Rifles from South Korea

[smirnoff a]

Just thought this might be of interest:

I just heard on BBC radio that South Korea plans to boost its defence budget by selling 100,000 rifles used duing Korean war to weapon enthusiasts in the United States. These guns were originally sent to them as a war aid.

 

[bobotech]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090923/wl_asia_afp/skoreausmilitaryrifles_20090923074116

 

[Trebor]

I don't hold out much hope that the rifles will be in anything near good condition. The last batch of Korean imports from the 80's by Blue Sky Imports were pretty rough overall.

Still, more rifles is good, and a few good ones might be mixed in with the worn out and beat up rifles that I'm sure will make up most of the shipment. When you are still patrolling a DMZ during a 50 year truce you do tend to run your equipment hard.

 

[GunTech]

If they're cheap enough, could be a good base for a rebuild. It will be interesting to see what they cost versus DCM guns.

 

[barneyrw]

$108 million dollars, that computes to about $1000 each for 100,000 rifles.

 

[Schleprok62]

+1 on price... would be nice to get an M1 Carbine...

 

[GunTech]

It's 108,000 rifles, so that's exactly $1000 each. Of course that's 'valued at' not sell for. If they think they're going to sell beat up M1 Garands and M1 carbines at $1000 each, someone has been smoking crack.

Here's CMP's prices for Garands with description"

http://www.thecmp.org/m1garand.htm

Carbines here"

http://www.thecmp.org/m1carbine.htm

 

[Jim Watson]

They will have to use the down payment to buy some politicians to get permission to reimport military weapons into the USA. I think the ones the CMP sells were in Greece and Denmark "on loan" and not sold or otherwise transferred to foreigners.

 

[cleardiddion]

I have a few friends in the South Korean military.
The frontline stuff's a whole different story but the reserves still are issued, from what they tell me, mostly carbines.
By reserves, more specifically the military police reserves.

From talking to some of my friends and seeing some pictures it looks as though the carbines that they were using were in pretty good shape. Shot something like once or twice a year and mostly just stored away unless on the occasional excercise.

 

[j-easy]

regardless of condition, more working guns coming in = a good thing imo

 

[mp510]

"The US government recently approved our plan to sell old M1 and carbine rifles, which were given to our soldiers as part of a US aid programme," a ministry spokesman told AFP.

IIRC, this means that the CMP turned down the rifles.

If they're cheap enough, could be a good base for a rebuild. It will be interesting to see what they cost versus DCM guns.

If they end up pricing simiilarly to how the mid-east turn-ins that were on the market recently, they will end up costing well more (50%+ more) than CMP guns.

 

[Maverick223]

If they end up pricing simiilarly to how the mid-east turn-ins that were on the market recently, they will end up costing well more (50%+ more) than CMP guns.

Good luck with that...but more guns=good.

 

[jnyork]

So, what will 108,000 rifles of that type flooding in do to the US market and the value of that type of rifle?

 

[Maverick223]

I don't believe CMP prices are going anywhere if that's what you mean...just means more supply and less demand...prices should drop if anything at all.