Video: Utahn Lands Insane 2,240-yard Open Sight Shots with Swiss K31 Rifle

Surplus rifle shooters: have you ever wondered whether those ancient, ladder-style tangent sights on your Mosin, K31, or Mauser actually work?

As the video below by Long Range Shooters of Utah shows, it turns out they do—at least if you’re targeting a 36-inch pink bison about 2,240 yards downrange. With the help of some dedicated spotters (and more than a few test rounds to sight-in and get a feel for the unpredictable weather conditions), shooter Ernie Jimenez managed to land four rounds of 7.5 Swiss on-target.

I’ve set the embed to start at the nine-minute mark, just before Jimenez rings steel with his first shot, number 58, which his spotters actually thought was a miss. After you see that hit and the three following it, however, it’s worth it to rewind and hear Ernie talk about his handloads and the gun he’s shooting.

According to the video, this is a world record. Regardless of whether or not it is, it’s a freaking awesome display of marksmanship. Guess all those forum posts about how old tangent sights were supposed to be used en masse for “volley fire” might be true.

In his intro, Ernie says he’s using an unmodified, 1950-dated K31. K31s are unique, straight-pull bolt-action rifles that were used by the Swiss Army for a good portion of the twentieth century. I’m a huge fan of the gun, and every milsurp collector should own at least one. The description says that Ernie bought his K31 for $99—sounds like a good deal to me, especially considering they cost three times that nowadays.

Matt Korovesis

I've been a history and gun enthusiast since I was a kid. I love to shoot just about anything, from silenced bolt-action .22s to fully automatic heavy machine guns, and I love even more when I get to write about them. My main interests are modern small arms and the military small arms of World War II and prior conflicts, with a particular focus on Russian and Finnish firearms. Reading about guns like the Mosin-Nagant rifle in books and on the internet got me interested in collecting, shooting, and writing about them, and I hope to do the same for others through my work.

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