Looking for more information on straight pull bolt actions.
Strengths & weakness of the various designs, experience using them hunting or shooting?
I've handled but never shot Blaser R93, don't think I've handled a Lee Navy, probably handled a Schmidt Rubin many years ago.
Would like to handle a Mannlicher M1893 Carbine.
Swiss Schmidt-Ruben K31s are the easy button; 7.5x55 is roughly the same as 7.62x51 when it comes to ballistics and bullet size. Really easy to shoot really well and I think you can still find good examples for inexpensive...I have one and really like it. Haven't shot it in probably 15 years at this point though
I should dig out a couple boxes of ammo and take it out again...
Back in the good ol' days, when I was a teenager, my Dad and I took a family friend to our local range. He pulled out a K31. He handed me that rifle and three boxes of ammo.
That rifle made me feel like a rock star. We were on a high power range with plate-ish sized steel gongs hanging between 100M and 600M, and I could smack any one of them on my first try with the iron sights on that rifle.
I remember thinking that the K31 was damn nice, but $299 was a lot of money for a milsurp rifle and $0.25/rnd was expensive for ammo. 54R was 7-8 cents/rd and x39 was 10 cents shipped so I was biased in those days.... but I really wish I hadn't been.
An Army buddy of mine got obsessed with the Steyr-Mannlichers when they were $69/ea for the rifles and ammo was 15-20 cents/rd. At his peak he owned about a dozen of them and a dozen Mosins, so we gave him a hard time about prepping for phalanx formations and stuff like that. But we shot them a bunch when we were broke E3's and E4's together and ammo was cheap.
The Steyr rifles are cool, but the K31 is at least ten times better in terms of accuracy and enduring quality.
I haven't had the pleasure of messing with a modern Blaser, but I'd pick up a K31 and totally judge that Blaser against the K31. If I had to pick one that I knew would be amazing, I'd take a K31 and put a nice scope on it, bubba accusations be damned.
I was all excited about adding a Swiss K-31, until I discovered that the bolt travels FAR to the rear, when being worked. I always thought one was supposed to maintain the cheek weld, while running the bolt, but the K-31 does not seem to allow that. (Perhaps someone who actually uses a K-31 can verify?)
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
I own a Schmidt-Rubin 96/11 and two K31s.Originally Posted by Dov
Note that K31s are not Schmidt-Rubin rifles. Both Schmidt and Rubin were long dead by the time the K31 was developed by Colonel Adolf Furrer at Waffenfabrik Bern.
Both the Schmidt-Rubin series and the K31s are an absolute pleasure to shoot. There is more aftermarket support for the K31, although the action is smoother on the Schmidt-Rubins. The length of pull is very short and many people enjoy using a buttpad extension of some type. @JRB, no worries on mounting a scope. The St. Marie scope mount allows mounting of an offset weaver rail to the right side of the receiver without permanent modification. I use one of these, along with the St Marie compensator.
As for accuracy, the claims are true. These weapons are magnificently manufactured and very accurate. Keep expectation management realistic, however, as these are archaic infantry rifles and not modern precision rifles. Compared to a precision rifle, they have a relatively thin, long, non-free floated barrel which warms up quickly and are bedded in a wooden stock. As the barrel warms, the group will open up. They will suffer zero shift depending on the weather like any rifle bedded in a wooden stock. In addition, the zero will dramatically shift laterally depending on the load being fired. Using GP11, both of mine will maintain 3/4 MOA in slow fire. In rapid fire (as in, one round every 10 seconds), the group will open up after 3 rounds.
They're nice to shoot but they're an awfully large and heavy rifle to use for hunting, and the manual safety is not conducive to contemporary safety practices.
@Rex G, yes, you need to remove your face from the stock when working the action otherwise you will punch yourself. The Lee-Enfield was unique in this regard, allowing the shooter to maintain a cheek weld...if they were positioned correctly to allow such. You'd still punch yourself in the face with a Lee-Enfield if you weren't positioned perfectly, specifically just for that allowance.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
Thanks, @TGS .
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
The ambi nature of this opens up options for some too.
Semper Paratus,
Steve
I've read mixed reviews on the Savage. Some people feel like the action is very stiff, not smooth not easy to operate.
Can't wait to see how things go in the Beretta finally hits the shelves.
Thanks for the responses, I've been having problems logging in with the server migration & work has been crazy this week but I appreciate the feedback.
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