Reloading for a Schmidt Rubin 1889

[tacfoley]

Don't use slow powders, very light charges or light bullets either. The original GP90 had a bullet that was patched up to something like .320 and got squeezed down to .308 ish in the long throat. Using the above can mean the neck won't expand to the chamber size before the bullet gets out of the case. That means I won't seal and will get gas coming back through the breach. This may hurt!

VERY wise words. I've been shooting Swiss since I was at school in the early 1960's but of course, there is no GP90 since 1923, and you rarely see the Model 1889 on the ranges - reloading for the older rifles is not something that is done in Switzerland, and competitions using so-called vintage rifles like the Model 1900, K11 and K31 require the use of service GP11.

The rest of the posts here are also very good, but it wouldn't hurt to join the swissrifles.com forum, where Swiss shooters, including the Swiss, are very happy to meet with new shooters of these fabulous firearms. I have a K11 and a K31, and wouldn't change them for anything else. Another great site is gunboards.com, where most of us hang out anyhow, including the guys who run Swiss Products Inc. This is a small company in Kalispell MT run by two friends of mine, Piérre and his son Latigo St Marie, as a major sideline. They design and develop a range of products for the K11 and K31, and sell direct to the public, having gotten their fill of paying the likes of Brownell and Grafs for the privilege of selling their own products. While none of their current range suits the 1889, the K11/M1900 is covered with a scope mount and a diopter sight for long range, and the K31 is VERY well catered for, with a rash of stuff that's hard to resist. They have a cool website, too, just Google Swissproducts...

I HAVE shot the Model of 1889, and found it to be a very sweet shooter with a good load made for it - a number of friends in the USA actually replicate the original loading in every respect, down to paper-patching, and shooting one of these old stagers, usually found in excellent condition, is a hoot.

Don't forget, though, to do what the Swiss have been doing since Vetterli days - NO OIL!!! Just any light-weight grease on the operating parts, and when you have finished shooting, and the barrel is still warm, patch out the barrel with ten strokes of a greased-up patch and leave it until next time you shoot - patch it out BEFORE you shoot, and carry on.