Cheap surplus guns - a thing of the past?

[monotonous_iterancy]

I've read about the days when M1 carbines, Mausers, Enfields, Garands and things like that were relatively cheap. I've also read about how just 15 or 20 years ago you could buy a new out-of-the-box quality SKS for like $70. And Mosins were even cheaper. These days though, SKS's will run about $350 in the same condition, and even mosins are edging up in price, and from what I can see, they're pretty much the last cheap surplus rifles.

Are those days about over? As a young and fairly new hobbyist, that sounds like a dream to me, and I feel like I'm living around the time of the last wave of it.

Could there still be any of those over looked guns that have a value far beyond their price tag?

 

[m1dbob1944]

Be patient. As more Cetme rifles and other guns loose their favor, there will be more on the market. Remember it is supply and demand. If Obama is voted out, hopefully, there will be more imports of old surplus rifles. Remember, the Obama admistration banned a container ship from Korea loaded with surplus M1's .45's and other goodies. Vote and hang in there.

 

[oneounceload]

Try taking those numbers from yesteryear and running them through an inflation calculator - you'd be surprised just how cheap guns are today

BTW - 20 years ago I could buy all the Steyr AUGS I could want for $450 - including the LH conversions; now they're over 2500 - so what? That was then, this is now

Keep everything relative and you'll see that today's prices are ASTRONOMICALLY cheaper than guns from yesteryear

 

[mnrivrat]

The stockpile of old surplus arms around the world is likely still significant. The future issues will be whether your government will allow them to be imported .

The cheap SKS rifles, AK-47 type rifles along with ammo for them , and sub $100 Broomhandle Mausers were all choked off by the Clinton administration. A stroke of the pen and your present becomes the good old days of the future.

 

[Naybor]

Guns Magazine has their 1960 issues digitized and placed on the net.

Here is the January 1960 issue:

http://www.gunsmagazine.com/1960issues/G0160.pdf

I do like to go back and dream, don't you?

 

[mr.trooper]

Wha?

Enfields, Mausers, Carcanos, and MAS rifles can still be had in the $2xx range in good shape. Sure, the days of $75 SKS are gone, but there are still a lot of awesome milsurp bargains. The difference is dealers arent shoving them in your face.

Just got a pristine Gibbs Rifle Co Enfield carbine for $200 flat at a gun show 3 days ago. Got A Turk Mauser for $150 on the haggle rack at a local shop a few months ago.

Steyr M95s and Russian Mosins are still $100. Chinese mosins can be had for under that.

You just need to LOOK for the deals.

 

[barnbwt]

There still are (and will be) cheap surplus guns, but it will be because of lack of market demand as opposed to infinite supply. Case in point: I just picked up a Steyr M95 carbine for ~100$. Straight pull bolt action similar to a modern day Blaser, and infinitely better build quality than a (more expensive) Mosin. However, the 8x56R ammo they eat is very odd, and only made by a handful of folks now, so they sit on racks gathering dust. I don't think it will be as easy as "Cheap Gun + Cheap Ammo = Duh" ever again.

I also think importers will be wiser in the future and not dump huge boatloads of surplus at the same time, so they can milk their investment more prudently. I'm thinking of that dude who bought up all the unsold Mateba Auto-revolvers in the mid 2000's for like 700$ a gun, and sells them every couple months at +3000$ now. This is especially likely since there are fewer and fewer stockpiles of guns left around, and they know it.

But who knows; maybe Soviet guns are like oil. We keep thinking we're at the Peak, but then fracking or whatever gets invented and all bets are off again. Here's to some Rusky uncovering the warehouse where they kept the other half of the Mosins ,SVTs, AKs, and PPSHs

TCB

Steyr M95s and Russian Mosins are still $100.

^^whoa, cheap minds must think alike

PS: War guns from silver-medallist countries will always go for cheap (Germany excluded, of course). M95s, Carcanos, MAS, Hakims, K31s and numerous other "unworthy" rifles often get passed up by the Red-Blooded American for some ratty Garand, just because they didn't "win the war" . The French guns get the worst of it ("only dropped once, heh heh"), despite being fantastic arms in their own right (from a country that did fight valiantly)

 

[USAF_Vet]

Between then and now, legislation was passed that made guns harder to sell. If I could still walk into the mom and pop hardware store in town and pick a Mauser or Enfield out if an oak barrel like my dad and grandpa could, I think prices would be be a little lower than they are today. But since buying and selling guns has become more regulated, there is a cost associated with those regulations, and we the buyer bear the brunt of those costs.

Remember that on Tuesday, we have the honor and privilege of paying the government to infringe in our right to keep and bear arms.

 

[rondog]

Back in the 60's when you could get a surplus Colt M1911A1 from the DCM for $17.50, that was actually quite a bit of money back then. Don't sound like much now.

 

[Clark]

I own ~ 100 Mausers.

I got my first in 1965.

The prices for Mausers in American Rifleman in 1965 were not as good at Shotgun News in 2000.

I calculate that most guns and guitars appreciated at 3% compounded over the last 10 years, 20 years, 40 years, and 80 years.

There are exceptions:
The Colt SAA did better.
The Mosberg bolt actions did worse.

Meanwhile someone I know put $6k into Microsoft stock and by 2000 it was worth $2M.

I am not in the gun biz.
If there were a gun show every day like there is once a month, I could have made far more just buying and selling like a day trader at gun shows, than I have in the many ways I have sold my work as an engineer.

But I keep telling myself I am not in the gun biz.
One of my rules is to never buy a gun because it is such a good deal.
Only buy guns I really wanted.
I break my own rules sometimes.
Every $20 brake action shotgun seems to follow me home and get converted into a rifle.

 

[hso]

Are those days about over?

Yep, that boat sailed a few years ago.

 

[mbt2001]

Actually if you adjust for inflation and so forth guns are cheaper now than ever. Take gun prices in the 1950s and compare them to today then take the price of a car / house / gas / or a movie ticket. Guns have done really well.

 

[CZguy]

You are absolutely correct.

I bought my first Mauser out of a barrel for $25.00. What everyone missed is how hard I had to work making 80 cents an hour to buy it.

 

[bhhacker]

Im just sad that there are no gun shows where i live. Sometimes I miss Texas

 

[Paul7]

Guns Magazine has their 1960 issues digitized and placed on the net.

Here is the January 1960 issue:

http://www.gunsmagazine.com/1960issues/G0160.pdf

I do like to go back and dream, don't you?

Did you see the article on how to bubba an Enfield 30.06 into a 'sporter'?

 

[Owen Sparks]

The days of military surplus rifles is about over. All modern militaries issue select fire rifles that are forbidden to commoners.

 

[TAKtical]

Never thought I'd start seeing mosins going for $250+

 

[fanchisimo]

I took some of the amounts in this thread, and ran them through 3 different inflation calculators, but the numbers for current day don't match up. Not even close. It seems like even with the added regulations, the prices are a lot higher even with adjusted inflation so inflation doesn't seem to be the issue. Is the demand really that much higher now? I understand the Anti-2A president but sheesh.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
$70(1992) - $110.51(2011) $450(1992) - $710.45(2011) $17.50(1960) - $131.06(2011)

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
$70(1992) - $115.46(2012) $450(1992) - $742.22(2012) $17.50 (1960) - $136.81(2012)

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
$70(1992) - $115.46(2012) $450(1992) - $742.22(2012) $17.50(1960) - $136.81(2012)

 

[captain awesome]

I hope that's not it. Haven't had the chance to take advantage of it enough.

 

[swiftak]

Notice how many articles there was compared to ads.

 

[mgkdrgn]

Back in the 60's when you could get a surplus Colt M1911A1 from the DCM for $17.50, that was actually quite a bit of money back then. Don't sound like much now.

Lets see ... back in 1960 my dad had a pretty good job with the Soil Conservation service ... and made $5300 .... A YEAR.

 

[Sav .250]

Supply and demand..........

 

[evan price]

Bear in mind that 50 years ago pretty much every military modernized to automatic weapons and away from bolt action rifles. With the ATF "Sporting Purposes" rule in effect and "Once a machine gun always a machine gun" there is about zero chance of them being imported except as torch-cut demilled parts kits. All the old Mausers and Enfields and ETC. are pretty much out of the system. You want C&R nowadays there's pretty much only Mosin Nagants left. The Soviets have warehouses full of them still, heck, they still have WWI horse drawn artillery cached.

Oh, there still may be the odd depot or training brigade with a closet full of antiques, and they will still dribble in once in a while. But the days of dumpsters full of Mausers and Carcanos and Enfields are not coming back.

As to pistols- most of the rest of the world considers handguns to be a privelage of the military, police and elites only and they destroy them rather than sell them. Even Australia recently melted down their snub-nosed Smith & Wesson "K" frame revolvers rather than trade them in when they modernized the police and detectives.

 

[valnar]

No matter what I think of my surplus guns, I won't sell them now, even if I run out of surplus ammo. It's too bad the next generation won't be able to get them.

 

[Gun Master]

SKS price today & "yesterday"

In 1989 I bought a new Norinco SKS in the box at a gun show for $ 167. I had not been fooling with guns for a few years, and was suprised to see a new "high powered" military semi auto rifle for less than $200. Now an old "beat up" yougo SKS sells for almost $300. The "good old days" keep changing.