Pfeifer Waffen SR2 Bullpup Rifle

I love unusual guns with ingenious designs, which explains the presence in my cabinet of Benelli’s mould-breaking 828U and Steyr’s awesome AUG. So, when the chance arose to acquire a Pfeifer SR2, I seized the opportunity. SR2s are rare in the UK, but they’re still being made by Pfeifer Waffen (Austria) and sold by Global Rifle (Leicestershire). I acquired mine second-hand from Blue Fox Glade Target Sports (Devon), and the paperwork names the original supplier as Fox Firearms (Oldham), which may suit readers further North. Global Rifle keeps a couple in stock, but Pfeifer essentially builds to order, giving the purchaser a wide range of options.

Refreshingly different
So, what is the SR2? Most obviously, it’s a bullpup design, with a pistol grip amidships and the action in the buttstock. Remarkably, it fits a 26” (660mm) barrel within an overall length of just 27.75” (705mm), giving you optimal velocities in a truly handy package. Literally. Balancing right at the pistol grip, it’s easy to control the rifle one-handed, whether lifting it onto sticks or wriggling through thickets. Depending on the cartridge/load, the velocity gain over a 22” barrel is about 150-200 fps. As my example is chambered in .243 Winchester, this helps meet the energy requirement for larger deer species and extends my maximum point-blank range by roughly a wicket.
The barrel - cold-hammer-forged and made by Heym - has a beautifully blued finish and a medium-heavy profile, with a 1:8 twist and a 17mm muzzle cut for a 15x1 thread. It also comes equipped with a neat thread protector. Typically, for a bullpup, the scope rail is mounted on a riser block (intermount). This is pillar-bedded to the barrel, where it dampens harmonic movement. Further damping is provided by a short bedding block screwed into the forend. This arrangement might be described as pressure-bedding, since the barrel is otherwise contact-free to the breech, aiding cooling. Pressure-bedding isn’t fashionable, but the accuracy of the SR2 proves that when done properly, it works just fine.

The action
It is at the breech end that things start to get really interesting, however. Sitting between the laminate stock and the brown rubber butt pad is the most compact rifle action you will ever see.
Lifting the curved and knurled tip of the discreet steel lever near the toe of the stock frees the butt-plate to pivot upwards via a hinge at the top. This reveals five ports in the forward section. The top port is the chamber, so simply slide in a cartridge and the rifle is loaded. Having done so, a small brass pin protrudes from the R/H side of the action, giving you a tactile loaded-chamber indicator. The bottom two ports are also for cartridges, holding them securely as a ready reserve in case a follow-up shot is required. All exquisitely neat. The real magic, however, happens in the middle. Here, a large rectangular port provides the anchor for the chunky 2-lug locking head mounted in the butt-plate, whose rotation is controlled by the aforementioned lever. The final port is for the striker bar.
This port aligns with a stainless-steel nubbin set into the inner face of the butt-plate, above which a conventionally sized firing pin hole aligns with the breech. This nubbin is the lower part of a pivoting striker that when struck, drives the firing pin forward, setting off the cartridge. Importantly, the striker is immobilised unless the lever is fully locked, making it impossible for the rifle to fire out of battery. Finally, as you open the action, a hinged claw above the breech extracts the cartridge around ½” for easy removal. You wouldn’t think a single-shot, non-ejector rifle could be so interesting!

How strange!
The innovations don’t stop at the butt, however, as the trigger guard presents the unusual sight of a backwards-facing ‘trigger’ blade and a button where the trigger should be! The blade is actually a cocking-piece that must be set forward before the rifle can fire, enabling you to stalk safely with a cartridge in the chamber. The spring is a sturdy one, removing any risk of accidental cocking via snagging. To de-cock, simply take up the pressure on the cocking-piece, press the trigger button, and return the cocking-piece to rest under control. It’s obviously safest to unload first, or at least to unlock the action, but the blade is so controllable that the operation can be completed reliably without additional precautions.
Pfeifer offers an optional adjustable trigger that can be set between 11 oz (300-grams) and 3 lbs 5 oz (1,500-grams), but even the fixed trigger on my example is a featherweight, breaking crisply and consistently at 1 lb 2 oz (500-grams). This is great for stalking and foxing but the adjustable version (maxed out) would be preferable for driven hunts. How does the SR2 avoid the curse of terrible bullpup triggers? By replacing the usual transfer-bar and rear sear with a forward sear and striker-bar system. The striker bar and the nubbin in the butt-plate are equivalent to a firing pin and a primer in a conventional action, except that the direction of movement is rearward until reversed by the pivoting striker in the butt. This delivers a great trigger feel as well as fast, energetic strikes, with excellent primer indentation.
On my example, which is the standard R/H version, the locking lever is located on the R/H side. As a left-handed shooter, I find I can easily reload with my right hand while controlling the rifle with my left. Reloading right-handed feels much more awkward, to the point where I imagine a right-handed shooter might reasonably order a left-handed version! The only drawback is that, when shooting in light clothing, you will feel the tip of the lever poke you in the chest under recoil. No problem in .243, especially as the lever locks down too firmly to lift on contact, but Pfeifer will chamber the SR2 for any hunting cartridge you want, and Global Rifle say you can go as large as .458 Winchester Magnum, which might be enough to bite you!

What else?
The overall ergonomics are good, too. SR2s come with walnut stocks as standard, so the forest laminate handle on mine was customer-specified. Also available is a carbon-fibre version from Fine Ballistic Tools. This is superb and featured in a 2022 ‘Dream Build’ video by Tier One (a great guide to disassembly), but according to Pfeifer’s price list would add almost €3,000 to your bill! In each case, the comb has a positive pitch, which mitigates muzzle-rise, and when combined with the central grip, the muzzle-mounted can, and the mild manners of the .243 cartridge, permits observation of the strike.
Sling studs are helpfully present under the forend and butt, and another is incorporated into the L/H side of the action block. When slung, the muzzle barely reaches the middle of my thigh, making the SR2 a dream for woodland stalking. I’m currently using a broad neoprene sling from Niggeloh/Spartan because that 26” barrel, laminate stock, solid action, chunky intermount, moderator, bipod, scope, and mounts have the outwardly dinky SR2 hitting the scales at 11 lbs (5 kg).
This is partly why I opted for a classic, 1”, 6x42 Meopta scope, but I also found that I lost my cheek weld if I raised the sightline by stepping up to a fatter tube or larger objective. Pfeifer’s optional adjustable cheekpiece would solve this issue, but so would a lower intermount/rail stack, so I predict a degree of modification in my SR2’s future. If buying new, you can specify a rail configured for classic, Blaser, Innomount, or Dentler mounts.
Meanwhile, if you like the SR2 format but want to field a smaller cartridge in a lighter (and even shorter) package, Pfiefer also offers an SR3 model with an alloy action, a 24” (600mm)/14mm OD barrel, proposed chamberings of 22 Hornet, .222 Rem, .223 Rem, 5.6x50, and 6x70R, and an advertised weight of 5 lbs 8 oz (2.5 kg).

Performance
In the field, I’ve been delighted with the SR2’s performance with both conventional and copper bullets. I quickly found successful loads with 70-grain Sierra Blitzkings, 80-grain Hornady CX, 85-grain Barnes TSX, and 90-grain Lapua Naturalis, with the Naturalis and Blitzkings being the best performers so far, if only by a whisker. I’m not Prof. Potts, so won’t give you group sizes to two decimal places but suffice it to say that the SR2 is among my most accurate rifles and that the targets passed on to me by its previous owner show some spectacular groups that I have every expectation of matching as my load development progresses.
In conclusion, I count myself very lucky to have picked up an SR2 in a calibre as useful as .243 and am duly grateful to its former owner for taking such good care of it, as well as to all the sources named in this review for the part that they’ve played in bringing such an interesting and accurate rifle into my hands.