Where is MilSurp going?

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Military Surplus guns seem to have a predictable cycle: guns flood the market at cheap prices, then guns dry up and prices double (triple, or more). Seems like a reasonably easy investment timing cycle.

Right now I've noticed that SKS rifles are starting to dry up and it is hard to find a good one under $200. How high will it go? I think the SKS will go quite a bit higher for two reasons: 1) common caliber, and 2) autoloader.

Early on in the history of MilSurp it was bolt-action guns, now we are winding up the autoloader phase (in rifles and pistols)... what is next? Vietnam era M16s arsenal downgraded to semi-auto?

The cheapest thing going in MilSurp right now seems to be the Mosin Nagant, but I don't see it having big investment potential because it: 1) is not a common caliber, and 2) is not an autoloader.

If I was going to pick a couple guns that have great investment potential I would say it is the SKS and CZ-52. The SKS might be hard to find under $300 by the end of this year. The CZ-52 is getting a little harder to find, and should follow shortly after the SKS.

What do you guys (and gals) think? Where is MilSurp going from here?
 
Under the auspices of the '34 NFA the Treasury Dept. has ruled "once a machinegun, always a machinegun" no matter how permanent the alteration to semi-auto is. Even if the MG registry hadn't been closed in 1986, the '68 GCA banned importation of any further military surplus full-auto weapons.

Among other PC-related reasons, this is why we'll never see surplus M-14's, even though the majority have had the full-auto mounting spots arsenal ground off the insides of their receivers when the U.S. military decided it was unusable in full-auto, and they are functionally identical to the civilian produced clones.

Once the supply of bolt-action and semi-auto only rifles dries up, there will not be any more milsurp. It's possible that regions of the world could produce low-cost look-alikes of suitable quality that would be prohibitively expensive to manufacture here in the U.S., but that is assuming importation will be allowed.

However, the world supply of mothballed bolt-actions and even some semi-autos hasn't been exhausted. There are still likely millions stored in the former Comblock nations, South America, Asia, and the Middle East. It will just take buyers to find them, and governments willing to sell them. So milsurp will dry up eventualy, but we have a few years, perhaps decades before it happens.
 
Are there certain rifles/pistols out there in cosmoline that haven't yet been introduced to the US MilSurp market? Are you anticipating the arrival of any "new" MilSurp guns?
 
Most milsurp stuff that makes it's way to the civilian/private market in the future will probably be in the form of parts kits from guns that have had their receivers destroyed. Expect to see a lot of small manufacturers producing semi-auto receivers and fire-control parts for demiled full-auto guns.
 
IMO, within a decade the milsurp market will be much more boring. The stocks of new firearm types are becoming exhausted (we won't see many new long guns introduced). I think that whatever is now out there is what there will be, albeit at higher prices, for quite some time to come. I think the glory days of milsurps came and went before I ever got into them, and I'll end up telling future generations about the heyday when I was able to get a SKS for under $200 or a K31 for under $100. We may see new pistols, but that's about it (and those aren't likely to be too plentiful).

But then again, Russia seems to have inexhaustible supplies of Mosins, so we might well be seeing those at relatively low prices for generations to come. But like JesseL said, while we'll see parts kits come in, the days of importation of the full milsurp firearms are coming to an end.
 
I thought the ATF recently reinterpreted some import law to also cover "parts kits" so that you can't just assemble a gun on a US-made reciever with an imported parts kit, if the whole gun itself would be import-banned. That rules out pretty much all semiauto military surplus imports, of any type.

Once the SKSs and the bolt action milsurps are gone, I expect there to be no more cheap rifles, at all. Expect to see fewer new people get into shooting because it will be so expensive to start out.
 
So the well is drying up.

What are you going to stock up on? I've already said I'm looking at SKS and CZ-52. Anything else that might be a good investment?
 
I would definitely pick up a couple SKS's - who carries those nowadays?

CZ-52's seem to be running low, and I'll definitely buy a couple if I see them for a reasonable price. Cheap Makarovs are gone, and I kick myself for not buying another for $150 when I could.
 
<SLV> said:
So the well is drying up.

What are you going to stock up on? I've already said I'm looking at SKS and CZ-52. Anything else that might be a good investment?
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Buy a CZ-52 and lots of ammo pronto. I have one, and I now shoot it more than any other gun. I find it to be much more accurate than people indicate. I am sure you are aware of the skyrocketing mil-surp ammo prices and dwindling supply. I learned my lesson well and stacked the 7.62x25 deep. J&C Sales is still selling Romanain for $109.95/1224 tin. AIM recently increased their price from $109.95 to $119.95. Do not buy Bulgarian mil-surp. I bought 4k from Century. ~10% of rounds will not chamber in either of my barrels.
 
I've got a couple CZ-52s (park'd '53 and blued arsenal '54). I don't have any SKS rifles, though. I think the SKS will run out first based on what I'm seeing in the market.

I'm thinking about picking up 30 or 40 CZ-52s as an investment, not just "one".
 
Pistols are going to be the next big thing in Mil-surplus. Probably Glocks from European police forces or something like that.
 
Are there certain rifles/pistols out there in cosmoline that haven't yet been introduced to the US MilSurp market? Are you anticipating the arrival of any "new" MilSurp guns?
Click to expand...

Well, milsurp is good now because of free trade, new NATO members, and the fall of (some) Communism. That will dry up in a few years and that will be that. If countires like N. Korea and Cuba ever loosen up and we are willing to trade with them, I see a potential flood of N. Korean/Cuban milsurp hitting the market in the future. That could be a long wait though.
 
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There's also flare guns:what:

There is also pellet guns- I've seen Czech, Romanian and Polish surplus air guns on the market.

.22 training rifles- Those tend to not be F/A.

Small lots of whatever happens to turn up in some warehouse somewhere that's like what's common right now
 
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