Swiss K31 up-grade for straight shooting

[sdh1911]

I've been a working gunsmith since the mid-1980's, but, this surplus thing is relativly new to me. I have been doing a lot of tweeking on my personal stuff in the pursuit of straight shooting. I bought a Swiss k31 last year and was very impressed with the 3" groups at 100 yrd. off Mr. bench (considering I only paid $110.00 for the gun). Then I read some place they often shoot much better than that, also that they had free floated barrels. This was not the case with mine, age, gravity and moisture effected the wood to the point where it would not move. If yours floats already no need to read further

Considering the gun has a fantastic bore but the wood is a little, shall we say well used, I figured I'd play with it just a bit. I rasped out the barrel channel just enough to free it up aound 0.020" total clearence. Then preceeded to re-oil the channel so not to soak up any moisture and re-match the finish. I also polished caming surfaces in the bolt and "very" slightly dressed up the sear on the surface grinder bringing the trigger down to 2.5", maybe later I'll install trigger stops to rid some of the trigger creep, but for now I can live with it.

The difference was very noticable. The groups wiill shoot 1.5 to 2" off Mr. Bench as long as I do my part. I asked the guy who got me into the surplus stuff where I can get some match grade Swiss ammm and he got a good laugh, it seems thats all the Swiss ever made. Sounds good to me. If you guys have a Swiss K-31 of a non-collectable varity thats not shooting around the 2" mark, check to see if your barrel can move.HTH-SDH

Information

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[tiriaq]

You are no doubt aware that the Swiss made precision target front and rear sights for these rifles. There are also clamp on sights and scope mounts made in the US, the St. Marie line. Brownells sells them. Without the handicap of the issue sights (a problem for those of us of riper years), these rifles can really shoot. Like many shooters, I use resized .284 brass to assemble ammunition. Loaded cartridges are just not all that available in this country.

[sdh1911]

I didn't realize there where sight up-grades, thanks very much. I'm putting them on my X-mas list. I can imagine how it will perform with nice sights thanks, SDH

[Ian Robertson]

I bought a couple of these, for myself and a friend. Of course I checked them both over and kept the best one for myself. Except for the fact that they were made in different years, they were both made by Sig and the triggers feel the same, and excellent! I bought a clamp on scope mount and found that even carefully installed it did not always align properly requiring extreme adjustments of the scope which would put it in an unreliable area which would bounce around between shots. I would have called them about this but there was no contact info with the mount except for snail. Started with 284 which shot okay but reloaded a bunch of 75x55 which really does feed and eject better. Berdan primers but not that hard to deal with.

[bearhunter]

I have one of those clamp on mounts as well. It works quite well for me, just luck of the draw I guess.
Swiss ammo is next to impossible or so expensive in Canada as to be considered virtually unobtainable for the average shooter. Luckily our local gunshop carries a great selection of hard to find brass, "Graf". Good stuff and a lot less trouble than berdan primed stuff. bearhunter

[diopter]

Ian
I sent you an email.

sdh1911
You can see some of the items on this link:
Swissproducts

[Merle]

You are no doubt aware that the Swiss made precision target front and rear sights for these rifles. There are also clamp on sights and scope mounts made in the US, the St. Marie line. Brownells sells them. Without the handicap of the issue sights (a problem for those of us of riper years), these rifles can really shoot. Like many shooters, I use resized .284 brass to assemble ammunition. Loaded cartridges are just not all that available in this country.

I have been using the Prvi Patizan 174 gr FMJBT with very good results in my K31. It prefers the PP over the Swiss.

However, my G1911 clearly prefers the Swiss surplus, so I just keep some around for competition & use the PP for general playing.

It is boxer primed, unlike the Swiss surplus, so can be reloaded.

It would be worth trying to find some, as I believe the brass is a better fit than the reworked 284.

Hope this helps.

[JosephDerMauserSchiesser]

I have ALOT of the match 7.5 from when I went to Schützenfest. By the way sdh, I think you are having problems with your private messages?
Also I know for a fact that Joe has a stockpile of the match 7.5 in the store.

[K31]

I see no reason to tinker with the bedding on these rifles. They are slightly sensitive to the way you hold them. Always set up your bench rest at the balance point. This, of course, also applies to field positions. The Mk III LEE ENFIELD behaves in a similar manner, possibly one of the reasons so many people experience poor accuracy with them. Remember, the earlier SCHMIDT RUBIN series had floating barrels, but the perfected design went to a supported barrel. I have shot three deer with mine, all one shot kills. It will out shoot any of my scoped hunting rifles, even with the issue sights. In fact, it is the only rifle I use for hunting now I shoot 45grains of IMR3031 with a WINCHESTER 150 gr. POWERPOINT in GRAF brass. This load keeps all 6 shots INSIDE 1.5 inches at 100 yards, and shoots to the sights. I have had such great results with this load, I haven't even considered using match bullets! How could they possibly shoot any better than that? The only thing I don't like is that VERY brisk ejection! It gets hard to find the brass after practicing rapid fire.