Swiss 1911 long rifle, price check,ammo, M91/30

M1shooter

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I was looking on the tradex website, and saw swiss 1911 for $275 good con. or $320 for VG.Is this a good price? The only place I could find ammo for it(7.5x55) in Canada was psmilitaria for $7.50/10 rds. Does anyone know where they are located? (shipping costs, couldn't find it on the site) How much is reloadable ammo going for? Also, they had mosin nagants for 170(rnd reciever) or 180(hex reciever). It says that these are VG to EX condition, but does that include the bore and muzzle crown? Thanks!
 
Reload. Small batches aren't worth shipping. Tradeex sells brass & bullets. Swiss GP11 is 0.306 dia. CGN member Diopter is a good guy to talk to about what works best.

Shooters Edge in Calgary used to sell GP11 by the case, but the nice lady who e-mailed me back when I asked last year told me there wouldn't be any more coming in - a one time deal with RUAG.

P&S militaria sells good stuff. I have x4 Mosin rifles of various configurations, a couple SVT 40s and a Norwegian k98 from them & love every one. Shipping involves lots of bubble wrap =).

The 1911 - I've seen them for less and for more. There aren't any more coming... If you're new to the Swiss rifles, I would recommend one of the k31s currently listed on the EE. Widely regarded as one of the finest bolt action rifles (and best kept secrets) of all time, they're not getting cheaper either.
 
I have been getting excellent accuracy out of an ancient Swiss Model 1889, using .308 bullets and 4895 powder and I haven't blown myself up (yet). I just keep the loads down a tad, but that big casing still enables you to pull very respectable performance at low pressures, even from that rear-locking action. The 1911 is front-locking and so a stiffer and stronger action.

The brass that Trade-Ex is selling is Prvi Partizan from Serbia and it is excellent military-grade brass. It also is BOXER primed and properly annealed, so you can expect zero problems with it. Just chamfer the case-mouths lightly before loading for the first time, same as with any new casings. The Swiss used to load this round with a 173-grain BT bullet, but my '89s seem to like the (cheaper) flat-base bullets for their 3-groove rifling, so I haven't bothered loading any expensive boat-tails... yet.

BTW, the initial American experiments with boat-tail bullets (1917 - 1918) were done with 173s purchased from Switzerland. They were .308 (or close enough) and the Brownings liked them. To this day, the US is using a 173-grain boat-tail in their Match and dedicated sniping ammunition, so just perhaps they liked what they got.

I have bought a few things from Trade-Ex but not yet a rifle for myself. That said, I have seen several rifles which have come from them recently and can say honestly that everything they sell is UNDER-rated as to condition. You GET much better than they SAY you are getting; rifles seem to be under-rated by one full grade from what anyone else would call them. And they are good guys to deal with. I have a whole rack of Mannlicher-Berthiers, Mannlicher straight-pulls and Carcanos which will be getting their first workouts in many years this coming summer.... all thanks to Trade-Ex..... and I still have enough left out of my pension cheque to go to the A&W for dinner!

If you ae getting one of the Swiss rifles from them, be sure to get one of their (used) Swiss Army cleaning kits. These are VERY superior field kits; even the jointed rod has BRASS bore-riders to protect your rifling. I have one now and will be putting away a second one come pension day.

Hope this helps.
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+1 on Trade Ex Canada Inc. Very good professional service and stuff you just can't get anywhere else.

Some of the best guns I own came from P&S Guns and Militaria. He's a staight up guy and a member here and has probably forgotten more about old guns than many of us will ever learn. A definite asset in our ranks. IMHO
 
Im pretty sure I read that the swiss used .308 bullets.

Swiss GP11 (7.5x55 for the Swiss rifles) is loaded with a .306 174gr bullet. A .308 will work just peachy.

Just like 8mm Mauser isn't really 8mm...

The American experiments that Smellie mentioned above are outlined in Hatcher's Notebook which can be had on the milsurps.com site under the manuals and resources header IIRC. A fascinating must-read if you're at all interested in the "WHY" of military type firearms.
 
Shooting 7.5mm factory is going to be expensive, not to mention the sporadic supply of ammo. Reloading is your best bet. 7.5mm loads are quite similar to .308 Win, even though the case is slightly wider (but it uses less powder than a .30/06). Hornady has loads for it in its reloading manual. I've used IMR 4064 (41.8gr) under a 150gr FMJ Hornady bullet for day-long plinking at 100-200 yds with low recoil.

I met a guy on the range who sourced Berdan primers from International Imports in Toronto and was removing the old primers using water and a home-milled piston, but I suggest going with Trade Ex's boxer-primed Prvi brass.

My K-31 is now my go-to milsurp for target shooting, the trigger pull is simply divine compared to most others from the same era.
 
Yup, Carlos Diaopter is your man - especially if you live in Quebec. He can be found most days on www.swissrifles.com. Here in UK and places east I've been shooting my K31 since 1989 and my 96/11 since 1995 - mostly with GP11 though.

Recently a HUGE price hike on the part of the principle importer - from £37 to £45 - has forced me into the full-time reloading of this easy to load-for round.

I can get PPU cases really easily, and can vouch for their toughness, although I also have three hundred Graf as well.

Loads for me, using the 150gr PPU bullet that sells for around £16/C here in yUK, have settled on 44.5gr of IMR4064 - oddly enough the exact duplicate as my best 155gr load in .308Win. Cases need to be full-length resized - no half measures, and NO crimping. Even this comparatively light load is very accurate out to the furthest I've ever shot with it - 600m - and makes even the best Lee-Enfield look like a yard-hose by comparison. The only possible rivals as issue military arms [although some might well argue] are the Finnish-built M39 - but NOT with issue ammunition, or the Carl Gustaf/Husqvarna with the 140gr bullet, again, not shooting military ammunition. But then again, I'm biased.

Accuracy in the 96/11 with open sights hovers around the inch - inch and half ten shots, for the K31, with an old El Paso Weaver x3 scope, around the inch, and with the Swiss Products Diopter sights, about the same.

If a reminder was needed, these are both strictly military arms that have been cared for using the correct cleaning regime with the correct cleaning materials - Swiss 'waffenfett' or the modern day equivalent [any GOOD quality yellow grease].

My 96/11 is dated 1914, and the K31 is from 1954.

Highly recommended - any of them.

tac
www.swissrifles.com
 
Howdy

It's amazing how the same question is asked every few months by someone that seems to have just fallen off the moon.......

http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=529428

If you have GP11 brass, berdan primers is the way to go.
If not then the NNY brass is one option, reworking .284 winchester is the other. Norma factory ammo is the last very expensive option.

Sticker
 
A slight correction: GP11 bullet widest diameter, outside the case, is .306, but the widest part of the bullet is just before the boat tail and measures.3075
 
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