K31 Schmidt-Rubin

The Swiss K31 Schmidt-Rubin is an interesting straight-pull bolt gun. Instead of camming the bolt over manually, you simply run the bolt straight forward and the bolt mechanism does all the rest. The gun fires a somewhat uncommon round, 7.5x55mm, which can be found in surplus known as GP-11. The action on this gun is outstandingly smooth, and the trigger is magnificient. The wood on my particular rifle is not in top notch shape, but I think it gives the gun character.

It is said that this gun is of such high quality that if a commercial manufacturer wanted to produce it, they couldn't get away with doing so for less than $1000. I didn't believe it at first, but after handling the rifle, disassembling it, inspecting and understanding the inner workings of it, and seeing the exquisite craftsmanship of the metal, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if it were true.

An interesting thing about most of the K31's imported in the the U.S. is that they have a small tag underneath the butt plate with military information and names of the person the rifle was issued to. My rifle's previous owner was born in the late 30's, so I don't expect I have a very good chance of contacting him. Many others have been sucessful in contacting their previous owners.