K31 Owners

[Flavio]

Please educate me about the specifics on the reloading this for rifle. Including which size bullet type and grain weight, which pressing machine, whick powder, how much powder, which primers to use... Pretty much everything... Im pretty green when it comes to this so Im willing to learn

[Dave R]

Here's a website with much of the info you need.

http://www.swissrifles.com/sr/pierre/data.html

Or just visit the home page, www.swissrifles.com, and navigate through the ammo section. Hogdon's "magazine" reloading manual has lots of 7.5 Swiss recipes.

Some general answers:

-Bullet type: any .308 bullet. I use 2 of them. A 150 gr. Sierra for regular duty, and Speer's 100gr. 'Plinker' for a lite load. Conventional wisdom says to use a 175gr. bullet, since that's what the GP-11 ammo uses. Sierra's 175 Gameking (Matchking?) is supposed to be real close.

-Which pressing machine? Any. Just make sure it'll work with your 7.5X55 dies. There are very few presses that won't use standard dies.

-Which powder and how much? See the reloading manuals. Any powder that would work well in .30-06 or .308 should work well with 7.5 Swiss. The guys at Swissrifles.com like IMR 4064. H4895 should work well, too. I like H335. I use 43gr of H335 with my 150gr. Sierras. For my lite load, I use 27gr. of H4198. But that's just my craziness. There's plenty of load data in the manuals.

-Primers? Use what the manuals recommend for each load. I use the CCI Magnum primers with my H335 load, and the CCI regular primers with my lite load.

-Brass: I believe Graf's and someone else sell commercial 7.5 Swiss brass. I just use .284Win brass that has been run through the 7.5 Swiss resizing die.

Read the manuals and the Swissrifles website and you'll get more loads than you could shoot in several years.

[hikingman]

This reply is intended for use with K31 Swiss rifles. There are many others reloading for a variety of Swiss rifles. Reloading is around half the cost of commercial ammo. Compared with 7.5 x 55 (GP 11) imported ammo, probably significantly less than half the cost. You have to make up the cost of the equipment in the formula, somewhere. Maybe it's a gift from a rich uncle?

174 grain bullet loads are very popular for this rifle. Those recipes often very closely match the 'Match Grade' ammo that has been imported and was used by the Swiss Military in K31, according to some handloaders.

Due to curiousity, I've started in the 150 grain SBT bullets, and next is Norma 155 grain. There's lots of around this weight being loaded for K31. I've surveyed lots of sources about these loads.

Two schools of thought in reloading for Swiss...

1. You gotta use a FL Sizing Die for every brass case before reloading these.

2. You can neck resize, and the most popular die for this - is very possibly, the Lee Collet Neck Sizing Die. This would be used not on a new 7.5 x 55 brass case such as Grafs, but on one that has already been fired in your bolt-action rifle.

2a. Whether to use a Crimp die, such as the Lee Factory Crimp Die after seating the bullet. This is a third die, and a step that some use for this caliber.

The seating die has not been mentioned. Whether handloading using Full length die or neck sizing die, everyone uses a seating die. How deep to seat the bullet is another discussion.

Write this down, neck sizing is recommended ONLY for bolt-action rifles! Also, neck sizing should be done with the brass kept separate for each rifle. If you have two rifles, for example, the brass is separated for each rifle, again, if you're neck sizing.

Lee dies are often lower priced. RCBS (also) has a good product and a very loyal following, and Redding has a very new design for this caliber. My guess is that a survey would place other brands behind these three, in sales, for this caliber.

Hope this was brief enough, and helpful. PM for suggestions, I've got more to share if you want reasons why I chose to neck size & also, to crimp for this caliber! There's a path to learning, here. Not everyone has a mentor for this hobby. Decide how you want to do it, and start gathering the goods!

[Donaldo]

My reloading stuff gets here Monday, I pick up my K31 Thursday. I can't wait to start hand loading for it.

I found this site with some loads ( http://www.realguns.com/loads/7555swiss.htm ). I'm gonna try the 165gr Sierra GK SBT probably with 45gr of BL-C2 first, then work up the charge from there. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Flavio]

Im gettung my Swiss Cheese on Wednesday