Bloke takes a trip through the history of the straight-pull Schmidt-Rubin 1889 rifle in 7.5x53.5 mm GP90 calibre. This video was going to be complete with a mechanical description, but a last-minute executive decision was taken to split it in a humorous way. Or, if not humorous, at least bizarre....

Since The Bloke and The Chap were up in the mountains with their families anyway, they decided to use the opportunity to test an old wool serge uniform against its (poly)cotton replacement in the only way they knew how: go skiing in them and get deliberately intimate with the snow! Much falling o...

As the start of a looooong series looking at each of the Swiss straight-pulls from the 1889 to the K31, The Bloke gives a short (ha!) overview of the series, and the context of the Swiss militia system in which they existed.

Yeah, there's a couple of ad breaks. Sorry. But it helps to support w...

Following a helpful suggestion, The Chap takes his GoPro and makes a plexiglass sideplate for his Bavarian 1869 Werder rifle, and gets another chance to talk about it. It is his favourite rifle, after all.

In this video, he goes through the entire operating cycle. The Bloke, while editing this...

By public request, a minor treatise on diopter rearsights - particularly contrasting the design of a W+F K-diopter for a Schmidt-Rubin K31 with a Parker-Hale 5C for a Lee-Enfield No.4 and a modern RPA Trakker.

Also featuring an awfully chintzy table cloth that doesn't belong to the Bloke, but ...

A philosophical episode, this one - on the many lives lived by milsurp rifles. This one is a Schmidt-Rubin K00/11, a K11 converted from an earlier model 1900 short rifle. The rifle lived a number of lives, and we have a bit of the human history behind the last one.

I promised someone I'd do th...

As part of his ongoing quest to increase the total sum of all human knowledge (never knowingly understated is Our Man here) and to wipe out Bad Gen, he takes on a couple of myths and common misunderstandings as to how the magazine and clip on the M1 Garand really function. Not how some Ian Hogg (...

In Europe we are used to very, very threadbare load data. In the US, you don't have this problem. Sometimes over here it can be impossible to find load data for reloading calibres which are common in the US, with the powders that we can get hold of here. However, all is not lost! If you have a ch...

"I remember the first rifle ever given to me by my grandfather. It was a Werder's Original, and I was four"...

The Chap takes his Bavarian 1869 Werder in 11x50R out to the range for a shoot, and then takes it back to the workshop to give its insides a good look-over.

The Werder is rather th...

The Bloke demonstrates how to shoot quietly for indoor training (or hunting for those of that bent) with a long-barrelled .22 rimfire. Specifically, his Lee-Enfield No.7. Without a silencer / moderator.

Standard velocity .22 rf is already pretty quiet, and needs no hearing protection outdoors ...

Despite having destroyed and laid waste utterly to the bad gen from the English-language literature about Swiss 7.5x53.5 mm GP90 being semismokeless, The Bloke sets up a comparison, just because. Using original 7.5x53.5mm GP90 bullets in his 1889 Schmidt-Rubin, he loads 4 cartridges:

1x 32gn R...

Yes, another M1 Garand fuddlore video!!!

In this one, The Bloke hits himself in the head a lot, and throws metal objects at himself. All in the quest to test as much fuddlore as possible and to answer the age old question of "Will It Ping"? Which sounds like a corny 80's gameshow... Based on t...

The Bloke continues his quest to document the effects on cardboard of various bulleted blanks. This time, Sweden. Not Switzerland. With The Gent's Swedish Mauser!

Same procedure as before, with a long Swedish Mauser in 6.5x55 calibre.

Bloke got lucky at a gunshow recently and managed to pick up one of his favourite Lee-Enfield rifles - a No.7 Mk.1, a .22 lr smallbore training rifle. These are the peak of development of the .22 rimfire trainers, and replicate the .303 No.4 as far as possible, and even have a 5 round magazine.
...

In this BONUS VIDEO (so don't be cross with me and leave me nasty comments cos it's not a normal, in-depth one), The Bloke plays Santa Claus and brings The Chap an early Christmas present. What could it possibly be? And will Mrs. The Chap be cross???

Quite likely it could be the most common Sw...

The Chap pulls out his Swiss Peabody and takes it out for a little blat. The Peabody was adopted as a stopgap before the Vetterli rifles came on line, and fires the same 10.4x38mm rimfire cartridge. It's basically pretty much an external hammer tipping-block Martini rifle

By popular request, The Bloke explains the fine detail of zeroing a K31, or a K11 or whatever other milsurp you might have handy that zeroes on the foresight.

Along the way, there's a brief mention of how to set up the screws on the rifle, but that will be explained in detail at another occasion.

In an Internet First, Bloke takes his shiny new hundred year and extremely rare old private-purchase Schmidt-Rubin 1889/96 to the range, and actually manages to find some 7.5x53.5mm GP90/03 that goes bang! Well, click-bang, anyway. And only about 3 of them... But anyway, he does it all the same. ...

After some minor grumbling in the comments of our earlier video that we'd fired a round of GP90/03 rather than original GP90, we're back on this topic again.

Now, there's no documentary evidence of any change to powder from GP90 to GP90/03: it's stated in the literature as PC88 for both. The ...

The Bloke, briefly beardless, receives a package in the post. What could be more YouTuberish than an unboxing video? What could possibly be hiding in the box?

Well, it's a private series M1889/96 Schmidt-Rubin, his rarest and most expensive straight-pull to date! No, it's not an M1889, nor is ...

...well, the Chap does it really.

Finally, BotR joins the legions of gun YouTube channels in which fruit is targeted. The Chap takes it up with a hand-sized melon and a pear because, well, we had to do it some time due to popular demand. Apparently...

But of course, being in Switzerland and...

In this Off Topic video, The Bloke comes over all peckish and wants to buy some cheese. But there's no cheese shop in sight! How will he manage? Luckily, in rural Switzerland there's this thing called a "Trust Fridge". But will it contain any Venezuelan beaver cheese?

In this Bonus Video, The Chap goes into his workshop, has a good long rummage in his drawers, and rustles up a couple of awesome airgun targets for fun during the long, cold winter nights. He's good with his hands, is The Chap... :/

With the increased interest in World War One following the centenary and Battlefield 1, Verdun etc., The Bloke follows on from his general video about Euro armies typically wearing their pistols on the left in the World Wars, to a discussion about the exceptions to this general rule, and specific...