Swiss .22 Schmidt-Rubin ” OLYMPIA”………….(f 754) SOLD
Created on December 13th 2017
A rare opportunity to own the Swiss Trainer designed and built to train troops for the Olympics
To describe this rifle as rare has to be the major understatement of this whole web-site of 520 pages! These have passed through auction houses occasionally but the results have mainly confined the rifles to central Europe. To pry one out of their sticky European mitts has been a task and a half – not to mention -expensive!
However, we have one on our shores now and it is available to anybody who has an appreciation of fine rifles and excellent Swiss engineering. What we have in front of us now is a trainer for the military rifle teams and cadets. For the cadets at the start of their military service it would fully familiarise them with the K31 Swiss rifle which we hold in such high esteem. Dimensionally and weight-wise this “Olympia” as it was called mimics its elder; even to the point that they have made it a repeater. The author has always wondered why the famous No8 Enfield was not made thus! If blindfolded and challenged to tell the difference betwixt the K31 and this little honey I would be hard pressed to succeed. The stock shape and size are almost identical and the weight feels virtually the same. The only give away from under ones blindfold might be the physical size of the bolt but, even the feel of the action is unnervingly yet satisfyingly similar. The aluminium bolt handle has the same positive feel as its bigger brother and proportionally, in your mind, it is difficult to tell the difference in the length of stroke required to eject and then reload a round. The number of clicks and clunks you experience through the palm of your hand seems exactly the same. So, one has to admit, that if they were trying to build a rifle that fully familiarises the user with what they will move onto next, the Swiss have certainly achieved that. Even down to the fact that the trainer has the same staggered finger groves as the K31.
The rifle is 43.3/8″ long (110cm) The round blued barrel is 24.3/4″ (630mm) in length. The trigger pull is 13″ (330mm) The action is the familiar straight-pull of the Schmidt-Rubin with an alloy bolt handle. Full length European semi-pistol grip walnut stock with handguard over the barrel. Bolt release in the same place as the K31 on the RHS toward the rear of the action. Sights in design and build are identical to the larger rifle and graduated from 100 meters to 1500 meters. Protected front sight with sliding windage adjustment to use at zeroing. Same barrel bands and stacking hook. The mid band with the sling swivel mounted on the LHS corresponding with the side-mounted rear sling swivel in the LHS of the butt-stock. Contoured steel butt-plate. Sprung muzzle cover included.
The main difference on sight with this trainer and the K31 is the six-shot .22 single stack magazine which protrudes from the trigger guard under the rifle. It is removed by a similar side mounted catch it has the numerals “91” stamped into its rear ward facing face. This brings us to the one annoying thing about this rifle; in that the bolt components are all numbered “91” as well. It is strange for the Swiss to mix up their weapons but as both the magazine and the bolt carry the same number it has caused some head scratching! I presume that the numbers are supposed to match, yet, how or why do these two components carry the same apparently incorrect number? It looks to me like an armoury mix-up in the best light.
The bolt is finished in the white and the balance, action barrel etc. is blued. The finish on the action is a high quality deep blue with a polished surface with only a minor couple of scratches to the rear. The top surface of the action is engraved; “OLYMPIA” / Cal .22 extra long” the sidewall of the action is marked with the makers name; “H.LUTHY. fabr. d’armes NEUCHATEL.” The top of the action in top of the receiver is the weapons serial number “12054.“
Don’t know if I’ll ever see one again, but this rifle is available to the first person who recognises its worth. It will be the envy of any club it finds its way into and a prize piece in any serious military rifle collection.
Just ask for Stock number f 754
Reduced to £ 1450. (SOLD)
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