Me? I'd have taken that fellow up on his offer immediately. And I'm not into Russian.
The same has been said (those things are junk!) about just about every foreign Military import that has ever come in.
Simple to maintain and if kept clean, they function as intended.
As you might know, Russian surplus ammo has quite a bit of muzzle flash and is rather loud. Reloading helps to eliminate this if your chamber is decent.
First one I ever shot had been brought Stateside in the early 70's by a guy in Government service.
Bore was toast and the chamber was pretty badly pitted (what it did to the reloadable cases was a crime! - picture what Rosie O'Donnell's thighs look like -), but it functioned fine.
Accuracy was minute of hillside.
Last one I saw was two years ago with an acquaintance helping a widow price her late husband's guns. Her gun knowledge consisted of she knew pistol from rifle.
This was one of the 90s imports and it was a nice one with the cleanest bore and gas system I'd ever looked at.
Could have got it (and quite a few others) for 100 each, as neither of them knew anything about Militaries, but I'm not built that way.
Helped her sell the SVT quick for 700 to a friend of mine as my reward for helping and steered her to an honest broker to move the rest after giving her realistic pricing info.
The rifle my friend got is a really accurate shooter and more comfortable to shoot than a G43.
Can't help but think a few 38s came in with all those SVT 40s. Finding one of those might make me re-think collecting Russian.
JT