.
Back in the late 1970s there was a swag of French .30-06 ammo floating about. Some of it came in aluminium stripper clips. Those of us eccentric enough to be shooting both .30-06 and 6.5 Swede found that the "soft" alloy French chargers would also work with the slightly larger rims on the 6.5 Swede.
There are possibly still a few here, somewhere in the "crypt"; I'll have a bit of a dig.
Maybe some enterprising character could also make a 10rd "competition" magazine for the G / K 11 and K31. If it's good enough for Lee Enfields.....
Now I have to find someone with a 3D printer.
The Swiss did develop a stripper clip for the 7.5x55 Swiss cartridge as part of the 1908 development that lead to the 1911 rifles and carbines. They however never put it into production, likely because the chargers they had work just fine (I would argue better for many situations than a standard 5 or 6rd stripper clip, such as accidentally dropping your ammo in the snow on a mountain) but left it as a option. This is also a way to identify any pre-GP11 designs or if someone has faked say a 89/96, 1900 short rifle, or 1905 carbine as a original won't have the stripper clip cut outs.
They are very hardy chargers though and will last much longer than comparable stripper clips. On the old Swiss rifle forums there was a guy using 2 from about the 1960s until the present (very regularly) and by carefully loading he has used them successfully without destroying them. I haven't seen any stripper clips with that type of longevity.
Also the Swiss did have a 12rd magazine (that's two more than the much vaunted Lee Enfield), they just decided it wasn't any better than a 6rd for practical usage.
Also for those of you in Canada Corwin Arms has some of the polymer clips for sale for 16$ each
1. It's easy to rejuvenate and protect the pasteboard Swiss chargers by brushing on a coat of thinned shellac every few years, inside and out. I"ve had these two since about 1968 and they're still good to go -
https://www.milsurps.com/attachment....78&cid=1&stc=1
2. Making Mauser-style clips for 7.5x55 is a fairly basic home workshop sheet-metal bending/cutting job. Here's an example -
https://www.milsurps.com/attachment....79&cid=1&stc=1
I'd love to know how you've made your DIY stripper clips, do you have any photos of the process or a write up?
I have five white ones (blanks) coming from the Netherlands. Same ebay seller had a couple different colors available. I just went with white because why not. Everyone has the brown ones.
Oops, white ones came with a block of wood in them for the blanks. Wouldn't have thought they'd go to the trouble for that but they did. Haven't tried getting it out yet but looks to be well glued. Lesson learned.
Got four or five of the red (training?) ones. I have no worries about longevity with these, as the cardboard appears well protected. Certainly hard to lose.
Follow up on the blank chargers. I got the wood out without too much difficulty. Took about 10 minutes each. Started prying it out in little sections with a very small screwdriver. Once about half was out, the remaining piece usually came on in one big chunk. There was some slight tearing of the paper on the inside, like one layer of 20 separated but it doesn't appear to have weakened them. I may paint them with some glue just in case.
I would not take a chance to save a couple of bucks however. I won't do that again but as I now have at least five chargers and I hardly ever shoot, I should be fine for when the world as we know it comes to an end.
7.5 french works quite well per BLoke on The Range YT video "[003] BotR Strip Club: French MAS 36 Charger With 7.5mm Swiss? K31 / M1911 / G11 / G96/11 / K11"
Mosin sort of works per video "[002] BotR Strip Club: Mosin Charger With 7.5mm Swiss? K31 / M1911 / G11 / G96/11 / K11"
3d printing might be the best bet for cheap replacements. JawsTec offers glass-reinforced nylon HP printing services for decent prices. (USA only) and NorthRidge has their injection molded K31 repros for about half the cost of originals (25/2) as well as a bunch of originals. NEW ITEM! K31 SCHMIDT RUBIN RIFLE POLYMER STRIPPER CLIP (SET OF 2) (repro plastic) ORIGINAL SWISS K31 STRIPPER CLIP. (original)
FWIW, you can get 3d printers that with time and tuning will print things like these without issue. I was looking for Bikal .22lr biathalon magazines (were selling for $100/pc at the time) and printed functional mags on a $230 3d printer using a $20 spool of filament.
the final mags were NOT printed in orange, but all my testing was done with orange because that's what I had on hand. That was in 2018, and the mags are still running. They probably cost me less than $1.5 each to make; including the piano wire coiled and baked (winding also done on a separate 3d printed jig in a drill motor). Just avoid PLA material for anything that will be in a hot car.
Attachment 116850
As for the original query, if you are interested in making them last and less interested in historic accuracy I would honestly consider a thin 2-part epoxy brushed on with an acid brush. Wax may work, but won't add any structural strength to the cardstock construction so you will still be fighting disintegrating pulped paper product. Shellac might be alright as suggested earlier, but moisture is the enemy of both shellac and paper. A couple coats of a thin/runny epoxy on the card sections only (inside and out) will probably outlast the charger retaining clips which would go first from metal fatigue.