Cast Bullet shooter

[Pressman]

I have this rifle because no one else wanted it. According to the tag it has set in the corner of my local gunshop for ten years. It looked so bad and was missing critical parts that no one had the imagination to take it on.
I took it home a couple years ago and got it shooting over the winter.
It began life as a Swiss 96/11 rifle that was imported by Santa Fe arms in the 1960's. They did a quicky sporterizing and re-chamber to 308. The sights were removed and it's drilled and tapped for a standard pattern four hole mount.

Now, these rifles eject spent cases straight up, so an overbore scope would cause all manner of ejection issues. When I brought the rifle home the trigger guard/magazine latch, and magazine was missing. I have not been able to find either as of today. In place of the original I was able to fit an 1889 model triggerguard. I still don't have a magazine or latch is part of the trigger guard. At least it has a trigger guard.

The major reason it sat unwanted so long was Bubba. He had butchered and shortened the stock, attacked the receiver with a grinder and generally made a mess of things.
All that is fixed now though a new stock would be nice.
For sights I installed a Swiss Products mount for this rifle. It's made to fit the Santa Fe hole pattern. Bubba has removed so much stock material that any kind of cheek weld is impossible. I need to add a 1-inch block to the side of the stock to use my right eye and have cheek weld. I don't want to do that, as the wood is a nice tiger stripe grain.
It's possible to get my head down enough to see the scope with my left, non-dominate eye and this works fair.

Last Wednesday, for the first time, I took the rifle to the range. I had 30 rounds loaded with a 180 RN cast bullet I picked up somewhere. Loaded over 10.5 grains of Herter's 160 powder, (red dot equivalent) I put 15 rounds in a 1-inch hole at 25 yards by looking through the scope with my left eye. Next, I moved to 50 yards, but my left eye was getting tired and fuzzy, so the groups opened a bit.
I really enjoyed shooting even if I had to carefully feed rounds one at a time into the chamber. I should build a feed block.
I am looking for thoughts about how to move the scope closer to the center of the bore, I think that would be less work than adding material along the left side of the stock.
Ken

 

[Jeff H]

This is just a wild stab in the dark, but...

I DON'T have a mill, so I'd be scouring the 'net, looking at all the crazy "Picatinny"-based bases for all those gangly, peripheral do-dads people like to use to fill up the six linear feet of "rail" stuck all over the gun. I've seen a lot of angled, offset rings meant for hanging extra stuff off one's AR, and it seems there's no end to the variations.

I wonder if you could make a brass-deflector of some kind to divert the brass once the scope is more centered? I once traded for a Japanese Tasco World-Class which had been mounted on a Mini-14 (NOT a Ranch Rifle) and the bottom of the scope was beat to heck - badly. I was curious to see if it even still worked. It DID. It sure looked like crap though.

A not so terrible "fix" for the cheek-weld can be finagled using a cheap, elastic shell-holder on the butt stock with pieces of sleeping bag pad material (the foam ones) under it. It can be a major pain getting it all put together and situated, but once done, it works very well and it's cheap. Some (light) spray adhesive on ONE side of each layer of foam keeps it all in place. That's fine on a "plastic" stock, won't hurt it at all, and SHOULD be ok on wood, but I haven't done it with wood, so some experimenting would be in order. This i what I did on two of my Contender Carbines and it looks no worse than the plain, black, plastic stocks do to begin with.

Spit-balling here. "Brain-storming," whatever.

 

[Bret4207]

Frickin' Bubba!!!! That guy and his brothers need to be barred from access to guns and tools!

I have a memory of a Scout Scope type mount for the Swiss rifles. Found this- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071JCCLWT It's a no drill mount. I'd consider that route strongly.

 

[462]

I used a BadAce scope mount to scouterize the Swede, because my vision and the iron sights were not compatible. The resulting look was odd, but sighting was no longer problematic. Installation was quick and easy.

 

[Pressman]

This Swiss rifle has no sights, the mount must be attached to the receiver.

 

[Bret4207]

Ah, right! Well, I just looked on Ebay and there are original sights that could be used for the mount if the barrel hasn't been recontoured. You wouldn't need to sweat the sight on, we have marvelous glues these days that will do the job just fine. There are also other parts including bottom metal and at least one stock. Ebay is pretty easy to use and if you're patient eventually whatever it is you are seeking will turn up there.

Another alternative would be to get a lace on cheekpiece and add some material to it so that you can get the sigh alignment you want. That would probably be the easiest thing to do.

3rd option would be to get a hunka that rail Jeff mentioned and Acra-glass it in place ahead of the recvr. You could build it up level and use a scout type scope that way.

 

[Tomme boy]

Call Classic firearms and see if they have any junk rifles they would let go of. They have been selling a bunch of these over the last few years. There has to be a few that they could not sell to the public as a functional gun. Also contact Simpson ltd, they have been a importer for years of the Swiss rifles. They may also have parts.

 

[JustJim]

If it were mine--and solely for use as a bench rifle--I'd look at fitting a single-shot feeding block, removing the ejector, and mounting a scope in the conventional manner. I might even go with target mounts on the barrel. Once the scope is mounted, it is easy to add wood to the buttstock. (No one cares what a target/bench rifle looks like, some of the Winchester M52s I've been looking at have stocks seemingly inspired by a Lego set.)

 

[Jeff H]

This Swiss rifle has no sights, the mount must be attached to the receiver.

Is the barrel tapered or stepped?

I can tell you that the largest-diameter, rear-most "step" on a Swedish Mauser barrel fits a TC Contender scope base perfectly. Not sure on yours. Four holes D/T'd and you're in business.

 

[Snakeoil]

To JustJim's point, you could whittle a single shot block out of a piece of hardwood. Then you could remove (per Jim) or trim the ejector so it just pushed it out of the extractor and left it sitting on the loading block.

 

[johnnyjr]

Why not a revolver scope?

 

[Pressman]

Johnny. there is no rear sight to mount a scout scope to. I should post an update as I have made a plate that I screwed to the top right of this mount that centers the scope over the bore.
A draw back of the 96/11 is ejection is straight up into the bottom of the scope. This cannot be changed leaving no practical way to make a commercial OB mount.

 

[johnnyjr]

Oh ok.my misunderstanding

 

[358156 hp]

Since the left side of the receiver is already drilled and tapped, it could be possible to have a cantilever type mount made that would position a scope in front of the ejection port. a decent grade of aluminum would save weight. It would be reminiscent of the cantilever scope mounts that were made for use with carry handle type AR15s & M16s and mounted the scope forward, above the barrel. It would probably require an intermediate eye relief scope, or some sort of red dot.